May 06, 2014 Okagesamade – Japan Intercultural Consulting celebrates 10 years in Europe

Okagesamade is a useful Japanese expression to say a humble thank you to someone who has helped you or asked after your health or well being.  It literally means “thanks to your shadow”, so we’d like to say “okagesamade – thanks to your support” to our customers for the fact that we are now celebrating 10 years of Japan Intercultural Consulting in Europe.

One of our clients recently asked us what changes we’d noticed in the past 10 years amongst Japanese companies in Europe, and how we have changed our consulting and training accordingly.  I’ve seen three main trends we have needed to address:

1. More Europeans in senior management positions in Japanese companies, including those brought in through the acquisition of European companies
2. Seminars with highly diverse groups of employees with participants from across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.  As Japanese companies consolidate their operations across the region, employees in different countries are finding themselves working together more and more, side by side or virtually.
3. Japanese themselves becoming more diverse – younger trainees, female expatriates, often “returnees” who have been educated outside Japan, or locally hired Japanese

We have adapted our standard seminars and added expertise on further countries accordingly. We’ve also have been asked to give personal consultations or briefings, where we spend an hour or two talking through with senior executives (Japanese and Europeans) the issues they are facing in communicating with or managing employees or relationships with Japan headquarters, in order to have a strategic change accepted.

We’ve also added a new seminar to our forthcoming open seminar series, facilitated by Ian Fallmann, on “getting the best from Japanese on your team” – a situation we have been asked about more often recently, which Ian will address based on his experience of managing a team of Japanese managers for Bloomberg Asia.

Our open seminar line up is as follows, including the new dates for this year’s seminars for Japanese managers on human resource management and management communications in Europe:
 
For Japanese managers:
4^th June  (Kumiko Ishiyama, focus on HR management)
London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, 33 Queen Street, London
5^th June (Claudia Romberg, focus on management communication in Europe)
Mercure City Hotel, Düsseldorf
25^th June  (Pernille Rudlin, focus on management communication in Europe)
London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, 33 Queen Street, London
 
Working Effectively with Japanese colleagues, partners and clients

20th May  (Claudia Romberg) Mercure City Hotel, Düsseldorf
10th June  (Pernille Rudlin ) London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, 33 Queen Street, London EC4R 1AP
16th October,  (Claudia Romberg) Mercure City Hotel, Düsseldorf
20th November,(Cécile Buckenmeyer ) Paris,Centre d’Affaires Emergence Opéra, 5 rue du Helder

Getting the best from Japanese on your team
10^th September (Ian Fallmann) London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, 33 Queen Street, London EC4R 1AP

Please click on the links above for more details and to register online, or please email moc.l1732320463arutl1732320463ucret1732320463ninap1732320463aj@ni1732320463ldur.1732320463ellin1732320463rep1732320463
 
We would of course be delighted to do versions of these seminars in-house, and can tailor the content to benefit people who have already attended our standard seminars, or provide 1:1 briefings.
 
By continuing to refresh our offerings and learn from our customers, we hope to win your support for the next 10 years!