Takashi Kiga: Digital Communication in B2B Will Change Japanese Manufacturing

2025/02/21

Last September, I published "B2B Manufacturing Communication Revolution: The Future Brought by Digitalization of Customer Touchpoints" through Toyo Keizai Inc. The main point of this book is that if Japanese manufacturing, which tends to focus heavily on technological development, actively promotes itself and its products through digital communication, its hidden value will be better appreciated worldwide.

Even if they are usually inconspicuous, B2B manufacturing industries that support high-quality social infrastructure are the unsung heroes of Japanese industry. I believe many Keio University alumni are also active in various fields.

In this article, I will explain how strengthening communication—an area that has been left untouched due to a sense of inadequacy—is a measure with significant potential to enable further breakthroughs for Japan's proud B2B manufacturing industry.

Home appliances and semiconductors, where Japanese companies once reigned supreme, lost their luster during the "lost 30 years." However, even as manufacturers have shifted to overseas companies, it is still Japanese B2B manufacturing that supplies the production equipment, parts, and materials needed to make them.

These include pure B2B companies like Tokyo Electron and Shin-Etsu Chemical, which boast high market shares in semiconductor manufacturing, as well as companies like Sony, which holds the world's No. 1 share in smartphone image sensors and achieves high performance in B2B while also engaging in B2C.

In fact, as international relations become increasingly unstable, these Japanese B2B manufacturing companies are attracting even more attention. Despite being low-profile entities known only to those in the know, their high technological capabilities, quality, stable supply capacity, and service strength are being valued in these unstable times. Even in digitalization, where Japan has been consistently outperformed by Google and Amazon, the focus is shifting toward connecting with "things" like factories and automobiles for autonomy and automation. Consequently, the quality of these "things" will be scrutinized.

We are now at a stage where manufacturing is being reevaluated globally. This can be described as a tailwind for Japanese B2B manufacturing. However, products will not sell just by remaining silent.

During the period of rapid economic growth, when the competitors for Japanese manufacturing were only the US and Europe and there was a clear advantage in quality and price, it was an era where products sold as long as they were made. Now, however, we are forced into fierce competition with powerful rivals from China, Taiwan, and South Korea in addition to the US and Europe. Without ingenuity to stand out, one will easily be buried.

Of course, every company continues to refine its technological capabilities, but there is a measure essential for winning this battle that Japanese B2B manufacturing has not put much effort into. That is communication with potential customers to help them understand the value of the company and its products.

"It's obvious that a company should promote its products." Most people likely feel this way.

However, my honest impression after assisting B2B companies with their communication for a quarter of a century is that they "are not doing it."

Until now, there were reasons why they didn't have to. During the period of rapid economic growth, products sold like hotcakes, so stable supply was the top priority. Furthermore, because there was close communication within long-term transactions with specific customers, there was no need to broadly promote the company or its products to the world.

Additionally, the culture of "silence is golden" and the virtue of humility, such as saying "this is a trivial thing," encouraged a tendency not to verbalize the value of their own technology and products. Even so, there was no problem in an era when there were few competitors and the superiority of the products was clear.

Today, however, the number of competitors has increased, and technical differences have narrowed. In particular, aggressive overseas competitors promote their products with eloquent words. The advantages of Japanese companies also increasingly consist of values that are difficult to understand at the time of purchase, such as durability and service quality, so they will not be conveyed unless verbalized.

Furthermore, with the progression of major transformations such as the shift to EVs in automobiles, the energy shift, and the smartification of society, players are being replaced, and the importance of developing new customers is rapidly increasing. In such cases, no matter how well-known a company is in Japan, it must start by making itself known.

No matter how good a product is, if it is not known, it is the same as if it did not exist. In a highly competitive global market, Japanese B2B manufacturing can no longer afford to be complacent about being inarticulate.

The most important thing in strengthening communication is to correctly recognize the value of your company that should be communicated. You might think, "Again with the obvious," but this is also something that Japanese B2B manufacturing is not good at.

For example, if shortening the inspection process is the customer's need when introducing new equipment, then the amount of time saved is the information the customer wants. However, if this is not understood, the promotion remains limited to technical specs that are only part of the story, such as "15% increase in resolution" or "10% improvement in battery life."

