Kento Takahashi

A sense of Speed Affects Business

When I was job hunting, I had a strong desire to join a company where I would be given a lot of discretion and could make decisions on my own will. Macnica has a culture of delegating authority even to young employees, and I thought that at this company I would be able to work independently without having to wait for instructions, so I applied. What ultimately made me decide to join the company was how cool Macnica employees I met during the selection process were. Of course, I'm not talking about looks. All Macnica employees are smiling and lively, and they work with pride in their work, so I thought, "I want to be a part of that team!" and decided to join the company.

Currently, I am in charge of sales of applications that share and centrally manage files and digital adoption platforms that promote DX. In addition to product proposal activities, there are a wide variety of tasks such as planning sales expansion strategies, marketing activities, and price negotiations with suppliers. The job of developing cutting-edge overseas solutions in the Japanese market is rewarding.

We are in the position of a bridge between supplier manufacturers and the end users of our products, so a sense of speed is extremely important. No matter how great the products you sell, if it takes time to feed back customer requests to supplier manufacturers or to communicate update information from supplier manufacturers to customers, business will stop. I'll put it away. We believe that making decisions quickly and flexibly will help our business run smoothly, which in turn will improve the satisfaction of our customers and supplier manufacturers. I think employees who have just joined Macnica will be surprised not only by the amount of discretion each individual has, but also by the sense of speed.

Reflect on Your Failures and Turn Them Into Successes

Now, in my third year with the company, I am able to handle a wide range of tasks, but in my first year with the company, I experienced a major failure in a project I was assigned to. The project was to have customers recognize and use the new functions added to the software products that I was in charge of. We were only able to achieve about 10% of our goal. The reason for this is clear. Although this new function was originally intended to improve the satisfaction of customers who are already using our software products, it is still not being introduced. I was making a proposal to a new customer who didn't know. Sales activities that proceeded without understanding the essence did not go well no matter how much we tried, and the results were disastrous.

The lesson from this failure is not just understanding the essence. The fundamental cause of failure was that I was overconfident that I could do it, neglected to check the PDCA cycle, and proceeded with sales activities based on my own ideas without consulting those around me. It's not uncommon for your own understanding to be wrong or for your plans to not go well, but the important thing is to always reflect on your actions, analyze them, listen to the opinions of other members, and revise your direction each time. is to do. At the time, even though my superiors and senior colleagues told me to talk to them whenever I had a problem, I actually only talked to them about once a month. Looking back now, I think I did not fully understand the importance of receiving advice from those around me. As a result, I frantically carried out sales activities without receiving much advice or feedback from those around me on how to proceed with the project. Macnica has a company culture where both superiors and seniors are very caring and are willing to give advice. I feel it was a huge waste not to have consulted them up until then, and now I am constantly seeking opinions from team members, revising the direction of my actions each time, and moving forward with projects efficiently and steadily. I'm conscious.

Expand Your Solution with Partners

What I think is necessary to expand the business that I am currently in charge of is strengthening partner sales. The business model can be roughly divided into two: high-touch sales and partner sales. High-touch sales is a business model in which we conduct sales promotion activities directly to customers who introduce our products, while partner sales work with Sier companies, etc., who are business partners, to expand sales and support the solutions we handle to partner companies. It will be a business model for you. In the future, we would like to take measures to strengthen cooperation with partner companies, such as holding lectures on software product sales methods and holding discussions to build business models. In addition, in order to motivate the sales of partner companies, we are planning campaigns and other events, such as giving awards to sales that receive a large number of orders.

The presence of partner companies is essential to our business. In addition to sales activities, including finding new projects, we can efficiently expand our business by having our partners handle the system construction and development necessary for customers to introduce our products. Additionally, by teaming up with partner companies that have customer bases in areas that Macnica does not cover, we will be able to expand our solutions to customers that Macnica has not been able to reach. In the future, we would like to build effective business schemes with partner companies and create businesses that cannot be achieved by Macnica alone.