iCultural - Diversity and Intercultural Management

We empower your business with diversity management under the free-fall population Japan. We are in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Dalian, Shanghai etc., accepting Japanese, English, Chinese Mandarin (Putonghua), and Cantonese. 我们以多元化形式增加贵司力量，可接受日英汉粤语咨询。

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Japan’s Jetro could support your trade secret protection in China. This is a service for Japanese subsidiaries in China.

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A points-based system to allow you to receive a green card is now available in Japan. The Japanese government offers a lot of easing policies for those skilled professionals. You can also refer to a government official site for the policies.

http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/system/index.html

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"Tele-Work(Remote Working in Japanized English)" by Japanese government only targets Olympic games 2020

Japanese government strongly advocates nationals need remote-work to avoid their concentration in the capital area. But according to the articles by them, the points are just to avoid the concentration only to the people living in the capital area and only for the Olympic games in 2020. This is to improve the impressions of the visitors to the games indeed, but I don’t think nothing can be contributed to QOL as a whole nation.

If you need to improve QOL to all national, then they can directly hire people in a remote town far from the central capital and ask them to work remotely.

The current policy only results in an expansion of the capital area as they are working remotely near the city centre but they still stay as the citizens of the capital. Nothing can be resolved in a longer perspective.

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They welcome foreign companies to set up an office or factory.

Aichi Prefecture is going to deliver an introduction session to foreign companies which have the interest to have a subsidiary in Aichi. Aichi is an industrial base and you could set up a factory or an office easily and quickly. Should you have an inquiry or need some assistance to apply and attend, then we could help you. The venue is Hotel Granvia Osaka, the date & time is 4 - 6pm on 1st Aug. The admission is free.

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A white paper just issued by the SME Agency says more cooperation by outside parties should be necessary for business succession of SMEs in Japan

As much as 80% of companies to be closed down have owners over 60 years old, reported by the white paper. That means SMEs in Japan will be closed out because of their aging concerns and no in-house successors there. The paper calls for a help outside the enterprise which includes searching for a candidate to success the management as well. So-called “friendly M&A” would more and more be welcomed later.

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Finally, we got the announcement of the entrepreneurship subsidy by the Japanese government in 2017. Surprisingly we must succeed the business to the next generation (such as a son) in the subsidy plan for 2017. That means all of the entrepreneurs without any plan of the business succession are out of the scope!!!!! If you need details on this or need another choice to apply another subsidy in Japan, please let me know.

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We are now really facing a dramatic decline of working population throughout Japan, but how many Japanese nationals can imagine what would happen in the future. We either need more people to work in the market, or choose a small GDP society which we should get jobs and enough finance. The article mentions the connection between working population free-fall and GDP loss. 

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Public briefings are going to be held throughout Japan. You can apply via the link if you want to be a school owner by the authority.

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It’s official: Japan’s population is dramatically shrinking

And these charts show how bad it is.

You may not know this. But Japan’s population would be declining very fast from now on. We should change our business model in Japan to cope with such dramatic shrinking in the future. More precisely, we just have around half (54%) of working age population in 2060 to 2010 in the estimation. That would be much more important since they can buy things mainly. Should you have no idea to cope with that, then please let us know. We could help on that.

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Should not give an inappropriate message on foreign investment

An NHK short video describes what’s wrong with Japan Post’s investment to Toll group in Australia. They say JP had a wrong calculation of its amount of goodwill on buying Toll, that would be true. However, it is not acceptable that they make a conclusion as “foreign investment is such difficult.” This may hurt the sentiments of Japanese companies on foreign investment further. Actually, you could see many failure cases on buying Japanese local companies with wrong goodwill calculations such as an IT giant bought information curation companies recently so such wrong estimation could happen no matter what company of what country is. Also, they just mention qualitative aspects to calculate goodwill, however, we also should consider EBITDA which is a very quantitative element for M&A.

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IT introduction subsidy is now very hot in Japan. It suddenly came out in Feb this year and aiming at lifting the productivity of Japanese companies (SME.) An applicant of the subsidy is an SME which needs a software to boost their productivity on the front, middle or back office business.

The IT tools should be pre-registered by those providers or vendors, then the applicant will choose some of them. The amount you receive a support is up to JPY 1m as two-by-third of the whole expense.

