So I think European customers are tougher. However, some Europeans doing business in Japan say relationship-building is one area where they have a strong advantage over their American competitors. In Europe and Japan, the contract is something you quickly draw up and then forget about because the relationships are everything. The business cultures are different, but not as different as the US culture is from Japan's. European executives are prone to reconcile disputes with mutually agreeable solutions, he says, while US executives tend to be more aggressive.
American companies are very strong in positioning themselves so that they prevail.
So making an alliance with them is somewhat difficult for Europeans and Japanese. Sometimes it works, but generally speaking, pushing and trying to prevail meets with resistance from Europeans and Japanese. But on a more tangible level, Urano says that the background European and Japanese companies share in cellular technologies makes cooperation in that field even more valuable. He says the wireless EMTS networks that Europe will soon establish, for example, can be advanced by Japan's semiconductor industries' proven ability to manufacture chip sets designed for the technology. Japan's ability to develop and promote the wireless Internet even has many European IT companies going against the conventional wisdom that the first stop for overseas expansion is the United States.