Why a Japan-specific CRM guide
Japanese B2B turns on (1) business-card-driven lead acquisition, (2) LINE official account customer support, (3) the Invoice System (インボイス制度, 適格請求書), (4) 稟議-based procurement. Covering all four with just Salesforce or HubSpot is hard.
Selection criteria
- **Japanese UI + 敬語 templates**
- **Business card scan/auto-entry** (Sansan integration or own OCR)
- **LINE official account broadcast + support integration**
- **Invoice issuance with qualified-issuer-number management**
- **Chatwork/LINE WORKS notifications**
- **JPY billing**
Picks
HubSpot Japan Complete Japanese UI. Fastest onboarding for startups. Natural progression from Free CRM to Sales Hub.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Realistic once your sales org is over 20. Initial rollout cost is high — choose carefully.
Senses Japan-born SFA. Auto-logged activity and board UI that fits Japanese sales culture.
kintone Not a dedicated CRM, but a "build your own sales process no-code" approach. Strong at mid-market and for complex processes.
Sansan (business-card → CRM hub) Not a standalone CRM, but the number-one lead source for Japanese B2B. Typically paired with HubSpot/Salesforce.
eSales Manager Remix Cloud Specialized for Japanese mid/large sales orgs. Strong activity logging and sales reporting.
Decision hints
- **SaaS startup under 10 people**: HubSpot Japan Free + Sansan
- **Enterprise sales 20–100**: Salesforce + Sansan or Senses + Sansan
- **Process customization first**: kintone alone or Salesforce + kintone
- **Heavy LINE support**: Channel.io + HubSpot
Common pitfalls
- Launching without Sansan: business cards scatter across Excel files; painful cleanup 2 years in
- Building sales systems before invoice-system readiness: expensive rework after October 2023
- Pre-purchasing licenses before 稟議: understand dept approval structure first
In Japan, "start light + accumulate ops data" beats "perfect prep before launch" in practice.