Systems development firms in China are again doing more business with Japanese customers, after nearly two years of shying away from an earthquake-hit Japan. This renewed push to win orders includes setting up more offices in Japan, hiring personnel and training employees for the Japanese market.
Many Chinese engineers left Japan in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, but are now coming back with renewed interest as demand in Japan is strong.
The Jinan Ryouka Science & Technology Co. group will set up an organization in Qingdao to specialize in Japanese systems. It will place about 100 engineers there, with the goal of 400 in three years. It runs a school in Jinan teaching information technology and the Japanese language, and hires graduates to its Qingdao offices.
A systems development order with Ryouka " can sometimes be delivered at half the cost against ordering from a Japanese firm," said CEO Cai Li. The firm hopes to double offshore-sourced systems sales to Japanese customers to about ¥1.2 billion in three years.
Wicresoft Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of Shanghai based Wicresoft Co., will add engineers in its Tokyo and Osaka offices from the 100 at present to 150 by the end of the year. Many will be so-called bridge engineers who will tell developers offshore what Japanese customers want in their systems. By building development muscle, the firm hopes to win orders from multiple companies at once.
The Wicresoft group has an offshore development base in Shanghai staffed with about 400 engineers. It plans to quickly double sales through Wicresoft Japan, to about ¥1.5 billion.
Guangdong Whizen Technologies Co. will increase personnel for Japanese customers to 1,000, a 2.5 fold jump, by 2015.
The firm's founder, Mei Aohan, was once a researcher at a Japanese university. The firm gives new employees a year of intensive Japanese language lessons and lends them to Japanese firms to learn Japanese systems development.
"Our strength is systems engineers versed in Japanese culture and language, who can help develop systems that suit Japan," Mei said.
The research firm IDC Japan reports that the Japanese IT service market shrank from over ¥5.2 trillion in 2008 to about ¥4.8 trillion in 2011. But investment picked up in 2012 as many corporations upgraded systems. It says moderate growth will likely continue until 2016.
Chinese IT firms entered the Japanese market in the early 2000s, but many cut back after the earthquake reduced business.
Another possible motivator is a projection that IT engineers look to be in short supply in Japan, even as Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan Post Holdings Co. and other giants continue heavy investment in systems.
Resource: The Nikkei Weekly
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