Selling into Japan
Move in September,
or wait until April
The proposal does not change by a single word.
The month you send it in decides whether it is funded this year, next year, or the one after.
Selling into Japan
The proposal does not change by a single word.
The month you send it in decides whether it is funded this year, next year, or the one after.
"They were positive. Six months later, nothing has happened." Most of the time the cause is neither enthusiasm nor price. It is when the proposal was sent.
Roughly seven in ten listed Japanese companies close their books in March. The year starts in April; the end of September closes the first half, and October begins the second.
The consequence is that budgets were set at the start of the year. Creating new expenditure mid-year means either moving money from an existing line or obtaining a special approval, and both are heavy. So "this looks good" followed by no movement usually means exactly one thing: there is nowhere in this year's budget to put the money.
This is the part that is hardest to see from outside. In most companies, the request for next year's budget — from the following April — is written during the autumn. Departments submit, the requests are reconciled, and the figures firm up between year end and the new year. Timing varies by company, but inserting a new line item after January is close to impossible.
Can plausibly appear as a line item in next year's request. Executable from April.
No money this year; past the deadline for next year. In practice, the year after next.
The same proposal, sent in two different months,
is six to eighteen months apart.
This is not a rude question; contacts are usually relieved by it. Deciding together whether to aim at the current year or next year's request treats the person as a collaborator rather than a target. Japanese contacts spend a significant part of their working life securing internal budget. A supplier who helps with that looks different from the others.
"Contact us for pricing" cannot be written into an internal request. An approximate annual figure and an initial figure are enough, and a range is fine. It does not have to be a formal quotation. The test is whether it can be transcribed.
The full deployment can wait for next year. A limited evaluation that fits inside what is left of this year's budget will sometimes pass, particularly if it falls within a department head's own discretion — one fewer step on the approval ladder.
And the evaluation result then becomes the precedent entry in next year's request. You end up using both clocks.
With municipalities and public agencies the clock does not bend at all. If a budget line was not established before the fiscal year began, the activity does not exist, however supportive the officer is. If you are aiming at a publicly funded pilot, the proposal goes in the autumn of the preceding year. Arriving in spring buys you a meeting and nothing else that year.
Do not force it. If it is January, saying plainly "we will spend this period preparing the material you need to put us in next year's request" is easier for the contact to work with than pressure is.
The failure to avoid is reading the absence of a reply as rejection and withdrawing. In Japan, wrong timing and genuine disinterest produce identical silence. You may not have been turned down. There may simply be nowhere yet to put the money.
If you want to decide whether to push this year or prepare for next
Tell me the counterparty's fiscal year end and what stage the conversation has reached. I will set out which of the two clocks you are against, and what has to be in their hands by when.