When conducting marketing and sales activities in Japan, it is most important to approach the right person in the right department in order to achieve results efficiently. The question is how we can identify such key people in the Japanese market?
In this article, we will look at how we obtain such information in the course of our regular marketing projects, i.e. what kind of preliminary research we carry out before the actual marketing and sales, and we will also summarize some examples of the information we obtain from our preliminary research.
We assist overseas companies who are trying to obtain CDMO contracts from Japanese companies or who are planning to expand into the Japanese market. If you need preliminary research or do not know where to start, please contact us. We will be happy to provide you with a simple proposal for your project.
The Case
A North American pharmaceutical company was planning to win CDMO contracts in the Japanese market. They haven’t started the project in that time, so they would like to develop the strategy with us.
Preliminary Research
#1 The situation
- Given the highly specialized nature of the pharmaceutical industry, the number of companies that should be targeted is expected to be extremely small compared to other businesses.
- The amount of searches on Google Japan for CDMO is not high, and it is expected that measures based on Google (Google ads, SEO, content marketing, etc.) will not produce results.
- The same applies to SNS, and it is expected that there will be no effective channels, including LinkedIn.
Based on the above, we conducted an interview survey to find out how they select candidate companies & what kind of decision-making process Japanese companies go through when ordering CDMOs.
#2 Interview survey of potential customers
Interviewee profile
In charge of formulation research for more than 10 years at a Japanese pharmaceutical company with annual sales of over 400 billion Japanese yen.
Q&A
What is the decision-making flow when placing a CDMO order?
There is a list of preferred CDMO companies within the company, and these companies on the list are the candidates. We don’t use a research company to create the list, but instead collects and updates information in-house, using its own R&D and procurement departments. It is not the manager, but the person in charge who gathers information and checks the details. The final seal of approval is given by the head of the R&D department (executive). For CDMO projects, the R&D department takes the lead in selecting the supplier.
Where do you gather information?
Trade shows. I go to Interphex Tokyo every time, and sometimes to CPHI too. I sometimes encounter new information at academic conferences, and I also get to know people in charge at companies. I’ve also done Google searches, but it’s difficult to tell whether the companies that come up on the web are trustworthy, so I’ve never been able to turn that into business. I think Pharm Tech Japan (https://ptj.jiho.jp/) is influential. I think that the major companies read it, and it is read by many departments such as R&D, QA, QC, procurement and supply chain management.
Who is the best person to contact & how we should contact him/her for CDMO orders?
The best way is to provide information about your company to people in the R&D department. Trade shows are the best channel for this. The information we get at the show is reported at meetings held by the R&D team, so it is the most effective way. I have never received any outbound sales, so if you approach too aggressively, you may get a bad impression. If possible, it may be better to make initial contact through a trading company that already does business with your target company, an employee who has moved from that company to yours, or a retired executive from the target company.
Does sales through advisors or referral sales work in the pharmaceutical industry?
I have never had the experience of being contacted through a retired employee of our company. If other departments of our company introduce a company that has already done business as a CMO with them, that’s the safest case. There are also cases where information is exchanged between member companies of the JPMA (https://www.jpma.or.jp/english/index.html).
Summary of the interview
- It is the R&D department that we should approach in order to create CDMO projects.
- Potential customers develop internal lists of preferred CDMOs based on information gathered at trade shows and academic conferences.
- Information gathered online has never led to a real project.
- Because there is no sales culture in the industry, you should be careful when doing outbound sales, especially for the R&D department.
#3 Hypothesis derived from the preliminary research
- In order to create CDMO projects, we should approach the R&D department, but as there is no outbound sales culture, we need to be careful not to give a bad impression when making sales.
- Advisory sales and referral sales will work. We should firstly find people who can contribute to the referral sales to the target companies.
- The most efficient channel for inbound sales is Interphex Tokyo.
Conclusion
In marketing projects, regardless of the industry, it is very important to identify the key people to approach through preliminary research in order to achieve results in the most efficient way.
In this case, we learned through preliminary research that it is difficult to acquire leads through Google search and SNS to win CDMO contracts, and that approaches should be made directly to R&D departments.
We then proceed to plan the specific methods, i.e. outbound marketing methods to the R&D department, based on the information obtained from the preliminary research.
If you would like to know more about the specific methods we have proposed in this case, or which marketing methods are effective in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry, please contact us. We look forward to helping you make your project a success.