Guest Speaker
Business Seminar
For Osaka Innovation Hub: Expanding startup businesses in Singapore
Sep 2018
20 startup entrepreneurs and students from Osaka Innovation Hub visited WASABI Creation as part of their one week study tour in Singapore. Tong (Founder, CEO), together with Yuta Morita (Intern, SMU MBA student) conducted a seminar for the group on how they can expand their businesses from Japan to Singapore. They covered topics such as incorporation in Singapore, Singapore's demographic, consumer behaviour, influencer marketing, popup store marketing, etc. The participants were very interested in these topics and asked many questions such as "What are the common difficulties and errors Japanese companies have when doing business in Singapore." Tong was glad to have shared his experiences and expertise in these areas.
Japanese Lessons
For foreign domestic workers & caretakers
Sep 2018
WASABI Creation was requested by a nursing training school to conduct Japanese lessons to its students comprising of foreign domestic workers and caretakers. The students are attending the school to step up their skills in nursing care for the elderly. As Japan is seriously facing the hit of aging population, and lack of manpower in providing care to the elderly, they have opened up working opportunities in Japan to foreign caretakers.
In view of this, these foreign domestic workers are trying out learning Japanese to equip themselves with the language skill that will enable them to work in Japan in the future.
Guest Speaker
Seminar to Ryokoku University: How Singapore's policies have shaped a multiracial and international society.
2 Sep 2018
A group of 40 students from Ryokoku University, Japan visited WASABI Creation as part of their educational tour in Vietnam and Singapore. WASABI Creation founder, Tong conducted a seminar on Singapore policies that have shaped the country's multiracialism, and built an international society.
More and more Japanese companies realise the need to venture overseas market as its domestic market continue to string due to aging population and depopulation, however there is a lack of talent within Japan who has the experience, skills, and know-how to bring business across boarders. We hope the seminar will be able to share with the students some ideas and tips on how to be a global talent.
Guest Speaker
Seminars to Business Schools in Delhi, India
Aug 2018
WASABI Creation was invited by our partner, Intraversity in Delhi, to conduct talks to students of various business and management colleges in India. Over the week, we visited and met students from Jaipuria School of Business, JK Business School, Institute of Technology And Sciences, and Accurate Institute of Management & Technology. We shared with the students about our business, market trends in Japan and Singapore, and answered the students' questions on entrepreneurship.
WASABI Creation is also in talks with the schools to work with our partner in bringing students to Singapore for educational tour and internship.
Guest Speaker
"How SMU MBA Students can prepare themselves in working with the Japanese?"
6th Jul 2018
The Founder of WASABI Creation, Tong was invited by SMU MBA Class to speak at "Japanese Business Night". Tong shared about his experiences when he was working as a fresh graduate in Japan, and talked about Japanese business culture that is unique and special to non-Japanese people.
Tong also talked about basic Japanese business etiquette, such as exchanging business cards, and seating positions for Japanese business meetings. The MBA students shown great interest with many questions.
The event ended with a party serving Sushi for everyone.
Entrepreneurship Training Camp 2nd edition
"Partnership with SAI International College Bubhneshwar, India"
June 2018
WASABI Creation hosted 8 Indian students from SAI International College Bubhneshwar over 4 days for an intensive Entrepreneurship Training Camp at WASABI Creation's office. The students worked in groups of 2 on various topics such as coworking space business, India market entry, Japanese F&B market research, as well as overseas travel trends for India.
An extensive research in in these were done by the students, who also came up with creative proposals to implement new business into the fast growing market. Many presentations and discussions were held with the students to finalise the proposal.
At the end of the program, each student received a certificate of participation for their enthusiasm during the program.
WASABI Consulting
"What can Japanese students do to become international professionals?"
16th Mar 2018
The Founder of WASABI Creation, Tong was contacted by a group of students from Tokyo University, who are interested to learn about doing business internationally, as they planned their self-funded trip to Malaysia and Singapore. A sharing session was conducted over web conference, where Tong answered questions from the students, shared his own experiences, and gave advises to the students what they can do to groom themselves into international professionals.
Here are the reviews and comments from the students.
WASABI Insight vol.10
Business in Japan~
"Japanese Business Culture & Manners"
1st Mar 2018
The Founder of WASABI Creation, Tong held a seminar sharing his experiences and insights on doing business in Japan, in particular on the topic of "Japanese Business Culture & Manners".
Tong shared from his own personal experience overs the years while he has been working in Japan, and doing business with Japanese companies. As he grew up and went through the education system in Singapore, knowing the language didn't seem to have prepared him enough to work in Japan as a fresh graduate. Tong talked about the episodes he had encountered all these years, and cover some of the basics about "Japanese Business Culture & Manner".
Topics:
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Japanese business culture 101, how are the Japanese thinking?
