“I believe that there is a great deal we have to share with the Japanese about agile, rapid development processes and front-end creativity”
Graham Bell, PA Consulting Group
The front-end IT innovation of the PA Consulting Group combined with Japanese firms’ ability to perfect technology and then manufacture high-quality products makes Japan at present a small but potentially very important market for the UK-based company.
It is equally important for companies here as Japanese corporations tend to be slow in seeking out new opportunities for their cutting-edge creations. Which is where award-winning PA Consulting Group comes in, putting its expertise in the areas of energy, financial services, life sciences, healthcare, government, public service, defence, security, telecommunications, consumer goods, the automotive sector, transport and logistics to the most effective and appropriate use.
“I believe that there is a great deal we have to share with the Japanese about agile, rapid development processes and front-end creativity,” said Graham Bell, innovation expert at PA Consulting. “PA in particular has great strengths in bringing insight from one sector or business into another – taking, for examples, lessons from the consumer products into pharma, or commercial communications into defence.”
Historically strong in the information and communications technology sector, PA Consulting worked with Japanese semiconductor manufacturers in the mid-1990s, helping them to enter the global system for mobile communications market. “Today we are supporting a number of leading ICT firms with issues around intellectual property management and exploitation,” Bell said. “Japanese firms have significant IP portfolios from their strong research and development programmes, but they have not actively exploited those portfolios – taking a very conservative, defensive position.
“As the industry has consolidated and international products have entered the domestic market, many companies are rightly looking to their portfolios as a source of new revenues,” he added. “PA offers independent technical support to companies looking to identify the jewels in their portfolio.”
To help achieve that, and taking advantage of UKTI contacts in Japan, PA requested an Overseas Market Introduction Report from the team in Tokyo. “In a recent case, UKTI arranged a series of meetings with five local companies,” Bell said. “One of these has turned in to a formal engagement leading to significant business for PA.” Japan represents a “great opportunity to share our experience,” Bell added, and cracking the market here would have taken a significantly longer period of time without the assistance of the UKTI team.
