ご挨拶 · From Process to Practice
Growing Toray's Revenue in the United States
Japan-to-US business development. A written summary of our July 17 discovery conversation, prepared so it can be read and discussed inside Toray.
Kadowaki-san asked precise questions. This document answers them in writing, so the answers can travel inside Toray without anyone having to reconstruct a conversation they did not attend.
Our July 17 session was deliberately a discovery conversation rather than a presentation. We asked about Toray's US growth first, then answered the five questions submitted in advance against what surfaced. This document follows that same order, and adds the reasoning that was spoken aloud but not written on the slides.
| Section | What it answers |
|---|---|
| The central idea | Why capable Japanese companies underperform in the US, and what specifically has to change |
| Who you would be working with | The operator, the engine, and the track record behind both |
| Where we create unusual value | The four capabilities that are difficult to source elsewhere |
| What we deliver | The specific levers, and the condition under which each one is worth pulling |
| Your five questions | Direct answers, including where the answer is no |
| How an engagement would work | The two components, why they are stronger together, and the way in |
We do not lead with what we sell. We lead with the problem, then map the capability that answers it. Everything below follows that order on purpose. Where we do not have direct experience, this document says so plainly rather than working around it.
Toray's engineering is world-class and was never in question. The constraint we see is different: a relationship-first selling motion operating in a market that pays for value-first conversations.
In Japan, the relationship earns the conversation. In the United States, the conversation earns the relationship.
That inversion shows up in three specific, correctable ways. None of them are criticisms of how Toray operates in Japan, where each is a genuine strength.
A US buyer grants a second meeting only if the first one demonstrates that you understand their problem and can frame it back to them with evidence. Rapport is the result of that, not the precondition for it. A motion built on earning trust before discussing value will stall before it reaches the people who approve budget.
Nemawashi produces durable decisions and is a real strength at home. US buyers expect the economic outcome to be on the table in meeting one or two, at their pace. The work of building internal alignment still has to happen, but it cannot precede the value conversation without the opportunity going cold.
US executives buy the dollar outcome first: power, cost, thermal performance, time to deploy, or yield, throughput and defectivity. Engineering is the proof, not the pitch. Leading with specifications puts a world-class technical story in front of a buyer who has not yet been given a reason to care about it.
The fix is a resequence, not a rebuild. Open with the economics, bring the engineering in as evidence. Toray's technical depth becomes the thing that closes the deal rather than the thing that opens it, which is where it is most powerful.
One network, with two halves: an operator, and an engine.
Jeff Aragon is a native English-speaking US enterprise seller. What a Japanese company needs in the United States is a selling presence that American buyers trust and want to do business with, and that is what Jozu provides as a service.
He spent four years in Tokyo teaching the Harvard Negotiation Project, which means he has carried a structured method across this exact cultural boundary before. That is the relevant experience: not familiarity with Japan as a subject, but the practical work of applying a method that has survived and been refined over 25 years.
| Measure | Detail |
|---|---|
| More than $150M | Attributed revenue across every vertical entered. Not a single industry. |
| $24M in total contract value | At Ushur as founding enterprise seller, in roughly two and a half years |
| Approximately $10M | Largest deal in that company's history, won through formal procurement against an entrenched incumbent |
| Nearly $40M at Kronos | An average of more than $2M in net new annual recurring revenue per year for nearly six years, totalling close to $40M in attributable revenue |
| Two decades | Selling into complex, regulated buying environments, which is the demanding end of enterprise selling |
The rooms this has worked in include Global 500 enterprises, Plug and Play, Y Combinator and Techstars companies.
Underneath the operator sits a signal and intent engine that reads hundreds of millions of data points to identify which US accounts are actively in-market now, rather than which ones look like good prospects on paper. It is described in more detail in the capabilities section.
A static list of contacts goes stale. A method for finding who is buying right now does not. What would be engaged here is a method that has survived and been refined over 25 years, and that travels into a new market. That is precisely what growing Toray's US revenue requires.
Four capabilities that are difficult to source in combination. Each is described with the condition that makes it worth using, because none of them are worth buying in the abstract.
Toray's US footprint is substantial and long-established, roughly ten companies since 1957. A question worth answering internally: if a data-center hyperscaler wanted to buy a thermal composite, a low-loss film, and a photonics-mounting material, how would that buyer engage with Toray today, and who would own that relationship?
What we build: one ideal customer profile per lead vertical, spanning entities. Named accounts identified specifically because they can buy from more than one Toray business. One account, one plan, one commercial owner, with the full portfolio carried into the conversation.
We surface in-market US buyers inside a specific niche, based on buyer activity within the last seven days, refreshed weekly and available on demand.
The question this answers: not who we happen to know today, but who is in the market this week for what Toray sells. For a research function, this is a continuous live-signal layer underneath the market intelligence work already being done, rather than a replacement for it.
Finding the buyer is only half the problem. Email, LinkedIn and calling feed one qualified pipeline, with outreach framed on the buyer's economics and engineering carried in as proof.
The practical outcome: technical experts enter the conversation after it has already been framed around the buyer's economic problem, rather than being asked to cold-prospect. Engineers should not be prospecting. The path runs from first meeting to managed named account.
