HIDAJournal 2013 AUTUMN No.3

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No.3 AUTUMN 2013 11of training, our company staff in Japan are able to work with their Chinese partners in the same office and deepen their friendships through dinner parties on holidays. Such experience stimulates the motivation of Japanese employees as well.Is there anything else that you expect from this training program?Our employees in China need to acquire the ability to conduct business with both Chinese and Japanese customers. In business operations with Japanese customers, service attitudes and manners are often as important as prices and product quality. Kanezen conducts transactions mainly with Japanese companies. Therefore, it is necessary for our employees to acquire such attitudes and manners.Japanese employees are accustomed to getting turned away at a company they visit for sale for the first time. However, Chinese employees tend to feel insulted in such a situation. An example like this reminds us of the difference in ways of thinking between the two cultures. We expect our Chinese personnel to understand both Japanese and Chinese sense of business.More specifically, in addition to deepening their knowledge of Kanezen’s products, we plan to train our office personnel to learn about customer and product management and our sales personnel to learn about proposal-based sales activities, which represent an approach characteristic of our company.What are proposal-based sales activities?Kanezen sells raw food materials and processed food products (primary or secondary processed products) to food manufacturers. When selling such products, we sometimes make proposals for the development of new products using raw food materials in which we deal. For example, when selling raw material A to a customer, we propose the development of product C, which is manufactured by adding A to the customer’s product B.When making such proposals, we try to identify our customers’ needs through dialogue and obtain information on their new products to develop product ideas by combining different elements. We gather information and make proposals, taking into consideration when manufacturers will develop new products (e.g., around December of the previous year for summer products).What is important is how to identify the needs that customers themselves are unaware of. The essential point is to uncover their potential needs rather than to provide what they are seeking for.It is very difficult and takes time to gain access to a market where there are already transactions and established rules. In the food industry, long-standing relationships tend to be more important than in other industries; in our industry, companies are extremely cautious about doing business with new partners. There are cases where it took us six years from our first sales visit to obtain an order. Meanwhile, there are also customers who choose suppliers that can provide new information and value. That’s where our sales style becomes important.It seems very difficult to acquire sales skills.It is never easy to acquire sales skills. There are no fixed rules about how to make proposals, which varies depending on the nature of products as well as the timing of proposals. Since sales personnel vary in their sales styles and approaches, there is no easy way to create a standard manual. There have been attempts to create a sales skills manual, but such attempts have never been successful. Nevertheless, as part of our efforts to develop a manual for what can be standardized, we have developed a grooming checklist and some other materials.Many of our sales staff members seem to be under the impression that sales is ultimately a matter of sense. Although we can increase the amount of knowledge and information through experience, how to make effective use of such knowledge and information varies from one salesperson to another. Each employee must establish his or her own sales style while absorbing knowledge and information from other employees. To that end, we strive to develop manuals on fundamental sales skills for our sales staff.I understand that you are making various efforts to help your employees acquire sales skills. Finally, please tell us about your future prospects.Our subsidiary in Hong Kong is developing a wide range of business activities, including selling black beans to Japanese food manufacturers and conducting transactions with local supermarkets. Our ultimate goal is to develop a business model for selling in China what is produced in China, as we are doing in Japan. Our subsidiary in Shanghai will hopefully serve as a contact point for exporting raw materials to Japan in the future.It is not known whether and to what extent Japanese sales attitudes and services are necessary for our business development in China. However, considering that the quality of Japanese made products is well recognized in China and Japanese food ingredients are sold at high-end food stores at prices several times as high as the prices of local products, there seems to be a possibility that the quality of Japanese services will be properly recognized in China in the future.To achieve our goals, the four trainees that came over to Japan for training need to take what they have learned through the training back to China and use this opportunity to think about what they can do in China. We hope that our services will make Chinese customers feel comfortable and understand the difference with other companies.Thank you very much for your time for this interview.From right: Mr. Yamato (General Manager of Kanezen (Shanghai)), and trainees from China, Mr. Lam (Hong Kong), Ms. Li, Ms. Cui and Ms. Hua (Shanghai)

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