We mapped a Japanese industrial CIO’s care-abouts before the first meeting.

A global enterprise IT vendor was preparing to pitch device-as-a-service to the CIO of a 149,000-person Japanese industrial conglomerate. We mapped seven strategic care-abouts, modelled ¥22 billion in capital release through an OpEx shift, and built the pre-meeting positioning around the platform he is staking the company on. The brief covers buying culture, what not to say, and a CFO-ready financial model. Most useful for vendors selling enterprise IT, security or infrastructure into Japanese industrial buyers with public digital transformation mandates.

Six things the brief carries into the room.

1. 01 The seven care-abouts the buyer has already put on the record, and how each maps to a specific product angle.
2. 02 A three-tier prioritisation of the buyer’s nine named strategic initiatives, anchored to the platform he is staking the company on.
3. 03 A three-pillar pitch architecture for the first meeting, with fall-back positions for each pillar.
4. 04 A power-phrases register and a what-not-to-say register, tuned to Japanese corporate culture.
5. 05 A five-year total cost of ownership comparison and a Year-1 ROI model in local currency.
6. 06 Five comparable-customer proof points, filtered for sector and workforce-scale fit.

Send it to a colleague whose deal looks like this.