Report from Japan IT Week trade show
In mid-May of 2014, in Japan the international trade show was held. Japan IT Week was attended by representatives of Black Pearls and Quantum Lab. Thanks to support of Polish government a group of entrepreneurs got a chance to present their innovative products and promote Polish ICT sector in Japan.
This year’s event was organized again in the exhibition hall named Tokyo Big Sight (Tokyo, Japan). On 16th of May 2014 a Polish Stand in the exhibition was visited by Polish Ambassador in Tokyo, Mr Cyril Kozaczewski, who conducted individual interviews with each of the companies.
Japan IT Week is Japan’s largest trade show where are presented any kinds of latest IT technologies and solutions. Trade show is a place where a great number of management executives, system integrators, information systems and sales managers from IT branch meet and conduct business face to face with exhibitors.
The trade show was split into 11 independent exhibitions, ranging from software, embedded systems, big data, M2M, cloud computing to security solutions. This event gathered 1365 exhibitors from 17 countries and 82874 professional visitors. Regarding to last year there was noted 25% increase in overall international exhibitor numbers.
Representatives of Black Pearls investment fund, Marcin Kowalik (Manging Partner) and Jaroslaw Pilarczyk (Investment Manager), accompanied Bartosz Rychlicki, CEO in Quantum Lab company (Black Pearls’ investment), in presentation of company’s new products like Mobile Focus Groups and Xpress App. – It was a good experience to meet with representatives of Japanese companies and potential costumers. We have learnt that there is a need to take with you a native speaker because of communication problems. Also Japan’s industrialization and automatization make it problematic to sell there an innovative product. – says Marcin.
Bartosz Rychlicki shared some tips & hints from his perspective for entrepreneurs from Europe who want to visit Japan:
- Japanese don’t speak English. I was surprised by that. They often know what are you saying but they are not very fond to speak in English. Probably because of their really funny accent.
- If you are an exhibitor on fairs you will need materials in Japan. English one will not do at all. You should also probably invest in two or three young ladies that will handout info materials. This is very common in Japan trade-shows.
- Japan is not so expensive as many people think. Prices are comparable to those in Poland. You can eat (in food-chain) for around 10$, restaurant will cost around 30$. Japanese food is way cheaper than European so I would suggest sticking to local.
- Save yourself some troubles and buy upon arrival a Suica card. It’s a easy to use prepaid card for communication, work’s everywhere. You will spent around $5-$7 on metro daily.
- Don’t talk in metro, people sleep there.
Overall Bartosz considers Tokyo as a great city to visit and stay for at leat week or more. He says that next visit in Japan will happen for sure in nearest time.
