What is Zipteam?

First off, please tell us what Zipteam is.

Nishimura: In a word, it is a "tool to improve team performance." The most basic usage is that users input their own skills and roles, which are stored in a database and used to form teams. Normally, you probably wouldn't write out the necessary skills in detail when forming a team, but Zipteam makes it easier to solve problems.

▲Enter your skills into the basic information registration screen...

▲ The skills of registered members are displayed in a graph format, making it easy to see at a glance. You can also check the years of experience for each skill and whether they are currently working in that field.

​Zipteam has three pillars. The first is understanding the skills and experience of employees. For example, in the field of sports, advanced data analytics is used to measure how many hits a player has made. When applying this to knowledge workers, it is knowledge that should be digitized, but Zipteam focuses on skills, which are likely to be particularly easy to understand.

The second is to create the best team by combining analytics and data. When forming a team in a company, leaders often proceed with the assumption that "if we just gather highly skilled members, we will be able to create a good team." However, in reality, if the members do not have a variety of skills, they may not be able to fully meet the value required by the market. For this reason, it is very important to check whether there is any talent still lying dormant within the company and to check whether there is a gap between the elements required for the team and the skills of the members. If there are any missing elements or gaps, you can choose to ask external members for support or hire new employees.

The third is collaboration between people. As the saying goes, "innovation is born from tacit knowledge," it is unlikely that a groundbreaking product will suddenly appear mechanically just by formulating a new business strategy. Such products are born when people have a flash of inspiration or bring together ideas. And innovation can occur from the bottom up, not necessarily from the top down. However, in that case, you need to look beyond the boundaries of departments and other departments and find out things like "what kind of people are there in the company?", "who has the knowledge you are looking for?", and "how many people are there who can mentor you for the issues you have," before starting an interaction.

◀ An actual team formed. The skills required for the team are displayed as tags at the top of the screen, and below that you can see a list of team members and whether the required skills are met (Skill Gap). The "Bus Factor" at the bottom right is a risk management indicator that shows how many members would be hit by a bus (suddenly become unavailable) and cause disruption to project execution; Zipteam calculates this from the perspective of the skills possessed by the members.

Skill visualization makes business operations smoother

--Which department would you like to see make the most use of Zipteam?

Nishimura: The business department. Of course, it would be great if the human resources department could use it, but Zipteam is a tool to improve team performance, so I think it would be more beneficial for those who are familiar with the issues in the field.

One of our clients launched a project to update their core systems in preparation for the 2025 problem, and decided to proceed with the project using only in-house resources. However, no one knew the exact information about who had the skills required for the project. I think every company has been in this situation.

In addition, there are also many cases where a person with sufficient skills is assigned to Project A, but not to Project B. These are serious issues that affect employee retention, so it is desirable to take measures, but confirming employee skills through word of mouth is not realistic in terms of accuracy and time. Solving such issues is also Zipteam 's role.

--It seems that some customers are currently testing Zipteam at multiple global locations.

Nishimura: Yes. For example, one client found out through Zipteam that they had a person at an overseas base who was knowledgeable about a hot new technology and could also speak Japanese, which allowed them to invite that person to Japan for training. There have also been cases where Zipteam was used to analyze skills that were lacking for project promotion, and the results were incorporated into a concrete recruitment plan. I was very happy when a client told me, "This is the most exciting project we've had in years, so please put your heart and soul into the work."

--I think a big advantage is that it gives you a clear direction for the type of personnel your company needs.

Nishimura: I think that even in the field of human resources systems such as SuccessFactors and Workday (※), everyone is paying attention to the frontier of skills. However, skills are constantly changing, and the variety is huge, so it can be said that it is extremely difficult to operate by pinpointing the talent that a team or workplace needs. Zipteam wants to be a presence that can clear that challenge.

*Human resources software used worldwide.

Creating innovation in an era where people are valued

-Why did you decide to develop Zipteam?

Nishimura: Even though we live in an age where "people" are important for innovation and value creation, I feel that there are very few tools to empower them. I have seen various startups and products in areas such as cloud, security, and AI, and the more I listen to people, the more I think that "in the end, it's all about people." Companies that have not made major changes through digital transformation and innovation must have some kind of problem related to people.

Another reason is that I want to create a global software business. Japan is a great country, but emerging industries are far behind other countries. For that reason, even if you bring tools or products that are popular in the United States to Japan, it is not uncommon that they do not fit at all because the environment is so different. Furthermore, there are no famous enterprise IT vendors originating from Japan, at least not in the United States. This situation made me question it.

Silicon Valley tends to attract attention from large B2C companies, but in fact there are many global B2B companies at its core, and we think we need to create something that can be part of that. Therefore, Zipteam prioritizes the American market while anticipating global expansion. SuccessFactors and Workday have high market shares in the United States, but rather than competing with them, we want to build our own unique position.

--Indeed, Zipteam has a different position than SuccessFactors and Workday.

Nishimura: That's right. We want it to be a tool that can support the realization of breakthroughs, regardless of whether the company is large or small. However, since there is little need for management unless you have a certain amount of human resources, we assume that the company size that will be used is 200 or more people.

The more management resources a company has, the more it can do and the more it can grow. However, in today's world, there is an excess of risk capital with nowhere to go, and things quickly become commoditized. This means that "people" are emphasized, but in most cases, the more employees there are, the more benefits there are. It's a strange paradox, but if this is simply a matter of efficiency, it could be resolved with good tools.

As I mentioned earlier, innovation is born from people's tacit knowledge. The tacit knowledge necessary for value creation is probably called skills, and I think the key is how to utilize them effectively while increasing economies of scale for people.

-- A company should hire more employees in order to grow, so if the result is that the structure just becomes more complicated, then that seems counterproductive.

Nishimura: Yes. On the other hand, there is also the idea of a "teal organization," where employees act and cooperate autonomously in an equal relationship without having managers. In other words, the problem is with pyramidal organizations that assume managers. In fact, I think that people who are entrusted with management roles sometimes have negative feelings about their work, including administrative tasks, but there are cases where this has been minimized and efforts are being made to create lively, innovative organizations. The organization is also slimmer, making it more efficient in terms of resources.

For typical HR system vendors, this kind of organizational theory may not be of much interest. However, we believe it is extremely important, so we would like to contribute to the creation of organizations for the new era through our product, Zipteam.

in conclusion

Through this interview with Nishimura, we learned the importance of visualizing employee skills. We look forward to collaborating with you to clarify the direction of the human resources you need and expand your business. If you would like to learn more about Zipteam, which improves team performance and realizes innovation born from tacit knowledge, please visit the official website below.

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