Market Access Workshops for Japan: What They Are and How EU SMEs Join
The EU-Japan Centre's Market Access Workshops give European SMEs free, expert-led preparation for the Japanese market, sectoral and cultural. How they work, what they cost (nothing), and how to get one hosted in your region.
- Market Access Workshops are free, expert-led sessions from the EU-Japan Centre that prepare European SMEs for the Japanese market
- They are co-organised with local EU partners, Enterprise Europe Network members, clusters, chambers, and regional development agencies, so they are usually delivered in your own region or language context
- Format is 1-2 hours online or 3-4 hours on-site; content splits between sectoral market access (regulation, requirements, strategy) and Japanese business culture (protocol, meetings, decision-making)
- They are free to participants: the Centre covers the expert fee and any travel. The programme has run regularly since 2015
- Silkdrive founder Patric Sawada has delivered these workshops to Polish, Czech, and Swedish SME cohorts; if your region has an EEN partner, you can ask them to host one
If your company is weighing up Japan, there is a free, expert-led way to get your team prepared, sectorally and culturally, without paying a consultancy. The EU-Japan Centre's Market Access Workshops have done exactly this for European SMEs since 2015, and most companies have never heard of them.
This guide explains how they work and how to get one. It is written by Silkdrive founder Patric Sawada, who has delivered these workshops as an accredited EU-Japan Centre expert, so it covers the model from the delivery side as well as the participant side.
What they are
A Market Access Workshop is a session that prepares European SMEs for the Japanese market. Each one covers one or both of:
- Sectoral market access — the requirements, regulations, and entry strategies for a specific industry in Japan.
- Japanese business culture — how to meet Japanese partners, business protocol, and how decisions actually get made.
The defining feature is the delivery model: the Centre co-organises each workshop with a local EU partner, an Enterprise Europe Network member, cluster, chamber of commerce, or regional development agency. The local partner hosts and gathers the audience; the Centre supplies the accredited expert and pays the costs. That is why these workshops tend to land in your own region and language context rather than as a generic global webcast.
Format and cost
| Online | On-site | |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | ~1-2 hours | ~3-4 hours |
| Location | Anywhere | Premises of a local EEN partner / EU entity |
| Cost to you | Free | Free |
Participants pay nothing. The Centre covers the expert's fee and any travel and accommodation. This is funded work, not lead-gen, which is why the content can stay genuinely useful rather than turning into a sales pitch.
What a cultural workshop actually delivers
The business-culture sessions exist to stop the expensive, avoidable mistakes. European teams routinely misread Japanese meetings: they treat silence as disagreement, over-prepare etiquette while under-preparing the decision process, and set Q1 commercial targets on a market that calibrates partners over years. A good workshop resets those expectations before they cost a relationship. In the cohorts I have delivered to, the most common reaction is not "I learned new etiquette", it is "I have been measuring the wrong things."
For the underlying mechanics, our guides on nemawashi, the ringi approval process, and honne and tatemae go deeper than any single session can.
How to get a workshop in your region
- Identify your nearest Enterprise Europe Network partner, cluster, chamber, or regional development agency.
- Ask them whether they can co-host a Market Access Workshop with the EU-Japan Centre. They can respond to the Centre's periodic calls for expressions of interest among EEN partners.
- If you just want to attend, watch the Centre's events page for upcoming workshops you can register for.
When you need the private version instead
A Market Access Workshop is a cohort session: broad enough to serve a mixed audience. If your situation is specific, a live deal, a particular Japanese counterpart, a regulated sector, you may want a session built only around your company. That is what Silkdrive's Japan Market Entry Webinar and Japanese business culture training provide: the same practitioner, delivered privately to your team. But if you are at the orientation stage, start with the free Centre workshop. It is the right first step, and we will tell you so.
Author: Patric Sawada, Founder, Silkdrive. Accredited EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation expert; delivered the Centre's Market Access Workshops on Japanese business culture to Polish and Czech (June 2025) and Swedish (September 2025) SME cohorts. Based in Amsterdam. Read Patric's full profile.
