Japan should be the second largest national market for your medical device after the United States and maximizing sales performance in Japan should be critical to your overall corporate success. Yet, many manufacturers are frustrated by their results in Japan or struggle to attract the interest of leading distributors. Follow these steps to create a winning market strategy in Japan that will wow investors and leapfrog the competition.

   The sales channel in Japan is arguably the most expensive and complex in the world due to unique regulatory requirements and the high level of customer service demanded by end users. The first step to designing a winning strategy is to understand the functional responsibilities and costs in the sales process. To do this, diagram all the entities that touch your product from your factory to the Japanese hospital.