With the longtime presence of companies such as Honda of America Manufacturing and its Marysville auto plant, Ohio is an attractive place for Japanese companies to do business, industry experts said during a recent panel discussion hosted by The Ohio State University.
The virtual panel was part of a year-long series promoting discussion on how to enhance U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace, said Dominic DiCamilo, senior director of the Office of Global Business for Ohio State’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).
“At Ohio State, our CIBER focuses on bridging the gap between academic and business practice, whether that’s supporting export training, building global talent pipelines or funding international research with direct application to real-world business challenges,” he said. “We collaborate across disciplines and industries to help companies and communities navigate the global marketplace more effectively.”
The panel focused on strategies to strengthen relationships between Ohio’s business community and companies that have ties to Japan.
“Japan is the fourth-largest trading partner in the United States, with more than $230 billion in bilateral goods traded last year,” DiCamilo said. “Japan is also a top foreign investor in the U.S. and in Ohio, in particular.”
Ohio has the third-largest number of workers employed by Japanese companies in the nation, after only Texas and California, which have far larger total populations, said Justin Kocher, senior director of international business development at JobsOhio, the state’s economic development agency.
“I’m not sure people realize the extent. … It’s in the order of 70,000 people in our state are employed by Japanese companies,” he said. “Honda alone employs some 16,000 people here in Ohio, so we’re very fortunate to have that investment.”
In Ohio, Japanese companies represent 25% of all international employment, Kocher said. Japanese employers find Ohio attractive for a variety of reasons, including low taxes and an affordable cost of living compared to other states, as well as a skilled workforce, he said.
“We have the third-largest advanced manufacturing workforce,” Kocher said. “If you’re going to choose a place to establish your facility, you want to do it in an area where there’s a lot of potential, people, to pull from.”
Over the past decade, JobsOhio has worked with organizations such as the Japan Business Federation, known as KEIDANREN, to recruit and retain Japanese businesses in Ohio, said Teruko Wada, director of KEIDANREN’s International Affairs Bureau.
“You need to have trust with the partners, the people that you work with, and trust cannot be gained overnight,” she said. “JobsOhio and KEIDANREN, we started partnering in 2015, when KEIDANREN first dispatched a mission to Ohio with a huge delegation of high-level business leaders from Japan. JobsOhio has been instrumental in making it happen.”
A major strategy to continue to attract Japanese business operations and trade partners is for Ohio business representatives to build relationships with their Japanese counterparts over time, said Duane Detwiler, senior chief engineer, vice president of research and director of the Honda Research Institute USA Inc.
“I find in all cultures that it’s important to spend the time and put the effort into building the relationship, and then the other [business] activity is much more streamlined and much more effective,” he said. “And it does take a little bit of time, but often that time pays dividends down the road.”
Another major recruitment and retention strategy is for Ohio business representatives to familiarize themselves with management styles prevalent in Japan, said Andrew Lower, senior vice president of THK Manufacturing of America Inc. The mechanical components manufacturer is based in Hebron, Ohio.
“For the most part, the Japanese business executive is less risk-tolerant than a U.S. business executive. So when they’re making certain decisions about strategy, about retention and expansion at that plant, they need that level of certainty,” Lower said.
“They need to make sure that the team, the local domestic staff that is here, that they can trust them to be able to execute whatever those changes are that they need to do. I speak Japanese – that’s been extremely beneficial in my career growth for the plant, and for my own personal career growth.”
Hiroaki Kawamura, associate professor at the University of Findlay’s Department of Language and Culture, said he advises students to study the organizational culture of the industries where they seek employment.
“Each company has its own culture. Each industry has its own culture. And when we talk about culture and language, we need skills,” he said. “We will use everything we have to build relationships.”
Wada said she foresees a continued mutually beneficial relationship between Japanese companies and the business community in Ohio and the United States.
“Japan is the No. 1 investor [in U.S. goods and services] for the last five years, so that’s how much Japanese companies favor the U.S. market,” she said. “We still have a very strong appetite to invest in the U.S.”
The panel discussion was presented by CIBER and The Risk Institute, which are housed in the Fisher College of Business, and the East Asian Studies Center.
