While domestically quite successful, Cybozu struggled to attract international customers—until they started their own English-speaking, international unit from scratch.
Domestic vs. foreign success
Cybozu, founded in 1997, was one of Japan’s first B2B software companies. They’ve experienced incredible success in Japan, having 13.5 million paid user accounts across all their B2B services, which represents about 19% of Japan’s working population.
Internationally, though, their success has been more limited. Their low-code/no-code platform Kintone has seen some usage outside of Japan. On the other hand, when they tried to take their product Cybozu Office overseas by setting up a US subsidiary, the effort failed, in part due to the difference in business customs between Japan and the US.
Then, in 2022, Cybozu decided to tackle international expansion in a new way. They formed the New Business Division, an English-first, international unit within the company that would not only adapt existing products to the global market, but also develop new products from the ground up with an international audience in mind.
Why an international team?
The reasoning behind this strategy was twofold: it would benefit them from both a product and recruitment perspective.
From a product perspective, it was natural for a globally-focused team to consist of international talent. This would allow them to bring diverse perspectives from the inception of new products, rather than a mindset that was just focused on Japan. As Cybozu was targeting English-speaking markets, they focused on recruiting native or bilingual English speakers.
From a recruiting perspective, there’s a shortage of talented engineers in Japan. By operating in an English-first manner, they’d be able to tap into the global talent pool. From past experience, Cybozu had seen that, when they’d gotten applications from engineers with poor Japanese abilities, they just didn’t have the processes in place to support them. Starting a new team that could be built with English in mind from the beginning would allow them to support people regardless of their Japanese ability.
How they did it
Since the New Business Development team was started in the midst of COVID-19, Cybozu was already operating in a remote manner, and so the New Business Division became remote-first from day one.
Initially, they recruited engineers regardless of their location, and had agreements with people on a case-by-case basis, taking into account local labour and tax regulations. Now, however, they’ve switched to hiring people either in Japan or US time zones.
The first member they hired was an engineer living in the United States. He wanted to work in Japan, but at the time, since they didn’t have experience with relocation, Cybozu asked him to work for their US subsidiary. As they saw the desire of engineers to relocate to Japan, the New Business Development team set up a support system for them, and began to provide their employees with work visas.
Since then, they’ve scaled up the team to 30 international engineers, many of whom are now located in Japan. This has changed their office from a place where Japanese is the only language, to one where even members of other divisions have a chance to speak in English. Through this initial seed, Cybozu plans to become increasingly international.
The development processes used vary depending on the product. Some teams use Shape Up, while others use Scrum. No matter the process, though, decision-making is transparent, and everyone has the opportunity to give feedback on the development plan.
What’s next for the international team
The overarching goal of the New Business Development team is to create the next generation of workspace/groupware. In particular, they want to solve the problem of information silos in the workplace. Their aim is to create products that specifically encourage communication between departments, and ensure that every team has the information it needs to succeed.
With this goal in mind, the team is working on an ID and authentication management (IDaaS) product, as well as a collaboration product. These products are due to be released for internal use later in 2024 and, if they succeed, will then be promoted on the global market.
The future of Japanese development
These product launches are the first real test for Cybozu’s New Business Development team. If their workspace/groupware products are highly successful, this could lead to a significant shift in organizational policy—and not just at Cybozu.
While other companies like Mercari and SmartNews have already made the leap to international markets, Cybozu would be one of the first well-established tech companies to do so. If the New Business Development team proves beneficial to their bottom line, then other domestic-only corporations may follow suit. Custom-built international teams could soon be a commonplace feature in Japan, and an efficient, highly customizable tool with which domestic companies can expand into the global marketplace, while also retaining full control of their products.
Given the ongoing worker shortage in Japan, this could prove to be a win-win situation for both Japanese business owners, and the many developers who wish to relocate to Japan.
If this seems like the kind of team you’d like to be a part of, check out their open positions.
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