The trend of Japanese enterprises developing offshore in Vietnam is increasingly popular, which means that the communication and exchange between businesses of the two countries is also gradually increasing. In the process of offshoring cooperation, there have been some difficult problems, obstacles and creating distance in work. What we need is to seriously look at those problems in order to have solutions to overcome and improve all aspects of the enterprise’s project. Here are some difficult problems when Japanese enterprises develop offshore in Vietnam that Tech Town has learned after more than 4 years of cooperation with businesses in the land of the Rising Sun.

1. Sometimes delays happen

This problem is mainly caused by misunderstanding, when the Japanese partners close the spec or provide the design slowly, the development team in Vietnam often thinks that this project is not too urgent, leading to both sides. have to wait for each other and slow down the common progress. 

In addition, Japanese partners are very often delayed when answering questions from the Vietnamese team, which can be days or even weeks. But at the end of the project, the Japanese side often asks Vietnam to reply within a few minutes. This is unreasonable at work. 

To answer the questions of Japanese businesses about the slow pace when working with Vietnam, we believe that the delay is also partly the cause of the Japanese side. Therefore, we need to actively urge each other and communicate regularly to maintain progress. If it is a short project that requires fast speed, then both sides must agree and be aware of the issue of speed even before starting the project.

2. Feedback when agreed in the meeting

There are many cases where both Japanese and Vietnamese sides have agreed on the implementation method, the project plan and the solutions/adjustments of the leader from the Vietnamese side, but after the meeting, there are often objections. from Japanese partners. Not to mention restarting the meeting is very difficult. 

In fact, this is a matter of communication. The reason may be due to the language barrier or the Vietnamese leaders’ ability to express logical opinions in Japanese is not really fluent. Therefore, do not decide on an issue in the way that “no opinion means agreeing”, but increase the exploitation of all aspects of the problem and thoroughly solve it together right in the meeting, and let sure that nothing will change after the discussion.

3. Make it look like something is available

Many Japanese business partners in product development projects have skipped the spec creation and asked the team in Vietnam to do “similar to the ABC model …”. However, the requirements arising in the project of the Japanese partner are usually to integrate this function – that, there is no need to follow the same as ABC… 

That causes fragmentation in the final product, because no one has a clear picture of what the product is and can lead to failure. Most professional development teams can’t take an existing product and simply quote it into the spec document, which needs to work to create a separate image for the partner. Imagine, we can’t imagine the character of this story to be similar to another work, neither is the spec document.

4. Takes a long time for small edits

There are many cases on the Japanese side that require text correction or something simple, which is expected to be completed in just 1-2 hours, but these are often extended to an entire day. The main reason is that when editing or changing, it will affect many other related functions, the offshore company on the Vietnamese side will ask questions and need the decision of the Japanese partner. However, the Japanese side is often dissatisfied when answering such questions because of the lack of confidence in the skills of the Vietnamese. This leads to the Vietnamese leader being afraid and reacting more cautiously than necessary, resulting in more time consuming. 

Expressing anger is necessary at work, but offshore is different, people often work together without ever meeting. So let’s build mutual trust and promote teamwork. When there are problems, there are questions, and those questions should be addressed with understanding and mutual support for a common goal.

5. The Japanese side decides too much on their own

When the project is being implemented, the Japanese partner will play the role of verifying, evaluating and giving a completely different directive. For example, the Japanese side asked to do AB, when receiving the result AB and seeing that it is not the same as expected => Request to redo BC. This makes the Vietnamese offshore side not know which standard is correct, making it more time consuming to export data that meets all of Japan’s requirements. The exchange also takes longer and loses the meaning of offshore. Therefore, the Japanese side also needs to share all the information and requirements that they want, so that the Vietnamese side can classify the data themselves.

Deal with barriers.

Most of the Japanese partners that Tech Town has cooperated with think that Vietnamese people are too familiar with the Japanese, understand Japanese well as well as grasp the Japanese way of thinking. Because of those misunderstandings, there are situations where the Japanese want to not speak but need their partners to understand themselves. However, unlike domestic people, Vietnamese people are still foreigners, they want their partners to understand language or cultural barriers but explain more, communicate and exchange more. for both sides to understand each other. 

Nothing is 100% perfect, before the above problems, Vietnam is still the favorite offshoring destination for Japanese businesses for many reasons such as high engineer level, optimal cost and stable IT environment. determined and has strong growth potential. If a Japanese business partner has the need to develop offshore in Vietnam but has not had a suitable choice, then Tech Town, with its long-term experience of working with Japanese enterprises, has gained the trust and satisfaction in the projects. project, very worthy of consideration by partners. 

Tech Town is a technology company from Ho Chi Minh City – the most dynamic and developed city in Vietnam, a reliable IT offshoring partner of businesses in Japan. We provide business partners in Japan with support from Vietnamese technology experts with high qualifications, long experience, and proficiency in many programming languages such as: Ruby on Rails, Node JS , PHP, Java, Python…, applying modern technology in software development such as: AI, Machine Learning, Blockchain… always dedicated and professional in project implementation, especially flexible working style, Fast, suitable for Japanese businesses. 

Contact us if your business has any technological challenges.