Japanese through and through
Satomi Suzuki juggles family and career by mediating between two worlds. And she is conquering one new business area after the other.
It's five in the morning, CET. Satomi Suzuki's working day in Munich has just begun. In Japan it's now 1 pm - a good time to catch clients. What the Japanese like most is direct contact - in day-to-day business, but particularly when important decisions have to be made: "It's pretty much impossible to land a major order without having met. I'm constantly flying to Japan to talk to my clients about the next trade fair or simply to nurture personal contact. That's the only way you can win their trust."
Satomi Suzuki takes care of the trade show appearances of Japanese clients in Europe. For many companies, this means immersion in an unknown world with its foreign language, unfamiliar customs and business culture. So it is of immeasurable importance to have a local contact you can rely on.
Her company Sa:Su Networks offers the full range of services covers everything from stand construction to the provision of interpreters and companions and reserving hotel rooms, and so meets the consistently high expectations of service that the Japanese are used to. Her company has now established itself as a specialist for the trade fair appearances of Japanese companies in Germany. For many years, the service agency has co-operated closely with the Mesago Messe Frankfurt Corporation, the organiser of Interior Lifestyle, Tokyo, and has gained the trust of Japanese companies and chambers of commerce. Sa:Su Network is a precise reflection of the "challenge spirit" of its founder Satomi Suzuki, her energy, her courage to conquer new worlds both professionally and privately and take her extended range of experience to engender exiting new ideas, friends say.
Having learned the exhibition business inside out, Satomi Suzuki established Sa:Su Network in 2001. In so doing she has fulfilled her other aim in life. "Career and family, I'll do anything for that. I am a Japanese woman who has found a place in Germany. I do work that is enjoyable while at the same time earning money." Combining work and a family is no easy task and sometimes family life does suffer. But when Satomi Suzuki is in Tokyo for five weeks and concentrates fully on her work she can rest assured that her children are in good hands: Her attitude to her work is Japanese through and through: "For the Japanese, work and private life are inseparable. To what extent am I here in a private capacity, to what extent in a business capacity? I really don't know." Of one thing she is certain: "If I had a German mentality, I couldn't win over so many clients." Step by step Satomi Suzuki thus conquers new business areas. Recently Satomi Suzuki launched a new project in partnership with the Munich publishers Fritsch & Partner: the publication in Japan of TOP FAIR, the official trade fair magazine of Messe Frankfurt. June 2006 saw the appearance of the first TOP FAIR Interior Lifestyle, Tokyo commissioned by Messe Frankfurt Medien und Service GmbH and Mesago Messe Frankfurt Corporation.
Trade fair magazines are still relatively unknown in Japan and a niche market. For Satomi Suzuki it is the second large new project within the space of a few months. Since February 2006 her office has been the official representative office (!) of the Kamo Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Germany while at the same time taking responsibility for the marketing consulting for Kiri furniture from the city of Kamo in the Niigata prefecture. And expansion continues. After her first order for a trade fair in Paris, Satumi Suzuki is extending her services for Japanese companies to France. In order to be able to offer the relevant services there, too, she has taken an intensive course in French.
m+a report Nr.8 / 2006 vom 08.12.2006
m+a report vom 8. Dezember 2006