Don't expect fast results in the Japan market. The sales cycle...

Don't expect fast results in the Japan market. The sales cycle is always slow there. It is all about relationships and many meetings. I was a little disappointed in reading the Japanese materials to see the sales push looks to be largely digital versus hands and feet. Relationships are key in the Japan market.

I hope they have picked a good partner with the right connections - the PMDA paperwork being completed by the distributor probably means that a 総代理店 (exclusive distributorship) arrangement has been signed to. These are hard to get out of in Japan - at least in other industries.

Hopefully I will be proven wrong. Market entry can go well with the right partners - perhaps they have chosen well, time will tell.

There is a lot to like about Japan (I enjoyed my 2 decades there), but it is often hard to get penetration due to the way the market is broken up and then mapped to specific supply chains. I might ask a friend in Japan to use a bloomberg terminal to check how M3 fits into the supply chain in the Japan market.