Ms. Takigawa :

Noevir Group encompasses cosmetics, health food, and OTC pharmaceuticals businesses. Group companies include Noevir Corporation (hereinafter referred to as “Noevir”) that manufactures and sells cosmetics and OTC pharmaceuticals, TOKIWA Pharmaceutical Corporation, and TOKIWA Medical Service in which operates a placement medicine sale, a unique pharmaceuticals sales system in Japan. As an Information System Department Director, I oversee all affiliated companies’ information systems.

 

Ms. Munezane :

My responsibilities as the manager of the Information System Department include management of all affiliated companies’ ID, server, and network. Also, I take charge of the selection and operation of systems and applications.

 

Mr. Murakami :

I work with my manager, Ms. Munezane, on server operation, and network management. I am also responsible for implementing various services, including LINE WORKS and its operational practices.

Ms. Takigawa :

Noevir’s products reach customers via corporate authorized selling agencies or housewife staff’s individual sales activities. Thus, Noevir’s sales representatives would oversee several distributors per branch and conduct sales support activities with phone calls and e-mails. However, the communication between distributors and sales representatives was often ineffective; many sales representatives were in dire need of a way to deliver information to several distributors at once. As a result, a request asking to authorize the use of LINE came to the Information System Department.

 

Sales staff provides the distributors with information on new product launch, training sessions, delivery dates, and inventory data. Conversely, distributors must report back their daily sales activities. With LINE, I could envision the seamless and more immediate communication. However, the risk of misdirecting messages that may contain confidential or personal information to the outsider was quite concerning.

Ms. Takigawa :

First, it began with a request from the salesperson of TOKIWA Medical Service. The salesperson asked the permission to make use of LINE to contact nationwide placement medicine sales customers. Hence, we adopted LINE WORKS for its chat interface that could safeguard our sensitive corporate data. Since LINE WORKS is easily accessible on PC, we can send long announcements from the head office at once too. Accordingly, TOKIWA Pharmaceuticals’ and Noevir sales employees began using LINE WORKS to contact distributors. Nowadays, more than 1000 people from the Sales, Information System and Management Department of the three aforementioned companies utilize LINE WORKS.

 

I think the advanced security and familiar user interface similar to LINE are the most appealing aspects of LINE WORKS. Indeed, getting rid of the need to train many midway sales team joiners is a great advantage. Moreover, we expected that even the partnered distributors with high age range could benefit from LINE WORKS’ external messenger connection feature. In fact, we believed that the distributors could experience improved communication with our sales representatives since they know how to utilize LINE already.

Ms. Munezane :

Initially, we used to write and distribute manuals or hold a briefing session when introducing a new tool – LINE WORKS never needed them. Even after the implementation, only a few employees had inquiries about usage. LINE WORKS is the first tool to integrate into our company system so seamlessly.

Ms. Takigawa :

We make sure to instruct sales representatives not to leak the personal information and that every conversation that took place via LINE connection will leave log data.

 

Mr. Murakami :

We can guarantee security by preventing employees from sending executable files with the LINE WORKS admin feature.

Ms. Takigawa :

Group chat feature became the inseparable communication tool to Noevir sales representatives. Initially, the function could not be interconnected with LINE, but over time it became available with updates. We are thankful for how it allows a number of our employees to exchange information at any time; this is crucial as sales representatives must interact with various distributors and groups, such as specific event participants. Previously, sales staff had to call or send e-mails to each distributor individually; only after connecting with LINE did LINE WORKS become the primary communication tool to sales representatives. Now sales employees can create group chats based on different purposes and invite the right people without any limitations. Furthermore, they can conveniently handle tasks with flexibility by sending information at once in the group chats.

 

Mr. Murakami :

Sales employees can send Excel, Word, and PDF files with LINE WORKS. Now sending various business data is easily accessible.

 

Ms. Takigawa :

In addition to cosmetics, Noevir runs apparel and underwear businesses. Therefore, we use LINE WORKS to inform new products to distributors and retailers by sending sample images or explanation videos made by sales representatives in group chats.

 

Ms. Munezane :

In the past, the Information Systems Department used to deliver system failure or update notices to all group companies via e-mail. After implementing LINE WORKS, we post such information on home boards. Most of the employees check home postings faster than e-mails; hence, we make announcements that need to be delivered swiftly and surely on home boards.

