Japan: a huge IT consumption market

Strong domestic demand is one of the primary reasons for not pursuing business abroad. In fact, although Japan is in a long recession, the software industry is not. Based on a survey, a Nikkei newspaper article stated that Japanese companies invest 14 percent of their total budget on IT. In the commercial sector, many companies prefer to build their own systems rather than buy something off the shelf. Because they have restructured, to cope with the severe economic situation in Japan, and have reduced the number of in-house software professionals, they rely on other domestic software companies to handle their outsourced work. The paper discusses the software industry structure and software process improvement.