It’s finally stopped raining! Japan experienced one of the longer and wetter rainy seasons (called 梅雨 tsuyu) on record. For most, it’s a minor inconvenience. But unfortunately, western and central Japan experienced tragic flooding. We send our condolences and hope for quick recovery of the affected areas.
Meanwhile, Sansan has adjusted to the current changing environment amid COVID-19 and is promoting flexible work styles and remote work, following the government’s recommendations. This helps reduce crowds, maintain distance, and keep one another safe. But it hasn’t stopped our development.
Let’s see what’s going on in Japan this August.
Virtual Cards: 3,000+ organizations and Salesforce partnership
Virtual Cards are not only available on the Japanese Sansan platform, but for all our users around the world. This function has now been put in place at over 3,000 of our corporate clients, and received a great deal of press (see Saleszine; in Japanese).
Business always starts with business card exchange in Japan, so Virtual Cards have filled a big gap in online meetings where you don’t know who’s who. Now it’s just a matter of making it one part of the new normal.
Our customer and partner Salesforce is among the Virtual Card users. The world’s leading CRM solution recognizes the importance of the unparalleled first-party data only a business card can provide.
Learn more about Virtual Cards here.
And here’s the latest in a popular series of Sansan TV ads in Japan, featuring popular TV actor Yutaka Matsushige (松重豊) getting the hang of online meetings. The story behind the story is available here (in Japanese).
HubSpot integration now with 500+ partners
In early summer, we finalized our integration with widely used CRM and marketing platform HubSpot, and we recently rolled it out (see English story on HubSpot here). It’s been extremely well received, with over 500 corporate partners taking advantage of the richer first-party data Sansan can add to HubSpot contacts.
Amid the remote work environments, this expanded data access and rich integration of features creates new sales and work possibilities.
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) Rolls Out Sansan to Push Digital Transformation
The Japanese Government’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has broad policy powers, covering areas such as trade and energy security. It’s a huge operation and it’s striving to push digital transformation not just amid the current pandemic but as part of its overall evolution.
METI chose Sansan as part of its digital transformation and started use among 4,000 employees. This enables its staff to coordinate their contacts centrally, move toward a more paperless work style, and take advantage of Virtual Cards for online meetings. METI’s business continuity is vital for the country, and Sansan is proud to be able to support this.
Customer Success GM publishes authoritative guide
Customer success in an absolute for most any business, and in SaaS businesses in particular, it requires patience, knowledge, and developing a user community.
Drawing on the many successful years of Sansan’s Customer Success department, Sansan CS General Manager Hisanori Yamada authored the 168-page Customer Success Execution Strategy. This valuable compilation of wisdom in guiding the customer’s journey is available on Amazon Japan (in Japanese).
More next month. Stay healthy, stay productive, and keep innovating.
