Inside Japanese Procurement

This is the English section of a Japanese-language site. The menus above and below this page are in Japanese. Everything inside this section is in English.

Costs, contracts and leverage. Not etiquette.

If it feels unreasonable, you are not imagining it.

A cost breakdown demanded for a part you have supplied for years. A price reduction expected every year, with no reason given. A decision that took months and came back changed by someone you never met. A quality claim that arrives as a form with eight sections and a deadline.

None of that is you failing to understand Japan. It is a system doing what it was built to do. Once you can see the shape of it, you can work it.

What you will find here

Every piece follows the same three steps. First, the thing you are dealing with is real and it has a shape. Second, this is why it is built that way. Third, this is what you can do with it.

The subjects are money and contracts. Cost breakdowns. Annual reduction targets. Tooling and who owns it. Quality claims. Change approvals. Payment terms. Who actually decides, and when.

What you will not find here

This is not about bowing, business cards or where to sit in the room. There is a lot of good material on that already, and none of it helps you when a buyer asks you to open your cost structure.

I am also not going to tell you that Japan is misunderstood and you should be patient. Patience is not a strategy. You came here with a problem that has a number attached to it.

Who this is for

You buy, outside Japan You work in purchasing at a Japanese company, at a site outside Japan. The rules come from a head office you rarely see.

You buy, inside Japan You are not Japanese and you work in purchasing at a company in Japan. You are inside the system and still outside the room.

You sell You supply a Japanese company. Their process decides what you get paid and when.

The three of you are looking at the same machine from different sides. Most of what I write is useful to all three, so I am not going to pick one and write only for them.

Who writes this

I am Procuria. I have spent more than twenty years buying for a large Japanese electronics manufacturer, and I am still doing it. Machined parts, metal and resin components, raw materials, assemblies, systems. I have been posted overseas. I am also a certified Chusho Kigyo Shindanshi, which is Japan’s national qualification for management consultants.

I write under a pen name because I still hold the job. That is also why this is worth your time. I am not describing a system I read about. I am describing one I operate.

How I mark what I know

Some of what I write is documented, and I will point you at the source. Some of it is what I have watched happen from the inside for twenty years, and no document says it out loud. Those are different kinds of claim, so I label them differently.

Documented means there is a public source and I will name it.

From the inside means this is what I have seen. Take it as testimony, not as proof.

And when I do not know, I will say so. There is a lot about this that is not written down anywhere. Filling that gap with a confident guess would make this worth less than nothing to you.

Pieces

If you sell to a Japanese company Why your Japanese customer asks for a cost breakdown Target costing runs backwards, so the price was decided before you quoted. What to ask back, and when you will get an answer.

Get these by email

New pieces go out by email. It is free, and you can leave whenever you want.

The welcome email has four short questions. Whether you buy for a Japanese company or sell to one, where you are, and what you want help with. It takes a minute, you do not need an account to answer, and it decides what I write next.

The rest of this site is in Japanese, written for buyers working in Japan. Go to the Japanese home page.