Translated from 日本語 • View original This is Ogawa, who is in charge of marketing. I joined Colorkrew in November 2022! Looking back on the year after joining the company, I think it was a dizzying and fast-paced year! I think the main reason for this is that I was given the opportunity to take on new challenges.
What kind of challenge was it possible... A while ago, I went on a business trip to Brazil. Yes, here in Japan, on the other side of the world! Actually, it was my first experience on an overseas business trip, but I never thought I would go to the other side of the world.
What are you doing in Brazil?
Colorkrew aims to become a multi-national company and has been developing services in Japan overseas, and has been doing business in Brazil, the first overseas base, for several years.
On this business trip, several members from Japan traveled to Brazil in May rain to accelerate Brazilian business in all directions, but I went to Brazil on a bullet schedule of about one week with the mission of improving Brazilian marketing.
Here, let me explain my English skills on a business trip to the other side of the world... I have never studied English before. Imagine a person who only speaks Japanese suddenly going to Brazil one day to work with local overseas members.
I managed to get through a week with the help of a Japanese member of Colorkrew who was staying in Brazil at the same time, relying on translation tools such as Google Translate there.
What have you been doing in Brazil?
We have two businesses in Brazil.
・Colorkrew Biz to manage seats and meeting rooms ・OKR service Goalous Since it was a short-term business trip, this time we focused on Colorkrew Biz, which is likely to expand our business, and considered marketing improvements.
As those involved in marketing know, all marketing techniques and ways of thinking are different in Japan and overseas. The reason for the difference is not limited to language differences, but cultural differences also have a significant impact.
I had been supporting marketing in Brazil even before my business trip to Brazil, but when I looked at the local working style and living experience, there were many differences from the environment I had envisioned.
There were many competing services in Brazil, but it was a big discovery that Brazil has relatively many American services.
It is also related to the situation in Brazil, where the security level of buildings is very high compared to Japan. After clearing the strict entry security before entering the building, you must clear the separate security for each floor before entering the office. What is even more surprising is that each building uses different security services, and there are dozens of different services.
There is a similar genre in Japan, and that is payment services. There are more than 100 types of payment services in Japan alone, but the current situation is that there is a bias in major payment services, but there is not much bias in Brazil's security services, and there was a tendency to use them individually. *The image is that each building is developing its own security services.
Considering the habit of using various services in each category in terms of lifestyle habits, I was able to understand that being able to use various functions in one service is not necessarily an advantage.
This perspective could only be obtained by going to the local area, so I learned a lot and at the same time gained the need to develop services and functions specialized for needs and disseminate information in order to develop business in the Brazilian market.
About Brazil
Finally, I would like to introduce the discovery of Brazil that Japanese people who can only speak Japanese noticed.
Brazil is similar to Japan and is a country where English is not spoken very well. If you talk to them in poor English at a convenience store or café, they will respond in Portuguese... But he is really kind to Japanese people! (Is it because Brazil is the country where the number one Japanese American lives in the world?) So even if I could only speak Japanese, I could manage it in Brazil, a country on the other side of the world.
Still, I will never forget that I received support from many people! Thank you Daniel, Marcelo, RAFA, keita, kazuki!!