Three materials to support a Japanese ringi approval
Getting a ringi approved means giving every approver a case they can defend under their own name: why this vendor, and why this amount. The champion also needs material they can explain to the approvers.
For a global company, the visible symptom is a Japan deal that sits at “proposal sent” for two quarters while the champion says everything is fine.
This note covers where Japanese approvals stall, according to survey data, the three materials your Japan team should prepare, and where to record progress in the CRM.
- Most large Japanese purchases need two or more approval layers, so one champion cannot carry the deal.
- The waits sit in rooms your rep cannot enter.
- A comparison, a quote, and a draft case, each written so the buyer can use it as is, answer the approvers’ actual questions.
We have supported more than 40 CRM and marketing-automation implementations, mostly on HubSpot and Salesforce, including for global SaaS companies building a Japan team, and we redesign how stalled approvals get recorded.
A ringi is approved by whoever can explain it
A deal can have an enthusiastic champion and still not move.
The champion is not unconvinced. When the next person up asks a question, the champion has nothing to answer with.
A joint survey by IDEATECH and Hiroyasu Kitagawa of Demagen Research (published 16 April 2026, fielded 23 to 26 March 2026, n=307; respondents had been involved, with at least one colleague, in buying B2B products of 3 million yen or more per year; IDEATECH sells survey PR, so read the percentages as rough magnitudes) found that 60.9% of companies had two approval layers, and over 80% had two or more. About 20% had three or more.
The second wave (published 9 June 2026, fielded 25 and 26 May, 330 valid responses; buyers of B2B software or IT infrastructure at 5 million yen or more per year; the base differs by question) found that 58.5% of respondents said seven or more people took part in the decision (n=325).
Champion, department head, executive. Beside them, IT, finance, and legal. Each judges “may we approve this?” on their own responsibility.
A ringi is therefore not one person to persuade. It is several people who each need to be able to explain the decision.
The waits sit in rooms your rep cannot enter
Long cycles are not unusual. In the second wave, 13.2% said the review became much longer and 60.3% somewhat longer, together 73.5%.
The reasons for the delay (n=239) were:
- Waiting for executive judgment: 63.6%
- Information gathering: 45.2%
- Extra coordination as more people joined: 38.1%
- Budget approval: 31.0%
The first is time spent in a room sales never joins.
A separate survey by Professional Tech Research at Bengo4.com (24 September to 31 October 2024, n=312, users of the CloudSign e-contract service, so skewed toward companies that have already digitized internal procedures) found 65.2% saw problems with their approval process. The second most common problem was “preparatory consultation and groundwork before writing the ringi takes time” at 35.9%.
Your CRM records none of that groundwork. The stage reads “proposal sent” for a month, then two.
A comparison should be something the buyer can defend
The buyer does not use your comparison to compare. They compared before you arrived.
In the first wave, about 90% had listed multiple vendors before serious contact with sales, and the purchasing process was on average about 40% complete by the time sales was involved.
Asked what had not influenced their purchase decision, 46.2% in the second wave named feature comparison tables, second only to generic industry trend reports at 49.5%.
What fails is the table where the vendor ticks every row. If the champion brings it to a meeting, the topic shifts from the product to the champion’s judgment.
What gets used turns the table around. Put the buyer’s own requirements in the rows, in the words they used in the first meeting.
Use three columns only: meets, meets with conditions, does not meet. Write the “does not meet” cells yourself.
In the “with conditions” cells, say what has to happen in implementation terms. Those cells become the champion’s answers to internal objections.
The full method is in Your Japan battlecard is read in a room your rep never enters.
A quote fixes the amount the approver will see
Before you think about the size of the discount, be clear what the quote does. A quote fixes the amount that goes into the buyer’s ringi.
In the second wave, price and cost was the top factor when choosing a vendor, at 58.5% (up to three choices).
Yet the item buyers found hardest to judge on their own before talking to sales was “estimating the operating load after adoption” at 56.3%, with ROI estimation third at 41.5%.
They decide on price but cannot compute the total.
Send a quote early and the minimum-configuration number stays in the buyer’s company.
Requirements settle, the scope grows, you reissue, and internally it reads as a price increase.
Finance (38.2%), legal (33.2%), and procurement (32.0%) were among the specialist functions involved (multiple answers), and they remember the first number.
