In an Asia Insights conversation at IVS Kyoto 2026, SHARVIL CEO Shreshth Sapra explains why foreign companies entering Japan need patience, localisation and cultural fluency — and why Japanese companies may have even greater opportunities overseas
KYOTO, Japan, July 5, 2026 — Japan remains one of Asia’s most sophisticated business markets, but also one of the hardest for foreign companies to enter. For Shreshth Sapra, Founder and CEO of SHARVIL, the reason is clear: Japan does not reward product confidence alone. It rewards trust, discipline, consistency and the ability to reduce uncertainty.
Speaking to AsiaBizToday on the sidelines of IVS Kyoto 2026, Sapra said many international companies misunderstand Japan because they assume that a successful product overseas will automatically succeed in the Japanese market.
“The biggest misconception is that their product is good,” he said. “Japan does not care about how good your product is. The market is not made like that.”
For Sapra, this is not a theory formed from the outside. It is the basis of the company he has built in Japan.
An Indian entrepreneur from Sonipat, Haryana, Sapra came to Japan in 2017 through a scholarship programme supported by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He first studied Japanese at Osaka University before entering the mechanical engineering programme at Kyoto University.
While still a student, he realised that the conventional route of joining a Japanese company was not for him. “I found out that I’m not cut out to work in a Japanese company,” he said. “The long story short is that I decided when I was in my third year to start my own company.”
That company became SHARVIL, known in Japanese as Kabushiki Gaisha SHARVIL. What began as an offshore IT development business has since evolved into a cross-border business development and execution platform, helping both foreign companies enter Japan and Japanese companies expand overseas.
From IT services to cross-border execution
SHARVIL initially worked with engineering talent from markets such as India, Dubai and Vietnam to support software development for Japanese clients. Sapra believed Japanese software systems were often conventional and could benefit from offshore engineering capability.
But over time, he realised that software delivery itself was not SHARVIL’s core strength. “What I could deliver better than anyone else was because I had the best understanding of Japanese culture, Japanese people and the Japanese language,” he said.
That insight pushed the company beyond IT. Today, SHARVIL applies the same bridge-building model across industries, with cross-border business development becoming its main business.
Sapra is careful, however, not to call SHARVIL a conventional consulting firm. “We like to stay away from the word consulting because we do not just consult and leave,” he said. “We stay there to execute.”
That distinction matters in Japan, where strategy without follow-through rarely creates trust. For companies entering the market, execution means building credibility, adapting communication, finding local partners, navigating decision-making processes and staying committed long enough to be taken seriously.
Why good products fail in Japan
For foreign companies, Sapra’s first warning is simple: a good product is not enough. In many markets, a strong product demo, global traction, pricing advantage or aggressive sales push may be enough to create momentum. Japan works differently.
“What Japan cares about is which company is behind the product,” Sapra said. Japanese customers and business partners want to know whether the company is consistent, disciplined, punctual and reliable. They want confidence that the company can be trusted with data, service quality, relationships and long-term support.
“Japanese people, Japanese public, Japanese businesses are going to want to understand everything about your company,” he said. “If it is disciplined, if it is consistent, if it is punctual, and if you check all the boxes, then you start developing trust with the market.”
Sapra said SHARVIL has seen companies that were doing well in their home markets, and even in other overseas markets, struggle when they tried to enter Japan. “A successful product overseas does not guarantee success in Japan,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
Japan rewards certainty over speed
One of Sapra’s sharpest insights is the contrast between Japan and many other markets. “Overseas markets appreciate speed over certainty. Japan is the opposite,” he said. “Japan appreciates certainty over speed.”
For startups used to moving fast, this can be frustrating. Japanese customers may take longer to decide, ask for more documentation, require internal consensus and expect a deeper level of preparation. But Sapra believes this is not a weakness. It reflects a market culture built around risk reduction and long-term reliability.
“They don’t care how fast you can move, how fast you can bring in the commercials, how fast you can bring your product in,” he said. “How fast can you build trust? How fast can you take the uncertainties away? That is what the Japanese market appreciates.”
That means localisation must go beyond translation. For companies entering Japan, localisation includes business etiquette, documentation, support systems, sales behaviour, partner credibility, local communication and a commitment to long-term relationship-building.
“The trust that they have to develop in this market with Japanese people and Japanese companies requires a lot of localisation,” he said.
Sapra used an engineering analogy to describe the Japanese market: “Dynamic friction is zero in Japan. Static friction is huge. Once you cross that barrier, they always stay.” In other words, Japan is difficult to enter, but customers can be highly loyal once trust is established.
