Summary of knowledge gained through Be to Be business

This is my 10th week of the internship and I am amazed how fast the time has

 been passing by. Today, I want to talk about what I have learned through be to 

be business especially in the relation to Japanese market. Firstly, market barriers 

are discussed and then suggestions are shown. 

Firstly, baby bottles and nipples are dominated by a big company in Japan,  

so it was tough to find distributors who can manage this condition enough  

to become successful. 

Culture and language barrier also need to consider. My mentor told me that

 he contacted to China before in English, but he got no response. This might

be because of language barriers as I also experienced that English was not 

understood in Chinatown in the US. Being able to communicate with their first 

language can give a tremendous benefit and advantage when entering new

market. Since many Japanese do not speak English as it might have been the

case of China, it is important to have products and packages described in 

Japanese so that consumers can read our products and know the benefits 

of using the products. One of the CEOs from Japanese companies who 

have been working with baby products told me that the expectations from 

Japanese consumers towards products qualities are very high. Therefore, 

precise and clear descriptions of products are vital. Also, even the company

 who got interested in working with us consider this language issues and saw

 it as “undeveloped products” to adapt Japanese market. As a result,  after the 

discussions, the responsible person introduced me another responsible person 

from different department. This all takes time and cause to delay business 

development and possibly miss the business opportunities. 

Lastly, when entering new market as being unknown brand, it is  

important to have reliable sources including established homepage.  

The CEO mentioned above told me the importance of “storytelling”  

of the company and products because of his success stories handling 

Canadian brand which became “hit” in Japan. Also, when I called  

Japanese companies to tell our products, many of them looked at  

our homepage right away. However, homepage and Instagram  

account are all in English, some of them could not gain the 

information that they wanted which could reduce the speed of 

new business business opportunities. 

Considering all of above, I think the company should develop their

homepage with more languages available, more precise, clear and 

easy to understand products descriptions and interesting and

likeable story telling. Since, it is a small yet fast growing company, 

we have always so much to do and to develop but I am really 

enjoying this atmosphere and look forward even more growth!