Ms. Takigawa :

Initially, LINE WORKS was selected primarily as a means for the sales force to communicate closely with customers and distributors. However, now it functions as a convenient platform that bridges communication among all affiliated companies even more so than the existing groupware.

Mr. Murakami

The Information System Department needs to manage all accounts of affiliated companies. We use the LINE WORKS API and ETL tool’s DataSpider※ to acquire HR info in the form of CSV data automatically. The system deletes the LINE WORKS accounts of retirees and members on leave by itself; it also sends issued accounts to new employees through e-mail. As there is no need to manage each account manually, it helps to streamline work procedures effectively.

Ms. Takigawa :

Currently, we are using LINE WORKS in combination with the existing groupware. However, in the future, we plan to use it as the primary communication tool to support busy sales staff by connecting with various systems and better take advantage of its convenience. We are reviewing whether we can communicate and check work-related info immediately and securely only using LINE WORKS all over the group companies.

 

One of the attempts is to implement a Help Desk Chatbot related to PCs utilized in the office. Sales representatives frequently work outside and cannot contact the helpdesk in case of desk absence. As a result, I would like to establish an automatic response Chatbot for simple inquiries. In the future, I want to develop a hub to connect to various applications. If we can consolidate different systems’ UI into LINE WORKS as a single platform, it would boost the productivity of our sales teams.

 

Ms. Munezane :

Ms. Munezane: We are considering whether it would be possible to replace manual writing of daybook, using existing company groupware, with LINE WORKS voice input system outside the office. Though we are already supporting our employees by giving them access to connect with smartphones, we would like to significantly improve their work efficiency by facilitating more comfortable and faster ways to input info. LINE WORKS is equipped with various functions in addition to voice input, and therefore, we would like to increase the applied uses within all group companies.

 

※DataSpider…ETL tool that connects data between different systems without programming

 

 

※All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.

Mr. Kohara：

Our company mainly deals with remodeling and maintenance of the houses. We had converted into a corporation in 2004, and next year will be our 50th anniversary if we sum up the individual business years. We have total of 14 employees, 10 from sales-construction staffs and 4 from office workers. Since we are remodeling company, in which mainly focuses on construction, it is general that employees who form an estimation are also in charge of construction. Although I am the Representative Director of this company, I am also involved in overall working processes, from Sales to Construction works.

 

Ms. Kunihiro：

I am in charge of Sales business. Specifically, I am in charge of re-writing the estimates, which are initially written by other Sales employees or writing various documents down on PC.

Mr. Kohara：

Starting from one specific period, the core idea of construction within industry has changed from constructing new building to remodeling. Unlike constructing new building, remodeling requires considerable experience. As major companies are also taking part in remodeling industry, it has become impossible to survive from the industry with its similar tactic. In order to survive under such circumstance, it was important mission for us to enhance our work performance by working efficiently while providing quality service.

 

Even within the industry, the response rate has become faster than before. Take construction fee as an example, what used to be changed every five-year is now change each year. This indicates that we cannot survive this year with the same way as last year.

 

Meantime, there were issues with sharing information since the salesperson could not stay in the same construction site all day and could only visit maximum of five construction sites if needed. Customers often had to wait for the salesperson, who were not reachable while working at the construction site. Although the customers make phone calls, they still had to wait quite amount of time to be connected to the salesperson. Even with the note like ‘I want someone to come as soon as possible’, there were times when salesperson could not answer the message in a prompt manner. In order to find the salesperson who is available for immediate contact or the salesperson who can visit the place right away, we had to call each of them whenever needed. Because it was impossible to find out where each salesperson was located, we had to call each individual.

Ms. Kunihiro：

The most used situation is when we make responses to emergencies, such as water leakage and drain clogging. Especially, we receive a lot of inquiries about frozen pipes during winter time. Before introducing LINE WORKS, the employee who answered the customer phone call had to desperately find a Salesperson who can solve the emergency. After the introduction, however, we can now send customer address along with detailed situation explanation to the group chatting room, where entire Salesperson have jointed. Just by sending messages like ‘Can anyone go?’, we can immediately find available Salesperson to handle the situation.