In fact, responding to specific requests such as "I want to increase resolution" or "I want to improve battery performance" is the forte of Japanese B2B manufacturing. However, because they focus so much on that, the promotion of the value provided—even though they are fulfilling the true need of "process shortening"—tends to be weak.

Once a close relationship is established, it is fine to use the ability to respond to individual requests as a weapon. However, to get potential customers to look your way at the preliminary stage, the absolute fundamental is to first show what kind of value your company can provide.

If the premise is that such communication can be achieved, digital communication is a very powerful tool for B2B manufacturing.

Unlike B2C, which deals with consumer goods like automobiles and cosmetics, B2B communication has the following characteristics:

・ Mass media is not suitable because there are few customers and customer touchpoints

・ Therefore, exhibitions where potential customers gather are the main meeting places

・ The purchase consideration period is long, and communication during that time is essential

・ Products are diverse, often expensive and multi-functional, requiring a large amount of information to be provided

・ Due to this diversity of communication, sales by people become the primary method

These are the characteristics.

Furthermore, the technologies, materials, and parts handled by B2B have a wide range of applications and can be used in unexpected ways, so it is often difficult to fully grasp where the customers are.

For example, the fluororesin in frying pans known for Teflon coating is valued for its resistance to chemicals and heat, and has become an essential material for cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing. Finding new applications is also an important goal of B2B manufacturing communication. However, exhibitions last only two or three days and are held in major cities, so there are limits to meeting potential customers and discovering new applications. Also, after an exhibition, there are limits to handling a wide variety of potential customers who may start moving at any time using only manual labor.

That said, product advertising in mass media does not suit B2B. Despite the constraints, B2B communication has long had to rely on exhibitions and human sales.

Digital communication, such as websites and social media, appeared there like a comet. Its convenience is obvious from our daily lives, but the reason it has spread so rapidly is because it has many features that previous media did not have, such as:

① Information can be provided without being restricted by time or place

② There are no restrictions on the amount of information

③ You can meet people looking for information

④ Information can be tailored to user attributes

⑤ Individual requests such as product comparisons, quotes, and purchases can be met

These are just some of the many features that previous media did not have.

And these features have liberated B2B communication from the constraints of time, place, and information volume.

There was an example involving a manufacturer of color measurement devices. They were often used for automobile painting and inspections of food and cosmetics, but one day they received an inquiry from a fishery cooperative. They said they needed color identification for grading seaweed but wanted to leave it to a machine due to a labor shortage. The fishery cooperative reportedly found the information on the website by searching for "seaweed color inspection" and learned about the existence of the color measurement device. The manufacturer was very surprised by this unexpected encounter leading to a new application.

In this way, if you post information that is valuable to customers, potential customers who need it will come to you even if you don't know where they are. This is digital communication. There are no longer constraints of time, place, or information volume. To deliver the hidden value of Japanese B2B manufacturing to every corner of the world, this characteristic should be utilized extensively.

There is a success story where strengthening communication shed light on hidden value. The number of tourists visiting Japan, which was 5 million in 2003 when the Visit Japan campaign began, grew to 32 million in 2019 before the pandemic.

Previously, the "golden route" for foreign tourists was Asakusa in Tokyo, Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, and meals like tempura and sushi. Now, however, foreigners can be seen in every prefecture, and the objects of enjoyment have expanded beyond temples and shrines to include hot springs, skiing, and convenience stores—the daily lives of Japanese people.

All of these existed before the campaign. In other words, things that have existed for a long time simply became known, resulting in this level of appreciation. This is a good example that clearly demonstrates the power of communicating and making things known.

Therefore, if Japanese B2B manufacturing can also strengthen communication and convey its dormant value, it should be more highly appreciated. Since they haven't done all they can, there is considerable room for growth in this initiative.

In particular, websites and social media are highly flexible media where B2B manufacturing companies can control the content and timing themselves. Digital communication has high affinity with B2B and can be started more easily and at a lower cost than technological development.

When Japanese B2B manufacturing graduates from being inarticulate and masters both technology and communication, another success story like Visit Japan will surely be born.