Table of Contents
Hitoshi Goto
Ukihiko Takagi
In today’s world, where joint production between Japan and overseas locations and supply chain-level business collaboration have become commonplace, globalization has become an essential requirement for IT engineers as well. This series explains the differences in customs and laws overseas, as well as key points in project management, that IT engineers should know when expanding abroad.
Becoming a Global PMO…
A Global PMO (Project Management Office) is generally defined as an organization that supports the execution of all projects running simultaneously within a company. To work in such an organization, you need to know the essential know-how for working overseas.
In this series, we will openly share this know-how based on concrete episodes. Many people feel that “global” sounds like a high hurdle, but once you know these things, there is nothing to fear.
This series comprehensively covers practical know-how, primarily regarding cultures and customs unique to overseas environments. After demonstrating that Japanese norms do not apply, we will introduce considerations for system implementation itself, customs and laws you should know when working overseas, and key points for managing global projects.
First, let us introduce what we consider a typical global project—though not necessarily average—to give you a general sense of what global projects look like.
This is a case study from when we provided management support for a rare end-to-end global project at a Japanese company: Company A, an IT-related firm, simultaneously implementing an ERP package across all operations including demand management, procurement, manufacturing, order processing, shipping, sales, and accounting. The implementation sites were Japan, the United States, Germany, Austria, China, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.
The vendors responsible for implementation were a domestic ERP implementation specialist (handling business design and package implementation) and an Indian company (handling configuration and add-on development). In such projects, with implementation sites spanning multiple countries and vendors from both Japan and India, it is necessary to support project execution while considering the circumstances of various countries.
In every country, handling tax-related matters (especially customs duties and value-added tax) is challenging, and requirements gathering, configuration, and verification are time-consuming. Germany’s tax reporting and auditing were particularly troublesome, requiring modifications to the package and significant effort for form-related development.
Furthermore, in global business, transactions occur between sites across countries and regions, so differences in delivery receipt and acceptance criteria among countries and regions must be properly incorporated into the ERP. This also requires considerable effort for verification, including testing.
Only Japanese Prioritize QCD
Of course, there were challenges from a system development perspective, but what was even more difficult was schedule management for locally stationed members from various countries and regions. They were gathering at the site on a weekly business trip basis from remote locations.
Saturdays are busy with cleaning and laundry, and Sundays are holidays. Therefore, scheduling meetings on Fridays—which are travel days—is taboo. If a meeting runs over for any reason, they cannot get home. For this reason, schedules must be planned from Monday to Thursday.
Not only that, but it is best to assume that work essentially stops during vacation preparation periods and Christmas holiday seasons. Vacations take priority over QCD (Quality, Cost, Delivery). In our experience, Japanese project teams often place a stronger emphasis on QCD than many overseas teams.
However, compared to British, Americans, Chinese, and Indians, Some project teams in Germany and the Netherlands appeared to have working styles that were more similar to those commonly observed in Japan. That said, people from all countries and regions equally dislike wasteful meetings. Of course, there are individual differences, but these tendencies may be observed in some business environments, although individual and organizational differences should always be considered.
In any case, “Japanese norms” do not apply in the world. Please keep this in mind first and foremost. And therein lies both the challenge and the enjoyment.
