What was the secret to the enduring relationship of trust formed with customers and the team while working in Shanghai?

August 10,2022

Shinsuke Ozaki of the Quality & Environmental Division utilized overseas sales company training^*1 and worked in Shanghai for one year. His decision to leave for this new post was rooted in changes in the content of the work in his department. Ozaki keenly felt the importance of listening to the customers directly, so he persuaded his family and set off to Shanghai alone. While there, he was shocked by the complexity of the action taken locally, which had not been visible from his Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (SSS) base in Atsugi, and, more than anything else, he was shocked by the sense of speed that was demanded by the customers.
Ozaki realized that substantial support activities would be essential in order to fully utilize the strong product capabilities of SSS, so he started activities that would enable him to construct a relationship of trust with the customers and the team in China as soon as possible. As a result, the requests from customers for support proceeded more smoothly and this led to the construction of a good relationship. How was he able to quickly win this trust overseas, where the culture and ways of thinking differ from those in Japan?

*1) “Overseas sales company training” is a human resource development initiative that is unique to SSS. The goal is for employees to work on the front line with overseas customers to expand the breadth of their experience, to gain an understanding of the market trends and situation of technology utilization overseas, and to obtain human connections in the local area.

Ozaki Shinsuke

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation
Quality & Environmental Division

Entered Sony Corporation (current Sony Group Corporation) in 2009. Assigned to the Quality Reliability Division in the Semiconductor Business Group. After that, he was loaned to Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation and participated in work such as product development for camera modules before his current work in product quality assurance for image sensors in the Quality & Environmental Division.

The gap between China and Japan in the speed of operations was greater than imagined

Ozaki had been in the Quality & Environmental Division performing the final quality checks before the shipping of image sensors for mobile. In that work, it was decided that the policy for the division would be to increase the speed of the cycle of “prototype sample evaluation” and “feedback to process” to improve customer problems from the time of prototyping and advance the product creation. It therefore became the work of Ozaki’s division to respond to problems that occurred in the prototypes. The customers receiving samples were Chinese smartphone manufacturers. Any technical problems that could not be handled by the local team in Shanghai were being sent back to Ozaki in Atsugi. However, even after listening to the explanations from the team, he was performing the work with doubts such as that he did not understand the real intentions of the customer, or was not sure that something was really the way it seemed. At that time, he learned of the existence of the training system of one-year working overseas and decided to work in Shanghai, because he wanted to hear what the customers were saying directly and thought that he could learn something if he did.

With regards to leaving for the new post, he had concerns about the support of his family and his language ability, but, to his surprise, his family agreed without issue. For the other matter of his language ability, although he spent the six months before the move studying hard, there were still, of course, a lot of things that he did not understand in the city. He continued to attend Chinese language classes each week during his time overseas and worked to achieve smoother communication.
His main duties in Shanghai were to quickly solve any quality problems that occurred on the customer side and to maintain and improve the quality of SSS products. The level of the problems was sorted so that the Shanghai team provided support locally for all the things they could handle locally, but technical problems were referred to Atsugi or Kyushu^*2 for a response. The first thing that surprised him in his new post was the difference in the sense of speed. With events such as the sales battle for the Chinese New Year, the product development in China is advanced in a six-month cycle. The response demanded for a quality problem is to handle it either today or tomorrow.

*2) Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing, a development and mass-production base for image sensors.

Improving the skills of the local team and customers is a short-cut to a good relationship