 

Mr. Kohara：

Up until now, we have delivered the information such as customer requests, shipping information, and event information through bylaws. After introducing LINE WORKS, however, it became very convenient to notify all the employees. Also, there are employees whom we get to encounter only once a week, but even in such situation, we can communicate with them in detail.

 

We are utilizing Calendar function when writing daily work log. There is no difference in terms of its function to manage overall schedules by posting construction or customer meeting dates in advance. We, furthermore, use to adjust the schedules, such as change the presumably written schedule hours to the hours that actually took, and add types of works that employees have done.

 

That is, what once was pre-conditioned schedule in the morning transformed into employees’ daily work log at night. It is easy to see the works done on that day and it is also convenient for future reference. Hand-written work log was often omitted within the day. But, it is now possible to check the log whenever and wherever needed.

 

Mr. Kohara：

LINE WORKS is very attractive tool in terms of allowing us to check the schedule everywhere. This applies to all the employees, but as we start utilizing LINE WORKS within our workplace, I believe that we all gained notion of time management. Everyone, including myself, can now use time efficiently. Schedule management function as well as Timer function also prevent works from being left out.

 

Ms. Kunihiro：

Before LINE WORKS was introduced, I wrote employees’ schedule simply on a paper chart in the office. By introducing LINE WORKS, we are also digitalized. It became possible to reduce the cost of ‘writing’ as well as paper. Also, it is possible to make immediate contact to the specific employee, as we can find out the current location of them in detail.

Mr. Kohara：

What I felt particularly effective in terms of communication is when confirming ‘finishing touches’ of the construction sites. Visiting all the construction sites is nearly impossible to do so. However, since site managers send photos through LINE WORKS chatting, it is now possible to acknowledge the details of the construction sites without making actual visits.

 

There were times when I could not make judgements on the situation and issue the work instructions accordingly if I was not present on the site. But, now I can instantly make judgements on the issue and deliver the instructions. Because I can also issue instructions immediately in case of any emergencies or problems, the overall working process became much favorable than before. It was impossible to do so in the past. As we reduced the amount of time wasted, we can now spend more time focusing on Sales activities, such as prospect customer development, consultation, and post-sales support. We can easily share messages through chatting room, and ‘completed’ message can now be sent after the work has done. We are deeply feeling that the style of work has changed.

 

It may sound exaggerated, but I believe that with the help of LINE WORKS, we could survive from the hardships that we faced at the end of the last year. Starting from the end of the last year, the entire construction industry became relatively busy. Specifically, the work has increased 125% more in December than the last year. Thanks to LINE WORKS, we could successfully handle all the chances given by reducing the wasted time. After the introduction, our achievement record has definitely improved than last year.

Mr. Akimoto：

Our parent company, Daito Kentaku Corp., is offering owners to build a rental apartment using rental consignment management system. Meanwhile, our company is responsible for the overall management and operation of the rental building in exchange for receiving rent in lump-sum of rental buildings from the owners. The buildings in charge of management and operations are 160,000 blocks total, which is more than 1 million rooms.

Mr. Akimoto：

Our company has 179 offices nationwide. Management, office, and rental marketing employees are working everyday in each office.

 

Characteristic of our company is that we contact a lot not only within interoffice but also with our owners, residents and other enterprises. Especially, the number of affiliated companies such as electric, interior design, construction, etc. are more than 10,000. Therefore, it is important that employees should be able to exchange multiple opinions with multiple companies simultaneously.

 

That is, it is an industry in which established based on communication. However, the biggest challenge was that phone and e-mail were very complex and inconvenient when employees contact with other related people. E-mail that can only be seen in office computer was rarely used and verbal contact with company’s mobile phone became center of communication.

 

Mr. Funamoto：

First, we reviewed based on opinion of the field employee and suggested the necessity to the superior office for approval. We also reviewed other tools, but other tools besides LINE WORKS required license fee or needed extra installation process in order to communicate with clients. The most critical reason for adopting LINE WORKS was that individuals are able to contact on his or her usual LINE account. Furthermore, we sometimes deal with personal information and LINE WORKS provides excellent security system. This is also crucial reason why we choose LINE WORKS.

