I went to Brazil. ~Overseas Business Trip VOL.1~

This is Yukawa, who is in charge of corporate and new businesses.

I went on a business trip to São Paulo, Brazil for about two weeks a while ago.

Why Brazil

We advocate for expanding our services globally.

First of all, due to the globalization of the team, **the proportion of non-Japanese members has exceeded 20%. **The use of English as a common language is also progressing.

Meanwhile, Brazil is the first step in global expansion.

A few years ago, Daniel, who worked with me in Japan, decided to return to his home country of Brazil.

At that time, he said that he wanted to do Colorkrew's business in Brazil, and it all started.

The opportunity came suddenly, so I decided to do it.

Thanks to the energetic activities of Daniel and other local members, business in Brazil is definitely improving.

And this year, when COVID-19 subsided and it became easier to travel abroad, several members from Japan decided to travel to Brazil to support the further growth of Brazilian business.

In that process, I decided to travel to Brazil for the purpose of discussing Brazilian business, strengthening relationships with local stakeholders, and developing customers.

What have you done in Brazil?

As you all know, Brazil is the country with the largest Japanese population in the world. Many Japanese companies are also doing business that is rooted in the local area.

One of the requests from the Brazilian team was to meet with many Japanese companies and build relationships.

I made a list of companies I wanted to interview with in advance. I thought it would be better to have some point of contact, so I chose mainly companies that have adopted Colorkrew Biz.

Since it was about to expand into Brazil, there were only so-called large companies on the list.

I was thinking that it would be difficult to make an appointment, but my schedule was filled up all at once.

As a result, I visited a total of 14 companies.

Despite my selfish request to tell you about the reality of doing business in Brazil, I am grateful for everyone's kind response.

I have talked about various things, but here are some excerpts.

• Brazil is the only country in South America that speaks Portuguese, and its own economy is large, so it seems to have a tendency to be Galapagos like Japan.
• Since there is not much time difference with the United States, it seems that IT engineers work for American companies.
• The cost of living is about 10,000 reais (about $2,000) per month for two couples, and about 15,000 reais (about $3,000) for one child.
• If you don't enter a dangerous area, you won't feel in danger, but on the contrary, you need to be careful in dangerous areas.
• Taxation is very complex, and if the global average annual tax processing time is 200 hours, Brazil will take 1,500 hours.

In addition, we had time to introduce Colorkrew at a gathering of about 300 Japanese companies.

I was able to talk about various things such as work and personal matters with the Brazilian members, and mutual understanding deepened.

Brazil was such a country

I actually stayed in São Paulo, Brazil for about two weeks, and the first thing I thought about was the cityscape, the food, and the European style (although I have never been there). I didn't have that kind of image, but I was convinced that most immigrants came from Portugal, Italy, and Spain. However, since it is a story about São Paulo, the others may be different.

Also, it was cold...

It's a matter of the season, but Brazil had an image of everlasting summer. I was wearing a down jacket there.

I had the impression that prices were not much different from Japan, although I think there was also an impact of the depreciation of the yen.

I imagine that one cup at a local coffee shop is about 250 yen, lunch is 1,000 yen, and when I go out for a drink, it starts at 5,000 yen. Maybe it's because of the store I went to.

Digitization is progressing, almost no paper is used, menus of restaurants are QR codes, and office buildings are also processed by reading QR codes. I never used cash.

There are many situations where the traffic jam is huge and it is faster to walk. The monorail to alleviate traffic congestion is abandoned in the middle of construction, but it seems that it was scheduled to be completed at the timing of the World Cup in Brazil.

Finally, the culture of mixed race.

There are many races, but it seems to be a mixed culture. When I actually talked to the people I met, I found that their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, and races were quite different. So there is no racism. In fact, I felt that kind of atmosphere, and I found it attractive.

In October, when I am writing this blog**, a new young engineer left for Brazil**.

I would like to continue to promote people-to-people exchanges and make my business in Brazil a success.

Colorkrew is actively recruiting business talent to accelerate global business.

If you are the one who is me, please apply!

Click here for Colorkrew recruitment site