MD Sarah Parsons leads Innovate UK's pre-trade mission workshop for Semiconductors and Robotics companies going out to Japan.

Our MD Sarah Parsons has been involved in presenting at Innovate UK’s Global Business Innovation Programmes GBIP Japan pre-trade mission workshops for the last 3 years, previously for Circular Material and Manufacturing and Future Telecoms GBIPs and this time, she  presented at the Semiconductors GBIP and the Robotics & Automation GBIP workshop. The GBIP Japan programmes take innovative UK companies to Japan to meet with major players in their respective industries and attend industry specific conferences and events. The 1.5-day workshops offer a chance for the companies to practice their pitches, network and understand important aspects of Working with Japan. Sarah normally leads Day 2 at these workshops, covering the essentials of what companies need to know about working with Japan from a communications, business processes, collaboration-focussed and relationship-building perspective. Sarah brings in her academic experience of having worked at the UK’s leading Japan focussed universities as well as industry experience of working with many UK-Japan high level collaborations including board level consulting and training within Japan UK/EU JVs and M&As and of working with UK/SMEs wanting to enter the Japanese market. She also has trained many global employees within major Japanese MNEs.

Sarah with delegates on the Semiconductor GBIP and Innovate UK staff at their pre-trade mission workshop.

The UK is enjoying such an important relationship with Japan at the moment-Japan is the first country with which the UK is developing a joint Industrial Strategy Partnership, showing the importance of this relationship both from an economic and geopolitical perspective. There are many opportunities for UK companies/organisations to work successfully with Japan, but also many areas of business that differ and if not understood and managed, can lead to at best a less-than-optimal polite surface level relationship without the long-term trust needed and at worst, a failed reputation. Japan is the most long-term market in the world, which operates on a relationship-based level and due to its long and complex economic history and different cultural dimensions, has different ways of approaching important aspects of businesses such as B2B, , making decisions, building up relationships and approaching different corporate values and priorities. Sarah uses a unique and engaging way of explaining the context of Japan’s political economy, business environment and corporate values to then link in with the differences in key areas and how these manifest in reality alongside case studies and media stories so that people can not only understand Japan but understand how their personal and corporate cultural contexts may differ and what challenges may happen (including of course strategies on how to offset/overcome these). Sarah has also delivered similar briefings on behalf of the EU Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation and the European Institute for Innovation and Technology.