Mr. Kakinuma：

Business Planning and Strategy Office manages introduction of LINE WORKS. However, I, General Affairs Dept., am currently in charge of LINE WORKS. LINE WORKS is easier to understand than other tool’s admin screen, which used in other task. Also it can batch processing the data you want with CSV so it lessens burden on management. When other tools were introduced, employees have inquiry regarding operation method. However, no inquiry was made about LINE WORKS even though we only provided simple manual with log-in process at the earlier stage of introduction.

Mr. Akimoto：

Currently, 2,900 full-time employees are using LINE WORKS with company provided smartphones. Specifically, management and rental marketing employees are using it. Also starting from last quarter, as part of work method reformation, our company changed the operating system from management employee working on individual to a “team system” in which 3 to 4 people are in charge of one specific zone. Because communication within the team is important in ‘team system’, LINE WORKS is very convenient because it allows team members to actively share information and make quick decisions and responses. LINE WORKS’s unique attraction is that it easily allows to exchange information with remote sales offices.

 

Mr. Ushio：

Currently, each sales office creates group chatting room and business contacts are mostly occurred in LINE WORKS chatting room. During the company-wide campaign period, we immediately share contract with LINE WORKS in order to raise morale of entire group. In some cases, in order to raise morale of the field, if someone signs up a contract, the manager of sales office delivers that message to LINE WORKS chatting room. I think fostering motivation field-wide is really important and LINE WORKS makes huge contributions.

Mr. Akimoto：

Field employees praise on LINE WORKS because ‘LINE WORKS made smooth link between our business partners, since we can take photos right out of the field.’ When requesting repair, by using LINE WORKS, it is clearer to send a picture of the area to be repaired than to deliver in words. For example, if you want to exchange a ventilator installed in your room, verbal delivery of color or size may not match with what you prepared for. However, sending a picture of ventilator using ruler can deliver clear depiction of color or size of ventilator.

Mr. Ushio：

In the past, strong winds in one area have caused problems to the buildings we manage, such as falling roofs and fences. We could prevent further incident from happening by immediately sending photos of building condition to the repair company and receiving emergency treatment. I think that the biggest advantage is that we can reduce the unnecessary hassles of having to go through two or three times just by exchanging photos. Even if the number of visits to the site is reduced once, it is still a very large workload savings for the company if we think about the changes made company-wide.

 

Mr. Funamoto：

I think that the time taken for instructing and reporting has shortened. Like we can report the situation and send instruction even in the middle of experiencing natural disaster, the information sharing which aimed at many employees is faster than ever. Originally, this tool was introduced for effective communication with the partner companies outside. But, going beyond our expectation, it is well utilized within the office and therefore, made our work much convenient. There were opinions from the on-site employees, mentioning that group chatting room with LINE has enabled them to have communication much lively.

 

Mr. Akimoto：

Changed from phone-oriented to chatting-oriented style, we can now share and check information regardless of time. And we think that our working style has changed effectively due to this. Generally, our employees and business partners can meet each other once a month. For this, we are planning to use LINE WORKS as a tool which supports our communication.

Mr. Akimoto：

It is affiliation of LINE WORKS and the customer management tool. Today, office employees receive phone calls from the customers and submit an itinerary with the building information on the system. Then, the system automatically sends emails to one of the building managers. Using LINE WORKS, however, we are planning to send notifications to all the building managers in order to shorten the response time and ultimately, foster the customer satisfaction rate.

Mr. Ono：

Located in Kanagawa, our company operates the visiting rehabilitation massage business by a masseur who owns national certificate. We also operate stress-relieving salon that lessens daily tiredness or muscle stiffness using five senses and other related business. We are operating 8 visiting rehabilitation massage stores and 5 stress-relieving salon stores.

 

Mr. Takeuchi：

I am part of the General Affairs Department, and responsible for managing the company’s vehicle, PCs, and company borrowed cellular phones.

 

Mr. Hasegawa：

I am in charge of visiting rehabilitation massage business. In addition, I visit customer’s house as a masseur and I manage the schedule of staff members as head of the office, simultaneously.

