It’s 6:45 in the morning. I am leaving my plane after an 11-hour flight and visiting one of the most exciting cities in the world – Tokyo. There are 38 million people crammed into an environment that is nearly perfectly organized. The subway and trains stop precisely on the centimeter and the doors always open exactly where the lines indicate they should. An optimized city in which the “we” and the yearning for harmony counts much more than the “I”. Japanese culture values the society more than the needs of the individual. A sense of belonging, loyalty, are a key ingredients for these ancestors of the Samurai. With those values still deeply ingrained in everyday life, it is a spectacle for every visitor from the West.
But I am not here as a tourist, I am here for business. In my role as Partner Manager for Ranorex, I work with our partners all around the globe who support us in bringing Ranorex to the most remote places in the world, but always with a local feel. It’s about being local in a global world. For a small company like Ranorex, this is only possible with a network of expert partners.
Japanese clients want to be able to ask their questions in Japanese and likewise to work with their tools in their mother tongue. This is why I am especially excited that we have found a partner in Japan that is helping us to localize our services, and moreover our software. Ranorex will soon be available in Japanese, allowing us to serve this key market in Asia with a localized product.
I am here to prepare our partner TechMatrix for a joint sales meeting, and more importantly for the press conference. We will be introducing our product to the audience together with our new partner.
A few days after my arrival, the jetlag mostly vanished due to the pure excitement of being in this fantastic city, and we are already at the venue of the press conference. It’s an impressive hotel with a Zen-style garden in front that is overcrowded with newlywed couples capturing the most important day in their lives in photos.
Our partner TechMatrix invited more than 100 potential clients to the event and we are all very excited. I have a translator on my side, but nonetheless I decide to do the first page in Japanese. I am reading the Japanese words, many of which do not make any sense to me as I forgot a lot of my Japanese. I am nervous, and after this first page I’m relieved that I can continue in English. The crowd claps and we continue with the core part of the presentation. I find that the Japanese audience seems to be very keenly interested, and focused on every word that the translator creates out of my sentences. Having a translator is actually a good thing because all the pauses in between give me time to formulate the next sentence in the most accurate, concise and effective way. With a translator, the message needs to be transmitted in a simple, plain way…or it will become hidden in the clatter.
After a 40-minute presentation, the questions round starts and many interesting things are asked. The impression that I will leave this press conference with is the existence of a very strong opportunity that has just been presented to Ranorex – tremendous demand for solid, robust test automation software in Japan. I will especially remember one moment from the Q&A session when I was asked why Ranorex should be chosen over of an existing competitor. The question involved what else, aside from a lower price, can Ranorex offer if the competitor’s tool already covers my technology needs? The answer was very simple: service & technical support. In the discussion, the client then confirmed that the team providing support for his current tool have even needed a whole month to respond to a simply question. The crowd murmurs in disbelieve.
All I can say here is WOW! Working together with a strong partner – TechMatrix – who’ll provide first class service and our superior product, I am foreseeing a bright future for Ranorex in the land of the rising sun. I am already looking forward visiting Tokyo again soon.