After every meaningful conversation, the buyer confirms the problem, the economic value and the path forward in their own words. If they will not confirm in writing that you have correctly explained these items based on your conversations with them, it does not enter the forecast.
Why this makes the other three trustworthy: a forecast built only on buyer-confirmed value is a US number that Tokyo can believe. This is also the discipline that was demonstrated live during the July 17 session, when we reflected back what we heard and asked for confirmation before moving on.
The levers we pull to move a US number. Each is pulled only where discovery indicates it will move that number, not as a standard package.
| Lever | What it does |
|---|---|
| Forecast reliability The Plan Letter | The buyer confirms problem, value and path in their own words. If they will not confirm in writing that you have correctly explained these items, the opportunity does not enter the forecast. This is what makes a US number credible from Tokyo. |
| The artifact and template library | The Plan Letter is one artifact among many. The engagement includes Value Proposals, refined statements of work, QBR presentation templates, RFP and RFI response support, contract assistance, mutual action plans, executive business cases and ROI models, account and territory plans, competitive positioning material, and win and loss review templates. Your team keeps all of it. |
| Top-of-funnel signal and intent-based intro calls | Surfaces US accounts that are in-market now and opens economics-first conversations with them. |
| BDR as a service | Outsourced business development builds the US ideal-customer call lists and runs outbound, so technical teams are not cold-calling. |
| AEO auditing | Audits how Toray appears in the AI answer engines and search results where US buyers now begin their research. Buyers increasingly form a shortlist before any vendor is contacted. |
| Omni-channel access | Email, LinkedIn and calling consolidated into one qualified pipeline rather than three disconnected efforts. |
The July 17 session was built around these areas. They are reproduced here so colleagues who were not present can see what a diagnostic would examine.
These were submitted in advance. The answers below are the ones given on July 17, written out in full.
Two things, both stated plainly. First, we keep our client list confidential. That is part of how we protect the companies we work with, and it is how we would protect Toray. Second, Japanese clients are a small part of our book today.
The count of logos is not what should give you confidence. This is: more than $150M in attributed revenue across every vertical entered, and a focus dedicated to Japan-to-US growth. What you would be engaging is a method that has survived and been refined over 25 years, and that travels into a new market. That is exactly what this requires.
We are vertical-agnostic and the method transfers. Automotive is a genuine strength: Jeff represented CDK Global selling directly into that sector and holds relationships across it. The deeper edge is complex, regulated industries, which is the demanding end of enterprise selling.
Materials and chemicals specifically, not yet, and we will say so plainly. But consider the shape of Toray's sale: technical buyers, evaluation committees, long procurement cycles, and displacing an incumbent who has held the account for years. That is the exact terrain we have sold in for two decades. The industry label changes. The motion does not.
At Ushur, as the founding enterprise seller, roughly $24M in total contract value in about two and a half years. That included the largest deal in the company's history at approximately $10M, won through a formal procurement process against an incumbent. In a single year that was $5M in new annual recurring revenue, and about $2M the following year.
One example of the method itself: a buyer arrived for a $200,000 transaction. By reframing the conversation around the economic outcome rather than the requested scope, it became a $7M multi-year engagement.
Before that, at Kronos, an average of more than $2M in net new annual recurring revenue per year for nearly six years, totalling close to $40M in attributable revenue.
A stronger answer than a list of names: a static list of contacts goes stale. What does not go stale is a repeatable method for finding who is buying right now.
Jozu surfaces live, in-market US buyers inside a specific niche, on demand, refreshed every week, from intent signals capturing buyer activity within the last seven days. Where genuine relationships exist, in automotive and in healthcare, we use them. But the engine works in any niche, including Toray's.
So the question is not who we happen to know today. It is who is in the market this week for what Toray sells, and that we can show you.
Three paths, and the right one depends on what a diagnostic surfaces.
The advisor and the engine, together. This is not an either-or choice, and the strongest version is both.
Fractional US revenue leadership. A single owner of cross-portfolio US strategy, which is the role that does not clearly exist today. The work is to resequence the motion from specifications-first to economics-first, build the ideal customer profile and named-account plans, and run the motion.
The always-on Jozu Revenue Engine. It surfaces in-market US buyers from live signal and drives multi-channel access into a qualified pipeline.
An advisor without the engine is strategy with no fuel. An engine without an advisor produces leads that nobody sequences and no one aligns the portfolio behind. Together: the engine surfaces opportunities, the advisor selects for fit and economic outcome, the engine drives access, the advisor converts.
A small, scoped, paid diagnostic: a US market and partner map, plus a buyer-access plan, for one chosen vertical. Based on where Toray's investment and public narrative point, the strongest candidates are AI data centers, semiconductor packaging, or aerospace and defense carbon fiber. Which one is Toray's decision, not ours.
Pricing is based on a defined scope. The diagnostic is deliberately small, so that the decision to continue is made on evidence rather than on a proposal alone.
A deeper working session to scope that diagnostic for one chosen vertical.
Thank you both, genuinely, for the time and for such precise questions. In Japan, trust is not something you say. It is something you show. We would welcome the chance to show it.