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Japan Calling

December 12, 2018

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Over the last two decades and more, a handful of Indian IT service providers have been operating in Japan. However, low growth, low returns and lack of scale have remained major concerns. Additionally, a lack of a structured approach and intent of focusing on local Japan domestic market coupled with absence of reliable platform for interested Indian and Japanese organizations, remain a big impediment to growth. This in turn is hurting the SME organizations from both countries.

Discussions between NASSCOM and the Hiroshima prefecture to promote collaboration between Japanese customers and Indian IT companies leveraging on respective strengths in hardware and software fields have converged on the idea of setting up the first NASSCOM IT Corridor within Japan’s Hiroshima Prefecture to promote IoT / AI cooperation between the two nations.

This dedicated IT corridor will be an exclusive place for interested Indian IT providers, big and small, to start operations and avail of special policy benefits and incentives provided by Hiroshima Prefecture administration, exclusively for members of this platform. This cooperation intends to set up base for Indian SME and Japanese companies to converge and treat as a launch pad for addressing needs of the larger Japanese market.

Towards this, we signed the intent to cooperate (MOU) for setting up an IT Corridor / platform with Hiroshima Prefecture Govt. We expect the start of this initiative by early 2019. We will use this time to plan implementation with our hosts. This will be one big step in creating permanent asset on ground that will solely work to facilitate match-making between Indian and Japanese customers. This platform will be jointly setup between NASSCOM and Hiroshima and the funding be arranged to create a sustained program for an initial period of 3-5 years. Key deliverables of the platform:

  1. Match-making: under “Co-create” theme, the platform will match Indian software companies with Japanese companies from Manufacturing, Retail, Utilities and Healthcare verticals to build smart solutions.
  2. Set IT cluster in Hiroshima: Indian companies that find suitable partners to service in Japan will be provided with an entire ecosystem to setup local offices to ensure they are productive from the very beginning. Package to entail:
  3. Free office space for first 3 years; thereafter affordable rental scheme.
  4. Subsidy for setting up office in the Corridor (setting up costs, fixtures with a threshold limit)
  5.  Single window clearance for office setup, legal / IP and administrative assistants, etc.
  6. Ecosystem setup: Bank accounts, salary accounts, credit cards, Schools for kids, etc.
  7. Talent transfer from India: Build University connections- for local hiring, and talent transformation programs that contain – cultural & language training for Indian professionals transferred by Indian companies.

Platform:

Will have online and offline version:

–  Offline: Will employ different types of professionals in Japan (4-6 resources viz. sales, presales, techno-commercial people, interpreters.) that will reach out to Japanese companies to get them enrolled to be part of platform and forming partnership with Indian companies.

–  Online: a) Tool that helps Digital Transformation adoption by Japanese companies b) Automatic translation tools (Japanese to English and vice-versa) c) AI backed engine to do automatic match-making.

–  Early adopters: We are working with Hiroshima based leading companies to be early adopters of the platform viz. Mazda, Micron, Kobelco Construction, Sharp, Mizoue Corp, Daiso, etc. from different verticals to lend confidence to the initiative.

This will be the first serious effort to create bridges between Japan & India and will serve the industry for years to come. Japanese Govt. funding the initiative will ensure the participation from Japanese businesses.

Know more about NASSCOM’s initiatives and programs, follow NASSCOM impact stories 

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