Mr. Ono：

The number of employees who were only a few at the company’s foundation year in 2000 has now grown up to 130 employees. As the company’s size grew year after year, we believed that the speed of communication would become more important than before. Also, we value people as we put a company’s fundamental policy. Especially, in hopes of improving capacity and becoming outstanding individuals, we actively have been conducting the training workshop for executive staffs.

 

We all felt that, in order to work faster, it is important to make quick responses to the contacts. We think that there are limitations to enhance response rates using communication tools like email or telephone. Until now, the employees have used bulletin boards on the company’s website installed by each Department manager. Field employees, those who have hard time to meet each other due to different work time, used company’s SNS to contact each other. We thought that introducing a convenient communication tool may enhance communication speed than before.

 

Mr. Hasegawa：

It was only morning hours that I can physically meet the employees. For this reason, I basically contacted them through company mobile phone or personal mobile phone. However, I often felt uncomfortable with this due to time limitation.

 

Mr. Takeuchi：

We have used SMS since we rented out 2G phones to our employees up until now. However, I felt that SMS as well as 2G phones were inconvenient to use because contacts need to be re-registered every time when device changes.

Mr. Takeuchi：

In the fall of 2017, the company introduced LINE WORKS as we changed the company rental mobile phone from 2G phone to smartphone. LINE WORKS, an application available both on the PC and smartphone, was very attractive because we wanted to create an environment where office employees can easily communicate with field employees. I looked over several different tools. However, I gave up on introducing them because employees were unable to get used to them in the trial and there was a need for the training session in order to make every employee member be proficient.

 

Mr. Hasegawa：

LINE WORKS provides video call feature, and it has been a crucial factor to introduce it since Mr. Ono wanted to hold a video conference. LINE WORKS, unlike other traditional communication tools, was also very attractive because it provides Read notification feature to find out whether a message has been read or not.

 

Mr. Ono：

When we introduce LINE WORKS, the internal IT Department set up rules such as ‘Messages that arrive after 8 p.m. can be answered the next morning’ or ‘No need to use closing remarks at the end of the message’ to make LINE WORKS usage pleasant. In addition, each business unit came up with different ideas to make a variety of uses of LINE WORKS.

Mr. Ono：

Currently, a total of 32 employees in administrative positions like senior executives, director of each sales office, and store manager are using LINE WORKS. we can send opinions to the executives easily as well as accommodate with executives’ opinion better than before. Also, there are executives who exchange personal information like ‘My baby has born’ or upload company PR videos via LINE WORKS to share information actively. Our company values ‘A well-communicated environment’ as the most important measure and we think that LINE WORKS is making a huge contribution to create such environment. Up until now, we have been hearing from employees through face to face interviews or written survey. However, I think we will be able to take advantage of LINE WORKS Form functions near in the future.

Mr. Hasegawa：

If the customer is in bad condition and cancel the visiting schedule on that day, we need to make contact immediately to field employees, who are assigned to visit the customer’s house. We can make contacts faster through LINE WORKS than by phone or email. Also, if the sent messages are notified as read, we can assure that ‘the recipients have read the message’, even if there is no reply.

 

There are times when we care for customers with a team of external physical therapists or occupational therapists whom are contracted by care managers. And we are mostly using LINE WORKS to make connection to their LINE account and exchange information in real time. Up to this point, the telephone calls have been central to our communication. But, there was a limited amount of time to receive the call and communicate through the phone. Therefore, we often had to call several times to find the most suitable time for communication. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, communication became smoother.Also, we can share customer’s health status and family situations on team’s group chatting room, which enables to achieve care system with better customer satisfaction measurement.

 

Mr. Takeuchi：

Because LINE WORKS enables us to find out whether the message has been read or not, we can make decisions faster than before. If an emergency situation occurs at the field we visit, we have to contact our boss about the issue and ask for the solution. When doing so, if we find out the message is not read by the boss, we can immediately make judgement to contact another boss and ask for the resolution. And this is very convenient.

Mr. Takeuchi：

LINE WORKS made company’s overall communication more active than before because it is easier to express an opinion than email or telephone. In order to confirm each other’s opinion, we use LINE WORKS, which has fast response speed and we can use the appropriate tool for purpose with the contact that needs searching or accumulation can be done by email.

