Businesses between Japan and Europe, understood from both sides.
IMASIM International supports Japanese businesses entering Europe and European businesses entering Japan: market entry, business culture, interpreting and corporate language training.
Based in Romania and the Netherlands, working across Europe and Japan.
Because two good companies
can still misread each other.
A market entry succeeds or fails on things no agreement suggests: how trust is built before business is discussed, what silence means in a meeting, how each side reaches a decision, when a proposal is genuinely accepted, what a polite rejection sounds like. Companies arrive well prepared on strategy and find themselves slowed by everything around it.
What slows a business down lives in the space between two ways of working. We work in that space.
What changes- Clearer communication in both directions
- Decisions that move faster
- Less rework and fewer misread signals
- Partners who trust the relationship
- New business from existing partnerships
- A team that can work across the distance
Four ways we close the distance.
Market entry consulting
Support for companies entering a market in either direction: Japanese businesses establishing themselves in Europe and European businesses opening in Japan. We help you understand the ground before you commit to it and stay alongside you while you land.
- Partner identification and first introductions
- Product registration, authorisation and import guidance
- Local set-up support and stakeholder liaison
- Ongoing accompaniment through the first year
Business culture workshops
Practical, in-house sessions for teams working across the two cultures. Two directions, the same craft: European staff working with a Japanese head office and Japanese staff working with European teams. Collaboration with the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, including business culture workshops within its Space Business Training Module.
- How decisions are actually reached on each side
- Meetings, silence, hierarchy and consensus
- Written and spoken etiquette that builds trust
- Cultural onboarding programmes for arriving colleagues and families
Meeting accompaniment and interpreting
We join your meetings and negotiations with Japanese partners, reading what is happening beneath the language and advising you as it unfolds. Certified Japanese interpreting and translation where you need it, from twenty years spent in rooms where the outcome mattered.
- Accompaniment through negotiations and partner meetings
- Certified interpreting and technical document translation
- On-site support for training and hand-over programmes
- Japanese, English and Romanian
Corporate language courses
Business language training for companies and their teams, in English, Japanese and Romanian. Curriculum built for your industry and your people, delivered in person or online, by a teacher who has trained corporate managers from various industries in Japan for years.
- Business English, Japanese and Romanian
- Curriculum designed around your sector and roles
- Group programmes and one-to-one executive coaching
- In person or online, from beginner to advanced
Both business cultures,
learned from the inside.
Irina spent four years living and working in Japan, teaching business English to more than a hundred managers at corporations including Tadano, Mitsubishi Denki, Toyo Tanso, Shikoku Denryouku, Imabari Zosen and Kawasaki Zosen and leading a team of international teachers there in the process.
She teaches Japanese language and culture as an Associate Lecturer at the West University of Timișoara, where she is also a doctoral researcher in Japanese culture. She collaborates with the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, delivering business culture training within its Space Business Training Module.
Back in Europe, she supported several Japanese companies through their set-up. At a Japanese manufacturer opening in the Netherlands, she facilitated the know-how transfer between the Japanese and Dutch teams. She interpreted in meetings as well as operator training, liaising directly with managers in Japan and China. The client portfolio she oversaw tripled. Every team member she hired stayed.
Earlier she built the European market-entry strategy for newly imported Japanese goods, completing the registration and authorisation of five health products, supporting the negotiation and acquisition of Japanese-made production machinery and assisting with the know-how transfer of new set-up technologies in automotive factories.
She holds a Master's in Integral Linguistics and a degree in English and Japanese language and literature, studied Japanese at INALCO in Paris and has been a certified English and Japanese translator and interpreter since 2004.
Andrei supports the practice on the organisational side. He has spent over twenty years leading digital transformation and product organisations across Europe, including building a 60-person product organisation and a digital workplace platform used by more than 20,000 people. He is a doctoral researcher in political science.
Where a client's question moves from culture to how the organisation itself runs, decision-making structures, digital adoption, ways of working across distance, he joins the engagement.
What clients have said.
When one of our clients needed an interpreter for Japanese, Irina was our first choice. She had been highly recommended and it was really a pleasure working with her. Once the project was completed, the feedback from our client regarding her performance was excellent. We will definitely work with her in the future.
Managing Partner, X-tern Data
An exemplary team player with a level of dedication well above average. Her organisational skills and quick grasp of requirements helped us get through our duties with ease. Any company will be lucky to have her among its collaborators.
Managing Director, European Future Group
Practical things
worth knowing.
Which languages do you work in?
Japanese, English and Romanian for interpreting, translation and language training. Consulting and workshops are delivered in English, Japanese or Romanian. Italian and French are available for conversation and correspondence.
Do you travel, or work remotely?
Both. Workshops and interpreting are usually delivered on site anywhere in Europe. We also travel to Japan when an engagement calls for it. Consulting, coaching and language courses run equally well online.
How long does an engagement last?
It varies with the work. A workshop is a day or a short series. Interpreting is booked by the day. Market entry support usually runs over several months. Language programmes are ongoing. We scope each one before we start.
Do you only work with large companies?
No. We work with organisations of any size, from a founder opening a first market to an established manufacturer setting up a European operation. What matters is that the work sits between Japan and Europe.
How does pricing work?
Interpreting and workshops are quoted per day. Language programmes are quoted per course. Consulting is quoted per engagement after a scoping conversation, so you know the cost before anything begins.
How soon can you start?
Interpreting and workshops can usually be arranged within a few weeks, subject to the calendar. Longer consulting engagements begin with a scoping conversation, which we can normally hold within days.
Arrange a call with
Irina Kaitar.
Whether you are opening a market, preparing a team, or need someone in the room who understands both sides, start with a conversation. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it, and if we are not, we can still help you find the right team. Either way you can count on us.