So before the quote, hand over not the amount but the conditions that move it: what is added, and what that does to the price. Why your 30-day quote expires inside Japan’s approval cycle sets out the order.
In the CRM, keep the quote amount, configuration, discount, term, sent date, and expiry on the deal, keep the quote amount equal to the deal amount, and route exceptions to an approval flow.
In Salesforce, a quote synced to the opportunity plus an approval process does this job.
HubSpot also has quotes and approvals, but availability depends on edition and configuration, so check your own subscription before you design around it.
The draft case should be a frame the buyer can change numbers in
Your champion has never written a ringi for your product.
On top of a full workload, they have to turn a first-time investment into a document that several people can read. Putting it off is rational.
One result surprised us. In the second wave, the most helpful content was an ROI calculator at 55.4%, then success stories from similar industries and sizes at 46.5%.
Materials in support of the ringi application itself were chosen by 14.2%.
Buyers used what let them move the numbers themselves more than a finished ringi text.
They do not want to be persuaded. They want to build the number.
This is a panel survey ranking, so treat it as a tendency.
Put four items in the draft, in the order objections appear: what continues if they do nothing; which vendors were compared and why others were dropped; expected objections with answers (IT security, legal terms, finance payment terms); and days to go live with the buyer’s own workload.
Leave editable cells for the numbers.
How to write each of the four, and how to record what was handed over, is in Help the Japan buyer prepare a draft business case.
Each material answers one question the approver asks
The three materials are not separate documents. Each answers a question an approver actually asks.
| What the approver asks | Material | Key point |
|---|---|---|
| Why this vendor? | Comparison, with the buyer’s requirements as rows | Write the “does not meet” cells yourself; use implementation terms in “with conditions” |
| Why this amount? | Quote, plus the conditions that move it | Issue after configuration and approval route settle; set expiry and exception handling |
| What continues if we decline, and what changes if we adopt? | Draft case (ROI estimate, objections and answers, go-live load) | Leave editable cells for the buyer’s numbers |
Figure: the three questions an approver asks and the three materials that answer them. If one is missing, the champion has to answer that question alone.
A missing material does not disappear. It becomes homework for your champion.
Record progress in the CRM, with the buyer’s own deadline
Record whether each material was handed over. Which fields to create, and who fills them when, is laid out in a table in the draft-case note above.
One point here: the field most often empty is the buyer’s internal deadline. Your own quarter-end is in the CRM, but nobody has asked about the buyer’s budget cycle or ringi deadline.
Track who approves and how far the approval has progressed on a separate axis from sales stage, as in Forecast your Japan pipeline on approval progress, not rep confidence, and the stall becomes visible.
When an approval stalls, the first thing to look at is not the champion’s enthusiasm. It is which of the three materials has not been handed over yet.
FAQ
What matters most in getting a ringi approved?
That every approver has material they can explain under their own responsibility.
A deal stalls when the champion still has to produce one of the three (comparison, quote, draft case) alone. Before adding more persuasion, hand over the one that is missing.
When should we send a comparison table in Japan?
Ask about the comparison in the first meeting; send the table once you know you are on the final shortlist.
In the 2026 IDEATECH and Kitagawa survey (n=307), about 90% listed multiple vendors before sales contact.
In the first meeting, ask only who else they are looking at and on what criteria. Sending a table then sets the contest on feature count, where “missing features” is already the top reason for dropping a vendor at 39.1%.
What should we do when a buyer asks for a discount on the quote?
Before lowering the price, show the conditions that move it: which of configuration, term, or scope changes the amount, and by how much.
An approver can explain a number with a reason, not just a lower number. Route exceptional prices through your approval flow.
How do we know where a ringi stands?
Add fields for approval stage and the buyer’s internal deadline, and ask the champion directly.
As the 35.9% in the Bengo4.com survey (n=312) suggests, the period before a ringi is written is invisible from outside. It will not appear in the CRM unless someone asks.
Related reading
The timing of the quote and how to hand over the conditions that move it are covered in Why your 30-day quote expires inside Japan’s approval cycle.
Why features decide who gets cut and precedent decides who stays in is the background in Japanese enterprise sales: references matter alongside features.
Other notes on the same problem are collected under Sales process.