Why Japanese companies struggle overseas
While foreign companies struggle to enter Japan, many Japanese companies face the opposite problem: expanding internationally. Japanese companies are admired for product quality, process discipline and long-term customer relationships. But Sapra said these strengths are often built specifically for the domestic market.
“Language is just the surface,” he said. “Their products are usually tailored for the cultures of Japanese people. Their markets are not tailored to expand into any market that they can look forward to.”
For Japanese companies going overseas, the challenge is not only English communication. It is adapting product design, customer engagement, pricing, sales processes, decision-making and business assumptions for different markets.
“They will have to do the cultural changes. They will have to change the product according to the market they are thinking of expanding in. And also, they will have to change themselves,” he said.
This is where SHARVIL sees its opportunity: helping Japanese companies retain their strengths while adapting enough to succeed outside Japan. “We understand both cultures. That’s why we can be that bridge,” Sapra said.
Risk aversion as part of Japan’s strength
Japan is often described as risk-averse, particularly in discussions about startups, AI and software innovation. Sapra agrees, but he does not see this only as a flaw. “Yes, they are,” he said when asked whether Japanese companies are risk-averse. “They do not like taking a lot of risk.”
But in his view, risk sensitivity is closely tied to Japan’s reputation for quality. “Japanese companies wear a lot of pride on their chest that they have developed whatever product or service they are working on with discipline, with consistency, with cultural etiquettes — and being risk-averse is one of them,” he said.
He believes Japan should not abandon this identity simply to imitate faster-moving startup cultures. Instead, companies like SHARVIL can help Japanese businesses identify which risks are worth taking when entering unfamiliar markets.
That perspective is particularly relevant at IVS Kyoto 2026, where Japan’s startup ecosystem has been presenting itself as more open and globally ambitious. Sapra’s argument is that Japan can globalise without becoming less Japanese.
What startups can learn from older Japanese companies
At a time when entrepreneurship is receiving renewed attention in Japan, Sapra believes younger companies should learn from the older generation of Japanese businesses that built global brands. His advice: “Don’t be presumptuous.”
He said established Japanese companies succeeded because they kept their foundations strong while adapting gradually. “The big companies keep their foundation very strong. They keep their roots very, very strong,” he said. “The same culture that has been running in the industry, in the family since the early 1900s is still intact. And then they start doing the changes on top of that.”
By contrast, he believes some startups try to change their foundation entirely in order to appear more global or overseas-friendly. “You can probably make your company look like it is overseas friendly, but will you be able to achieve that level of success that other companies have by keeping their foundations strong? I don’t think so,” he said.
For Japan’s startup ecosystem, this is a useful distinction. Globalisation does not have to mean imitation. Japanese startups may need stronger storytelling, faster international sales and greater cross-border ambition, but they can still build from Japan’s traditional strengths: quality, discipline, trust and long-term thinking.
The outbound opportunity for Japan
Looking ahead, Sapra believes the larger opportunity may lie in Japanese companies expanding overseas rather than only foreign companies entering Japan. “I think there is a lot more possibility of Japanese companies going overseas,” he said.
His reasoning is that Japan has already experienced many of the challenges that developing markets are now beginning to face — urbanisation, pollution, infrastructure pressure, real estate stress, ageing and productivity gaps.
“Japan has gone through this journey. It is like the parent to almost any country that you can possibly think of,” he said. “They have developed solutions and technologies that can solve problems that other countries are going to face right now.”
For countries such as India and parts of Southeast Asia, Japanese companies can export not only products, but also experience, systems and applied knowledge.
“Exporting solutions outside Japan, supporting the R&D experiences outside of Japan is going to bring a good level of success,” Sapra said.
Sapra’s long-term ambition for SHARVIL is both professional and personal. He wants the company to become a key execution partner for Japanese companies expanding globally — helping them research, build networks and operate overseas.
Sapra’s story reflects a broader moment in Japan’s business and startup landscape. Japan wants more global startup engagement. Foreign companies want access to Japan. Japanese companies need to expand into faster-growing markets. But between these ambitions sit barriers of culture, language, trust, localisation and execution.
That is the space SHARVIL wants to occupy. For foreign companies, Sapra’s message is clear: do not assume your product is enough. In Japan, the product may open curiosity, but only trust opens the market.
For Japanese companies, the opportunity is equally clear: the world needs many of the solutions Japan has already built. The challenge is to adapt them for global markets without losing the strengths that made them valuable in the first place.