Mr. Hasegawa：

We have discussed various company-level agendas such as new plans and responses through face-to-face meetings. But, now we are actively using LINE WORKS Message function to do so. As a result, face-to-face meetings have turned from a discussion to decision making and final confirmation, allowing more time to spend efficiently. The introduction of LINE WORKS created an atmosphere for the new director to express their opinion freely.

 

Mr. Ono：

We believe that the adoption of LINE WORKS enabled us to achieve a ‘well-communicated environment = better working environment’ and strengthened the connection between our executives. As more and more employees are now expressing their opinions, I think I can hear about them more when compared with past years. Communication and decision-making procedures are certainly faster than before, and we expect that these changes can lead us to better performance in the future.

Mr. Sawato：

Based on our company philosophy “Walk with the Sun”, we import clothing and goods from nationwide and sell them online. With the aim of making the company atmosphere more actively, we are striving to make changes to our company.

 

Mr. Satoshi：

As a Product Distribution Dept. head of Traditional Goods Headquarters, I am in charge of general management on warehouse, goods, and employees as well as general affairs. The warehouse that I am managing deals with every stock from our company, and it is more than 25,000 SKU(Stock Keeping Unit). Currently, we have about 100 employees. They are divided into Loading and Shipping department. They load and ship a large number of commodities everyday.

 

Mr. Shinya：

As a local manager, I am in charge of branches located in Kanto, Shizouka, and Karuizawa. I spend half a month in stores and the other half at the headquarters.

 

Mr. Masami：

As a member of Information Systems Department, I am in charge of company and branch systems as well as LINE WORKS operation management.

Mr. Sawato：

Before introducing LINE WORKS, we have been utilizing phone calls, emails, and computer messenger software as a means of interoffice communication. Official communication was mainly held with emails. However, because the emails could only be checked with a computer installed at each branch, a lot of employees felt uncomfortable with email communication. For this reason, shadow IT, using personal accounts such as using LINE for business purpose, has become serious problem to us. While searching for a resolution to solve this problem, we found LINE WORKS.

 

Mr. Masami：

It is impossible for System Management Department to manage the communication held through LINE. Also, if retired employee is still remained in the chatting room, there is a high risk of sensitive information leakage. Moreover, it was troublesome to share LINE IDs every single time. LINE was convenient to use for personal use, but inconvenient for business purpose.

Mr. Satoshi：

Previously, we used computers installed on-site and PHS to either deliver instruction or contact the employees outside the office. At that time, if we were to deliver detailed instructions on site, we had to go to the computer or print out the instructions. Thinking back to those times, it was a situation with full of unnecessary steps. For example, if our customer wants to make choices among the goods available in various color or pattern options, we had to actually print the attached photos and deliver it to the site. For this reason, we were finding a solution to reduce such work burden.

Mr. Shinya：

Scheduling with colleagues was very hard. Because we could only check the schedule through computers at the headquarters, I had to communicate with them through LINE.

Mr. Sawato：

Our company culture is to share information regardless of positions and this corresponds with strengths of LINE WORKS. Up to this point, we have been using all different tools such as email, messenger, and schedule. For this reason, we have been also thinking of adopting an all-in-one service tool that can manage everything at once. In this sense, we felt that LINE WORKS is a perfect fit for us. Since employees are already familiar with LINE, we thought that LINE WORKS can also be used without struggling. And eventually, this can lead to an overall communication and business efficiency of our company. We started to utilize LINE WORKS at the moment of the introduction by renting out the smartphones to the employees. We are currently using about 230 IDs for full-time employees.

Mr. Masami：

LINE WORKS is used mostly to contact the leader in the warehouse. I am basically working in the office, so it is crucial to keep in touch with the leader and get an idea of what is going on at the field. Currently, we use a group chatting room to manage what instructions the leader is ordering to each field employee. From loading to shipping, depending on its process, there are about 10 groups have been created with LINE WORKS. Each group includes leader, headquarters sales representative, Store Innovation Department, and product development members as necessary.

Mr. Shinya：

Managing schedule became much comfortable. I often have to closely contact and affiliate with the 9 local managers, managers of each branch, and colleagues from Store Innovation Department as well as from other Departments. While doing so, I also have to implement the business. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, it is now possible to check others’ schedules, making it easier for me to figure out their conditions of the working schedule.

