Welcome to Japan, the offshore nation.

I'm Kunihiko Monbun, CEO of GNUS Inc.

This series, titled "What You Need to Know About Digital Products Today," focuses on DX and digital products to help Japanese companies advance their DX initiatives.
This second installment discusses AI engineers in Japan.

GNUS Inc.: Established within the Dentsu Group in 2019 as a partner for business growth and transformation through digital products. We support clients from planning and PoC through development, operation, and growth of digital products—key to DX for new and existing businesses—by assembling optimal teams from our network of over 600 members globally and applying agile project management.

What's Happening with Japanese AI Engineers

With the recent yen depreciation, voices are emerging saying things like, "Japan has become a cheap country (in terms of global prices)" or "It might become an offshore destination." However, even five or six years ago when I was stationed in the US, people there were already starting to say Japan might be the ideal country for offshore development.

Back then, hiring costs for AI engineers were skyrocketing in the U.S. Simultaneously, the number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. was increasing, and they were starting to be recognized as IT engineers. Conversely, the number of Japanese students was declining. Even in the prestigious MBA (Technology Track) programs for working professionals at top New York universities, the vast majority of Asian students were Chinese. Japanese students made up less than 10%.

Amidst this, conversations like this were happening over drinks.

Japan's lower engineer salaries compared to other countries is a problem that needs solving. However, considering the current weak yen, it could also be said that investing in their quality is easier – that's the situation Japanese AI engineers find themselves in.

The key is team composition

That said, I imagine you all consider a wider range of factors when hiring engineers for development projects.

You might ask: What skills does this person have beyond programming? What type of product are they good at? Sometimes you'll even consider how they'll fit with the current team members.

Selecting team members involves more than just cost-effectiveness; various factors come into play. This is because work performance, not just for IT engineers, can vary significantly depending on the team and the project assignment. Furthermore, when it's not just one person but a team of ten, the difference in output becomes quite substantial.

In past GNUS Inc. projects, we've observed several cases where the same engineer delivered exceptionally high performance on one project but underperformed on another. We believe something beyond just skills and roles plays a major role here. That's why GNUS Inc. invests substantial resources into team composition when starting product development projects with our clients.

Our staffing approach isn't based on the perspective that matching skills and cost is sufficient. Instead, we assign the best people for each specific project, ultimately aiming to deliver the highest-quality product.

Thank you for reading to the end.
Please feel free to ask us about any challenges or concerns you have regarding staffing for your organization's product teams or development teams. We will do our best to address them in our series.

Contact us here:
https://www.gnus-inc.com/contact?utm_source=media&utm_medium=dentsu-ho&utm_campaign=blog01
 

Kunihiko Bunbun / Representative Director and CEO, GNUS Inc.
After joining Dentsu Inc., he was assigned to the Sales Division. He worked on marketing strategies for foreign consumer goods manufacturers and IT companies. In 2009, as part of Dentsu Inc.'s new business division, he launched the digital magazine sales app Magastore and served as its Product Manager. From 2011 onward, within Dentsu Inc.'s newly established New Business Development & Consulting division, he promoted digital transformation and new business consulting for the media, finance, automotive, and sports business industries. From 2017, seconded to Dentsu Holdings USA in New York, primarily responsible for digital marketing consulting and new business planning for major Japanese manufacturers, driving the development of software services utilizing AI. Returned to Japan in 2019, founded GNUS Inc., and assumed the position of CEO.