The deadline is the end of June, but you should contact us now since you need to setup a plan for productivity improvements.

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A subsidy for small company sustainability is now on. Japan Chamber of Commerce hosts this and small company under Japanese law could apply. For instance, 5 full-time employees (including full-time workers under unofficial employment) or less for retail. The amount they could support is up to JPY 500K out of 750K business plan of promotion. The subsidy should be used for promotion activities such as building or empowering corporate website, printing fliers or developing a new product.

The deadline is the end of May, but you should contact us now for your application since it takes some time to make your business and subsidy plan.

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The government finally picked the agent to handle back office work for the entrepreneur (startup) subsidy. The application would start early May, will keep you posted.

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Aichi prefecture in Japan has newly been designated as National Strategic Special Area, which removing a burden on setting up a firm newly in Aichi prefecture by a foreigner. In principle, you have to settle the place of work as the newly setup company before you apply to the regional government, and need JPY 5m capital or two full-time workers to be employed.

In the new policies, you will have 6 moths moratorium to settle those things after your arrival to Japan, that means you can come to Japan first then look for a working space.

What you need is to ask the Aichi regional government for Entrepreneurship Activity Confirmation certification, and if approved, then you can enter Japan first.

But anyway finally in 6 months, you have to prepare all as you are required by a normal process.

Overall I would NOT think it is a helpful scheme since an entrepreneur only gets 6 months spare time to prepare all we are normally required, not an exemption. Secondly, it is not ideal for an entrepreneur to figure out business plan for obtaining the certification before he comes to Japan.

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中華在線: 実践中国語講座案内

人数：　マンツーマン～10人程度

時間：　1回2時間程度まで

場所：　中部圏内

対象：　中国・中華圏での業務があるビジネスパーソン等

能力：　おおむね中国語中級以上の能力（応相談）

講師：　中華圏での実務経験豊富な現役日本人ビジネスマン

費用：　ご相談（交通費別途）

なぜ中華在線なのか：

●基礎的な中国語の知識はあるのに、商談に役に立たない。

ネイティブ講師から学ぶのは、あくまでも生活上の基本会話。単語なども生活や大学などの内容が多く、ビジネスには物足りない。

●発音や四声の勉強から先へ進めない。

ネイティブ講師による指導は、たいてい発音や四声から始まる。しかし実際のビジネスの現場は常に進行中。私たちはそもそも、「ネイティブ」や「中国人」のように話せるようになることを目標においていない。意思疎通ができること、先方の考えが理解できることが最大の目標。

●弊社は貿易業ではないので、ビジネス中国語のテキストが役に立たない。

いわゆるビジネス中国語のクラスも、一般オフィスでの会話や貿易、接待の場などに偏っており、製造業やIT業、飲食業、建築事務所など、中華圏進出をしている多様な業態に対応できていない。

●中国の社会問題についても話し合いたいが、ネイティブ講師は対応できない。

受講生としてはそのような高度な会話はひとまず日本語で意見交換したいのが本音だが、ネイティブ講師のほとんどがそのような社会問題についてきちんとした見識を持ち合わせていない。中華圏でのビジネス経験豊富な日本人講師に学ぶことで、基本的な時事用語は中国語でもおさえつつ、最新の社会問題に関しては日本語でディスカッションも可能になる。

研修内容：

●発音や四声は誤解がないレベルを目標にする。私たちはネイティブにはならなくてもよいし、ネイティブもそれを望んでいない。

● 講師が実際に中国業務で使ってきた単語や表現をどんどん学んでいく。

●貿易業ではない業態にも対応できるよう、幅広いビジネス分野の話題を扱う（御社に合わせ調整可能）。

●実際の会話や放送の録音や動画を活用する。昨日起きたことを、今日語れるようにする。

●中華圏の最新事情や社会問題について、日本語でも議論する。

受講生自身が中国語で意見を述べている様子（動画）を中国在住のネイティブビジネスマンに見てもらい、中国語でテキストまたは動画でコメントをもらうことができる。（別途追加料金）

想定メリット：

●明日から使える実践的な会話力が身に着く。

●現地社員との意見交換が可能になる。

●現地顧客との簡単な交渉が可能になる。

お気軽にお問合せください。