A more-even playing field in the competition for Indian talent

“We at Tech Japan,” explained Nishiyama, “strive to help shape a bright future for Japan and for Japanese companies by tapping Indian talent. We do that with our online Talendy platform for mediating recruitment of graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and other leading universities. IIT has 23 campuses in India and is the nation’s premier educational institution for science and engineering.

“More than 1 million young Indians seek admission each year to institutions of higher education, and fewer than 1% of them gain admission to IIT. Prominent graduates includes such illuminati as Sundar Pichai, the CEO at Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, and Nikesh Arora, the former president and chief operating officer at Softbank Group. One in three students in their graduation year at the institute registered with Talendy.”

The competition among tech companies for IIT talent is intense, as described by Nishiyama. Leading tech companies from around the world come to the campuses to interview prospective employees, starting in December. IIT's rules provide that the interviewers need to inform the interviewees of their decisions immediately after the interviews and that the students need to accept or reject offers on the same day. In addition, the rules provide that students who accept offers cannot undergo any further interviews.

“Japanese companies are at a disadvantage,” Nishiyama warns, “to better-known Western companies in competing for talent. Overcoming language and culture barriers and reaching an important decision in just 30 minutes or an hour is a huge challenge. To level the playing field, we formed a working group in 2020 with METI, the Indian embassy in Japan, and several IIT campuses and other leading Indian universities. That led to the creation of our Talendy platform for letting students get acquainted with Japanese companies before the formal interviewing begins. Talendy has proved extremely effective, and 94% of the students who received job offers from Japanese companies last year accepted the offers.”

Startups that are addressing well-defined pain points

Nurturing African entrepreneurship through venture capital investments culminates for Saiki a long-standing interest in the continent. Saiki first visited Africa as a backpacker when he was a university student. He spent nine years at the advertising firm Dentsu after finishing college, including three years in Bengaluru at Dentsu’s Indian subsidiary. Saiki then earned an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and while there participated in several clubs, such as the Africa Business Club and the Impact Investing Club, and served venture capital internships in Nairobi and Washington, DC, as well as a consulting firm internship in Johannesburg. He went from Harvard to the Tokyo office of McKinsey & Company and then established Sunny Side Venture Partners in 2022.

“Sunny Side Venture Partners,” Saiki announces with pride, “was the first Asian venture capital firm to set up shop in North Africa. We have invested in or contracted to invest in 19 companies that operate in 17 nations. Our investment policy is sector agnostic, but we focus rigorously on startups that are addressing well-defined pain points.”

Saiki introduced some of Sunny Side’s investee companies, describing how they address different pain points in their markets. Most of the investees operate as business-to-business enterprises, though several serve consumer demand.

“The biggest issue for the startup ecosystem in Africa,” says Saiki, “is liquidity. Venture capital investors need to have viable avenues to exit their investments. A lot hinges on initial public offerings and M&A outside Africa, mostly in Europe and the United States, but recently I see increasing opportunities for funding from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Investors in those nations are looking for post-petroleum growth avenues. Tech startups are a natural target for their interest, and we are striving to respond with persuasive investment opportunities.”

Globally networked support for entrepreneurs

Mazumdar serves as the president of the Singapore chapter of TiE, a global, nonprofit network devoted to supporting entrepreneurs. TiE originated in the Silicon Valley in 1992 as the brainchild of several entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals who shared roots in the Indus region. It has grown to encompass about 15,000 members at 66 chapters in 14 nations. TiE’s support for entrepreneurs spans mentoring, networking, education, funding, and incubation.

“We work with large organizations,” explained Mazumdar, “as well as early-stage founders through various initiatives and programs. The modern tech startup ecosystem in India is about a decade along. The nation has about 150,000 startups as recognized by the government, of which 118 have reached the unicorn stage [market capitalization in excess of US$1 billion]. It is the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, after the United States and China. Startup activity before the millennium was all about software and outsourcing. We are moving now to actual product development and value creation and intellectual property creation.

“As for Africa, it has some key pockets—Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa—where you see the bulk of the startup activity happening. But it is also happening in pockets in such places as Senegal, Morocco, Namibia, and Angola, where you are beginning to see startup ecosystems emerge. From an India-Africa perspective, the six biggest Indian investors in Africa are of course huge enterprises: Tata, Adani, Reliance, Mahindra. Adani, and Bharti. But Indian startups that have attained market capitalization of around US$500 million are getting into Africa through partnerships. They are principally in the fintech, agritech, and edtech sectors.”

A unique approach to human resources development

“We are a technology company,” explained Ohyama, “that provides 55 cloud-service products to more than 120 million users in more than 150 nations. Our headquarters is in Chennai, and we employ more than 18,000 people around the world, with over 12,000 being in Chennai.”

Zoho has a broad product portfolio, which ranges from applications for sales and marketing, collaboration, and communication to human resources management and accounting, with its customer experience applications being a key offering in most regions. Zoho, established in 1996, has not listed its shares on any stock exchange and remains private and bootstrapped. That has been in the spirit, according to Ohyama, of insulating R&D policy and employees from external influence and pressure. Another overriding emphasis that he cites at Zoho is on ensuring the integrity of personal information. The company operates its own data centers, for example, rather than outsourcing the data-processing support for its services.