In this situation, the first endeavor that Ozaki worked on was to improve the skills of the Shanghai team. He implemented study sessions for the team once per week, and thoroughly taught them which problems could be solved technically, and which problems could not. His thinking was that, “At the time, the technical knowledge of the local team members could not really be described as sufficient. The situation was that any requests from the customers were first shared with Atsugi. Therefore, if the local staff could have a firm technical knowledge, then as SSS, this would make the team stronger, and, more than anything else, it should mean a marked improvement in the quality and speed of the response to customers.” The team members approached these study sessions eagerly and started to deal with the problems they understood themselves by themselves, so the speed of the response to the customers was dramatically improved. Ozaki built up a relationship of trust with the local team members by actively doing things that benefitted those members.
Another endeavor he worked on was to represent the development side of the image sensors for mobile, and he made an effort to honestly and clearly communicate that “things that are not possible are not possible.” He was listening to what the customers were saying directly in the local area, so he was painfully familiar with the feelings of the local team. However, he also knew the story on the development side. As he was in the special position of understanding the feelings of both sides, he could reasonably listen to what was truly necessary and sincerely communicate what was the minimum that must definitely be done, so the development side were also persuaded. Ozaki played the role of a bridge between Shanghai and Atsugi and says that, “I had the confidence that I knew more about the customers than anyone else, so this was why the development side would also listen to what I had to say.” “However, there are also times when the customers deliberately make strong demands. I struggled until I got used to it, but my work was to determine what it was that the customer was really demanding.”

A photograph with member who worked together during overseas sales company training
（Ozaki is the first one on the left.）

It was also often the case that, “There was no problem with the SSS’s image sensor, but the customer did not understand how to use the sensor correctly and thought that the sensor had a problem, so demanded a response.” Ozaki noticed that the large number of exchanges of this type were creating stress for both parties. This was the reason for his third endeavor, which was to provide substantial technical support activities for the customers. Rather than simply responding to problems, he actively provided the customers with basic knowledge such as the methods for using the sensors. He provided support so that the customers gain greater knowledge of the sensors and problems that were not related to the sensor could be solved on the customer side. Ozaki says that, “The SSS’s products themselves were received very favorably. However, it was said that the support provided was very weak. It seemed that other companies had support staff stationed on site, but we did not. However, we reduce the number of unnecessary inquiries and increase the speed of the response to the customers as much as possible, and then Atsugi and Kyushu make every effort to provide support for the points that truly require improvement. As we have been able to create this good flow, I feel that the relationship of trust with the customers has improved markedly.” he could also add that for the customers, learning knowledge about sensors is also an effective way to improve their future work efficiency. The active provision of services that are beneficial to the other party in this way also led to the acquisition of the trust of the customer. When asked what else was required to improve trust, he said, “To produce products that are always good.” Ozaki wants to advance the product creation in a way that will make the customer think that they do not need to have support staff stationed on site.

It is important for you to change yourself

Ozaki says that after returning to Atsugi, he had started to think about things from the viewpoint of “the products that the customers want.” During the one-year period working overseas, he had visited customers repeatedly, listened to what they had to say, and also come up against major problems, so he had come to be constantly aware of how difficult it is on site, and about what it is that the customers want. Even after returning to Atsugi, Ozaki continues to be a bridge between the customers and the development side. While he appreciates the thinking on the development side, he also wants to “correct things properly before sending them back.” Furthermore, he says that he had shared his experiences in Shanghai with the department members in Atsugi and has built up relationships to enable close communication with the local team members. He is eagerly working to create one strong team that includes the Shanghai team, Atsugi and Kyushu, based on the thinking that, “We must never cause failures at the customer.”
As advice for anybody thinking about taking on the challenge of being stationed overseas, he says that, “What is important is communication ability.” He explains that, “It is an important job that connects the customer with the Japan side, so rather than simply passing on information, it is important that you have the ability to firmly grasp the intent of the customer and to communicate it appropriately. In the same way, it is also important to appropriately communicate the opinion of the development side to the customer.” Ozaki also says that, “It is important for you, yourself, to change. It is very important that you properly understand the culture of the local area and how the people there think. You must not try to impose your own or the Japanese way of thinking about and doing things. You must fit yourself to the local rules and think about what you should do to make things better.”
This is the proactive thinking that, “If we don’t understand something, let’s try going there.” It is also the spirit of altruism, to “Actively do things that will be good for the people at the local site.” Seeing this stance of Ozaki, to not impose his own way of thinking, but rather to flexibly change himself while searching for the best way, I felt that I had seen the perfect role model for how we should construct the global human relations that will be indispensable for society from now on.