Helping businesses to enter local market through back-office outsourcing
With operations in more than 80 countries, TMF Group provides outsourced business services that help clients to operate their corporate structures, finance vehicles and investment funds in different geographic locations.
The firm’s Japan office is led by Dr Junichi Kato, who has worked for over 25 years in various branches of business.
His professional experience includes the areas of marketing, sales, supply chain management and outsourcing across Europe and Asia. He was recently awarded a doctorate of business administration in strategic management by Cranfield University in the UK.
What are foreign investors’ sentiments in Japan?
One of the aims of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic programme, Abenomics, is to double the foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks in Japan by 2020, to coincide with the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In order to realise this goal, the government has been promoting the Invest Japan campaign by offering a series of incentives to foreign investors.
Whether it was due to the campaign or not, TMF Group recently has received many enquiries from companies—mainly based in the US and Europe—wishing to establish operations in Japan. We are also seeing a dramatic increase in the number of clients who have actually decided to enter the Japanese market.
Based on my observations and interactions with our clients, I foresee some sectors emerging as clear winners from this fresh wave of FDI. Successful firms may include those involved in online marketing or security services as well as heavy industrial manufacturing.
Those in the first line of business tend to be small start-ups, with world-leading technology, who are ready to develop their business in Japan. The manufacturers, meanwhile, are mostly conglomerates looking to set up representative offices in Japan to test the local market.
How do you segment your client base?
In general, we can divide our clients into three segments, each division having different needs.
1. Clients establishing a business in Japan for the first time. Unfamiliar with the market, they need a trusted partner to ensure compliance with Japanese regulations.
2. Clients with a presence in Japan, but wanting a better service provider. Mostly, this initiative is driven by head office, which hopes to simplify the firm’s global operations.
3. Clients moving from insourcing to outsourcing to reduce risks, control costs, and focus resources on core business functions.
How does your service add value to a firm’s business?
With a motto of “Global reach, Local knowledge”, we pride ourselves on being international expansion experts. TMF Group helps businesses expand and invest seamlessly across international borders.
We have more than 120 offices and 5,000 staff globally. Our local knowledge enables clients to benefit from our experience on the ground, and comply with local regulations.
No matter where our client operates, we provide them with a single point of contact to ensure simplified operations and clear communication.
By taking care of such non-core elements of clients’ business through our three service lines of HR and payroll, accounting and tax, and corporate secretarial services, we help them to focus on what they do best: selling their products and services.