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Exchanging business cards
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Visiting & hosting a Japanese company
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Useful Japanese expressions for business
More information: Business in Japan~ "Japanese Business Culture & Manners"
Guest Speaker
The Japan Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, Singapore (CLAIR, Singapore)
Feb 2018
The Founder of WASABI Creation, Tong was invited by The Japan Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, Singapore (CLAIR, Singapore) to share about WASABI Creation's business and its expertise in helping Japanese companies go global
Tong shared about his past, present, and future projects on how WASABI Creation is bridging Japan, Singapore, and the rest of Asia in terms on Business, Culture, and Tourism. In particular, Tong talked about his observation of how many Japanese companies are facing difficulty in presenting their products to the local markets overseas, and what could be so the solutions to better communicating with local consumers and making online connections for building relationships.
About CLAIR, Singapore
WASABI Enterprise~
a peep into Japanese Entrepreneurs & Business ventures in Singapore
Produced by WASABI Creation
Growing with your child is a journey worth documenting.
Memom helps you to be a journalist recording
the story of your child's growth.
Text by Lim Shi Hui, Undergraduate, NUS School of Business
Sekai-lab provides international customized web application software development and services including crowdsourcing to connect freelance software development contractors and businesses. Sekai-lab was created to facilitate business to business communication. Freelancers may encounter difficulties starting out, and handling big development projects. To accomplish these big projects, Seki-lab is dedicated to web development to facilitate the linkage between application and development of enterprises and the needs of customers.
Currently, Sekai-lab has established branch offices in Japan, Singapore, Shanghai China. The main purpose of these offices is to expand their business, and are now underway to establish the American branch. Development centres will soon be set up in Japan, China Chengdu, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines. There are a total of 400 developers.
Business in Singapore was established in May, and is managed by manager Mr. Tamura. Singapore's office’s main objective is to develop the need for applications and customers systems in Singapore and neighbouring countries, to link these customers and businesses.
Originally Sekai-lab is a Singapore company, and Japan was a branch company. Sekai-lab wanted to expand their overseas business and create more international goods and services, hence they selected the company headquarters in Singapore. But today, the company's main business is in Japan, because more staff in the development center in Vietnam speak Japanese, and can maintain business links with Japan more easily. From a business point of view, Shanghai, Singapore, followed by the US are important target markets.
In terms of business, Singapore will focus more on e-commerce and procedural aspects, while Japan will focus more on advertising.
Mr. Tamura expressed that currently, there are no other companies competing with them in Singapore in terms of platform development, but there any many other companies engaged in development work. For example, these companies, like Sekai-lab, have their own product development units for various aspects of development work.
Different areas of product development are carried out in China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. There are many different competitors in each market, such as the numerous companies in India and Vietnam.
Sekai-lab stands out from other companies with the parent company Monster-lab, a company with ten years of experience.
Sekai-lab has the advantage of having more than a decade of substantial developmental experience in Singapore. Sekai-lab is able to carry out multilingual communication in Japanese, English and other languages, to provide customers with faster service. Aside from bridging communication gaps, Sekai-lab can adapt to the budgetary needs of customers when providing solutions for them.
From the customers’ point of view, development centers in Vietnam and Bangladesh may not be able to accommodate the higher product demand. Hence, Sekai-lab will send project managers from Japan to strictly manage product quality so that customers will be more assured of cooperation when working with them. In Vietnam, Bangladesh, and China, development centers have adopted the dispatch style Japanese managers had taught the local developers. As these local developers are able to use Japanese to interact, there is an improvement in work efficiency in communication.
Manager Tamura from the Singapore branch feels that Singapore lacks a vast network of relationships, resulting in difficulty when trying to expand the customer base. In Japan, because of Sekai-lab's reputation, it is easy to attract customers. However in Singapore, as Sekai-lab is still relatively unknown, the number of clients is growing slowly. Hence, a major part of Sekai-lab operations in Singapore is to expand the network of relationships through a number of activites. The company's website is currently being produced, and the company's online campaigns will also become the focus of future endeavours.
The short-term goals of Sekai-lab Singapore is to carry out localized business development, but their long-term goal focuses on Indonesia, Malaysia and the neighbouring countries as well. When Japanese customers want to conduct business in Southeast Asia through Sekai-lab, the company can provide insights as they understand local needs better, and can integrate more quickly into the local market. Sekai-lab has branches in various places, now is now setting up all kinds of new business. In the process establishing new business in Southeast Asia, the situation of insufficient IT engineers might arise. Sekai-lab has hired more than 400 developers, and have more than a million developers (?) on the staff development platform. Sekai-lab wants to provide a steady stream of talent for the society.
Tamura’s self-introduction
Tamura graduated from Osaka University. During his studies in Canada and Belgium, he started to think that he wants to develop himself internationally in the future. After graduation, he worked at Rakuten e-commerce sector, and thought of using the Internet to change society. He then came to work in Singapore, at Recruit Company after developing an interest in training and development. Ultimately, he realised that he stills prefer working in the IT sector. He decided to work for Seki-Lab as it is based globally, and feels that it is a very meaningful job.
If you would like WASABI Enterprise to cover the story of your company, send us a mail at hi@wasabicreation.com