An oft-cited success story resulting from a JMEC proposal is the GoLloyds remittance service which helped Lloyds TSB Bank, a British financial institution, break into an industry hitherto dominated by the Japan Post Service and Japanese banks.
Tasked to help Lloyds gain a foothold in the remittance market despite only having one branch in Japan, the team developed a plan that allowed customers to use their own banks’ ATMs to send the money in yen to Lloyds in Tokyo, who would then convert it to foreign currency and remit it overseas.
Through focus groups and the distribution of 13,000 questionnaires to subjects in the target market, the team discerned that customers would gladly pay a 2,000 yen handling fee for the service and convenience of GoLloyds. With the handling fee charge and forex spreads, Lloyds was able to break even within a very short time. Lloyds was able to completely cover the cost of the JMEC business plan from 100 remittances. To date, GoLloyds remains one of the most competitive overseas remittance services in Japan.
Members of the winning JMEC 15 team, Crafts Americana Group, and Mitsuhiro Honda, General Manager of Corporate Marketing, Hewlett-Packard Japan.
Mostly, clients and participants get to know about the JMEC program through word of mouth—JMEC’s network reaches out to over 15,000 foreigners and Japanese through various networking organizations and chambers of commerce.
“In a virtuous cycle of entrepreneurism, some former JMEC participants have joined corporations that subsequently employ JMEC’s services because they know what it’s about and what a great scheme it is,” said Weisser.
Teams submit their business plans to the project client and a panel of judges by the end of April, followed by an oral presentation. Winners are announced at the annual Awards Ceremony at the beginning of June. According to JMEC, prizes for this year will be comparable to last year’s, which included a laptop computer from Hewlett-Packard Japan and a one-year individual membership to the ACCJ for each team member for the first prize, a round trip ticket to Europe for the second prize, and hotel vouchers for the third.
But all members, and clients, emerge as winners as they become part of a vibrant business network. “With about 250 alumni still residing in Japan, JMEC puts on monthly happy hours and larger, quarterly networking events. We also collaborate with other organizations to continue to add value to our alumni as well as give back to society and the business community,” said Bach.
“The JMEC program will not be able to prepare you on all aspects to be a successful manager or entrepreneur,” said JMEC 13’s Bast. “It is just not enough time for all issues that would need to be covered. So, it is up to each participant, how much effort he puts into this program and continues to put into later in his career to further learn and improve his business skills.”
