Technology Transfer Webinar 11: Open Innovation and International Cooperation with Japanese Companies

How to build collaborations with Japanese Companies?

The practice of Open Innovation has been greatly developing during the past decade. Indeed, an increasing number of companies but also innovation hubs, labs, incubators and accelerators understood that value creation through collaboration is more effective than innovating alone within four walls; this became particularly true in this connected world where speed is key to success. Today, the ones who can create WIN-WIN partnerships take a serious option to gain a real competitive advantage.

There are numerous innovative ideas, inventions, discoveries and applications that already exist and are regularly created worldwide. Finding partners and technologies has become easier through innovation intermediates and platforms; however, one can wonder what the situation is when it comes to the execution of international collaborations between players of different countries, language, business practices and culture. This question makes even more sense when the potential partners are of a very different nature: the most common example being large corporations and fast moving start-ups.

Japan has an incredible record of technology based innovations, many being famous like High speed bullet trains (Shinkansen Series), automobile (hybrid engines), electronics (Walkman, video games), handheld devices (first color screen mobiles phones), bridges and tunnels, anti-seismic buildings, washlets, delivery services, efficient vending machines, and many others…

At the same time, Japanese companies from many industries have traditionally focused on their domestic market and have relied for long on proprietary innovation. In the past recent years, there has been a slight shift of openness both in terms of global operations but also on international cooperation. However, Japanese business practices and philosophies are quite unique and not easy to understand for occidental organizations. This webinar aims at explaining the differences and to give some keys on how to manage more efficiently collaborations with Japanese companies.

Registration deadline: 06/03/2017

What you will learn during this webinar?

In this webinar, we will cover the following:

• Japanese spirit of innovation / craftsmanship
• Decision making process, language, communication, time frame and responsibilities
• How to manage expectations
• Advice to facilitate European-Japanese collaborations

Programme:

• Introduction
• Speaker’s presentation
• Q&A Session
• Conclusion

Speaker:  Alexandre E. Nicolau, MSc, MBA is currently the Strategic Partnerships Officer of Suntory Global Innovation Center Ltd, a fully owned company of Suntory Holdings in Japan, known for their diversity of businesses such as spirits, beverages, food services and health supplements. He is also a mentor at the AcceleRise FoodTech Accelerator in France.
Moderator: Luca Escoffier, Project Manager, EU-Japan Technology Transfer Helpdesk
Organiser: EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation - Brussels Office