How Global Strategies Are Shaping Japan’s B2B Market with Marcus Hiles
August 29, 2024
Earlier this year we opened an office in the world's third-largest economy - Japan.
This month our SVP of Strategy, Marcus Hiles, touched down in Tokyo to appear at an event for Japan's leading B2B companies. We chatted with Marcus about what he learned.
Tell us about the event in Tokyo.
Marcus: I recently came back from Japan where we worked with our partner, Symphony Marketing, on an annual event called IGC Harmonics.
We were there to help Japanese B2B organizations understand international marketing techniques. I led a session on growing internationally, covering topics like identifying the ideal customer profile, market sizing, campaign planning, setting smart objectives, and establishing measurement frameworks.
So really how to run an end-to-end program when going into a new market and what to look out for.
What were the big challenges faced by Japanese enterprise tech organizations?
Marcus: The main challenge for attendees was around data. Japan lacks sophisticated targeting platforms like intent and ABM platforms which are common internationally. The media landscape is quite different, and Japan is considered 20 years behind in terms of Martech frameworks.
One of the speakers held up a martech chart with all the thousands of different tools that are brought to market every year. And when you looked at how many of those platforms were available in Japan, there’s only a handful – I think around six or eight.
So it’s still a very early market with lots of potential to help organizations grow and understand how to use some of the more sophisticated techniques.
What strategies could a company use to break into the Japanese market? Share some of your wisdom.
Marcus: Companies should focus on market sizing and data-driven strategies. The event covered topics like RevOps and ABM, emphasizing the importance of alignment within an organization and sophisticated targeting.
The typical tenure in Japan is actually quite long, many people sit in roles for around 12 years. You compare that to the UK where it’s say four years, and at the sales function in the US, it’s even lower than that. When you factor in onboarding and training, you’ve only really got a short period where that professional is working at top performance and then they’ll leave.
In Japan, however there’s a huge opportunity for building long-term relationships from an ABM standpoint with such a long tenure compared to other markets.
Have you ever been to Japan before? What did you love about it?
Marcus: This was my first trip to Japan. I think I’ll go again, it was really nice. An early morning walk around Tokyo was a highlight of my visit. I was impressed by how clean it was and how friendly the people were. The language barrier was a challenge, but I found using ChatGPT as a translator really helpful.
For some reason, I expected in my head that the numbers would be symbols, and so I kind of expected pricing to be in symbols. That was completely wrong! But overall, the cultural experience was fascinating and enriching.
Want to know more? Connect with Marcus.
Marcus Hiles
SVP, Strategy
Want to work with us? Connect with Blair.
Blair Naylor
SVP, Global Client Partner
Marcus has more than 15 years of experience, specializing in the B2B tech sector. He supports clients through insight-driven strategic frameworks, that galvanize and move decision-making units through the buyer journey, to drive growth and raise customer lifetime value.
This experience covers some of the world’s leading tech brands, including: Tata Consultancy Services, Oracle, Splunk, VMware, Toshiba, Adobe, PayPal, Intel, Motorola Solutions and many more.
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