“More than 12,000 people work at our headquarters complex in Chennai,” continued Ohyama. “And we have offices in several other cities around the world. We regard Africa as a growth market and operate there out of offices in South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, and Nigeria.”

Ohyama also introduced the Zoho Schools of Learning program. In that program, Zoho provides two years of higher education to young people who have graduated from school as an alternative to university education. The program includes on-the-job training in software development, and graduates move on to employment at Zoho. The company charges no fees for the schooling and pays the students a monthly stipend, which starts at 10,000 rupees.

Japan Africa Co-Creation for Industry

METI, reported Yoda, unveiled three new initiatives for supporting autonomous development in African nations at the Third Japan-Africa Public-Private Economic Forum in December 2024 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire: (1) establish Japan Africa Co-Creation for Industry (JACCI) to forge ties between Japanese companies and African startups; (2) step up cooperation with third-party nations, including India, in African development; and (3) provide expanded financing for green transformation through the Japanese government’s Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

“The 2025 World Exposition will open in Osaka this April 2025,” Yoda mentioned, “and Japan will host TICAD 9 in Yokohama this August. Both events will occasion greatly heightened international interchange. The runup to TICAD 9, especially, will draw attention to Japanese initiatives for contributing to African development. You will hear more about that event from TICAD Ambassador Maruyama after my remarks.

“Let me take this chance before turning the floor over to Mr. Maruyama to invite you at Japanese companies to register with the Japan Business Council for Africa. The council comprises Japanese companies, Japanese government ministries and agencies, and government-related organizations. Some 860 people from some 500 companies have registered with the council, which has held several events to further African-Japanese exchange and which distributes useful information.”

“All-Japan” efforts to co-create solutions with Africa

“Collaboration with third countries, especially India,” Maruyama stated, “is meaningful for expanding private investment from Japan to contribute to industrialization, job creation, and human resource development that African countries desire. Based on the cooperation with Africa by Japan and India so far, we would like to develop new initiatives and work together with African countries to create solutions to various issues, helped by the private sector.”

The Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD9) will be held in Yokohama from August 22 to 24 this year. Maruyama noted that the TICAD gatherings have continued since 1993 and commented on how their thematic emphasis has evolved over the years. While poverty alleviation was the central theme when the gatherings began, the emphasis subsequently shifted to trade and investment promotion, and public-private partnership has become more significant.

Maruyama touched on the outcome of the TICAD Ministerial Meeting held last August, where the participants discussed such subjects as the importance of youth and women’s empowerment, industrialization, and resilient connectivity within and outside the African continent under the theme of “Co-create innovative solutions with Africa.” He concluded that Japan would like to gather various ideas, including the outcomes of this forum, to make TICAD9 successful.

African-Indian linkages

“We at Toyota Tsusho operate in all 54 nations of Africa,” explained Karube, “through 174 subsidiaries and affiliates. Those operations employ 23,000 people—nearly one-third of our global workforce.”

Toyota Tsusho is the trading arm of the Toyota Motor Group. It became a comprehensive, Africa-wide presence with the 2012 acquisition of France’s CFAO, which was the largest trading company in Africa. Toyota Tsusho, including CFAO, now operates Africa’s largest pharmaceutical wholesaling network, develops and runs shopping centers, manufactures and markets consumer goods, and develops infrastructure, as well as marketing vehicles for several automakers.

“We market vehicles that Suzuki Motor manufactures in India, including Toyota-branded vehicles, in 33 African nations,” Karube continued. “Our healthcare operations in Africa source some of the generic pharmaceuticals that they distribute from Indian suppliers. We are addressing Africa’s growing demand for drinking water, meanwhile, by building a desalination plant in Dakar with the Indian hydroengineering company VA Tech Wabag.”

In order to bring out the full potential of the economic zone stretching from Asia to the Middle East and Africa, it is necessary to connect these regions in a multilayered way, State Minister Miyaji explained. State Minister Miyaji described how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fulfills that role. “Among Japanese companies expanding their business to India, there is an increasing trend towards using India as a base for business development in Africa. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has appointed “official in charge of cross-border economic affairs” at its diplomatic missions abroad in order to effectively support Japanese companies that are developing activities across national borders. Embassy of Japan in India, together with the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India, interacts proactively with the Indian government to improve the business environment and overcome issues Japanese companies face in India one by one, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to promote the use of “official in charge of cross-border economic affairs” by Japanese companies.”

Regarding TICAD 9, which will be held in Yokohama in August 2025, State Minister Miyaji stated, “Ever since the first TICAD was held in 1993, Japan has been building relationships of trust with African countries for over 30 years, and I would like to see the results of today's discussions at this forum lead to TICAD 9.”

In closing, State Minister Miyaji stated, “I would like to work closely with the relevant countries and various stakeholders to create solutions to the economic and social issues facing the international community, and to contribute to the development of Japan and the world as a whole.”