Mr. Masami：

The biggest change is that we get more opportunities to make judgements at the field than before. Walking inside the big warehouse means that there is increase in walking time. Therefore, it is important point not to walk as much as possible. When we have to find the goods from the warehouse, we no longer have to go back to our office, in which the computer is located, to find out the location of the goods. Instead, we can now check the location through LINE WORKS installed smartphones. And we think this is the biggest advantage of the tool as well. Furthermore, if problem occurs, we can not only check the result but also the situation as well as the background of the problem through LINE WORKS chatting. This enables us to make decisions for problem resolution faster than before.

 

Mr. Shinya：

I believe that it became comfortable in every aspect. Previously, it was hard to continue communication since I could not find out whether the recipient read the email or not. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, it evoked a feeling of speed along with the notion that I can deliver information to the recipient in a prompt manner. Therefore, I feel like as if all the employees are connected through LINE WORKS. Efficiency has also increased throughout the working process. When using emails in the past, if there was an issue which needed to be discussed within all the employees, it took about half a day to come up with the final decision. After the introduction, however, it took only about an hour. We can also handle the work while heading to the branch offices.

Mr. Sawato：

I always thought that the communication which everyone can talk freely about the issues is very important. As office communication has become active than before, both quality and quantity of the communication has also increased. It is because LINE WORKS was well matched with our company culture, which is everyone participates in the communication regardless of the positions.

 

I think it is very important to share their own ideas or meeting logs with others, instead of keeping them on their own. It is also a great advantage that LINE WORKS makes it possible for us to make such information sharing possible. Unlike phone calls, LINE WORKS enables sharing information at preferred time frame. With this, I believe that LINE WORKS will be the main tool, which replaces the phone calls near in the future.

Mr. Takeshi：

Our company is a welfare-related business that operated more than 200 nursing facilities and care homes in Saitama, Tokyo, and Kanagawa. I am at the business management department, which mainly focuses on operations management. In our company, there is a System Department and the main job is to manage company network maintenance, nursing fee charge, accounting system planning and management. ICT maintenance has just taken its first step. So, the president Miyazawa asked me to take charge of ICT related planning and implementation. For this reason, I am in charge of the introduction of LINE WORKS.

 

Mr. Kunio：

Our company is divided into three different headquarters, Saitama, Saikyo and Kanagawa. I am a member of the operations department of the Saikyo Headquarters. There are seven supervisors in the operations department and I work with them to manage about 70 offices in the Saikyo headquarters. Up to this point, we have been communicating mostly by phone or e-mail. There were some employees using their personal LINE accounts. But, due to security policy issues, the company did not recommend using LINE accounts. Whereas, LINE was convenient when you have to contact in a hurry. For this reason, I was worried that I could not ban LINE unconditionally. For example, if you call a sales representative, he or she will not be able to answer the call while that sales representative is driving or with a facility attendance. Even if I send an e-mail, I could not verify whether the receiver has read or not so information was not delivered smoothly. In addition, there were some misunderstandings in the process of one employee delivers a message to another employee like a relay. And sometimes information got lost in the middle so our task was to adapt communication tool that enabled accurate information sharing.

Mr. Takeshi：

Up to this point, we have been communicating mostly by phone or e-mail. There were some employees using their personal LINE accounts. But, due to security policy issues, the company did not recommend using LINE accounts. Whereas, LINE was convenient when you have to contact in a hurry. For this reason, I was worried that I could not ban LINE unconditionally. For example, if you call a sales representative, he or she will not be able to answer the call while that sales representative is driving or with a facility attendance. Even if I send an e-mail, I could not verify whether the receiver has read or not so information was not delivered smoothly. In addition, there were some misunderstandings in the process of one employee delivers a message to another employee like a relay. And sometimes information got lost in the middle so our task was to adapt communication tool that enabled accurate information sharing.

Mr. Yuichi：

The purpose of LINE WORKS was to provide candid communication between the superior and staff member. Employees can get close to someone who has been difficult to communicate with. Before joining ALSOK group, ‘Top-Down’ culture existed in our company because the founder was the CEO. In the nursing business, the most important thing is work done in the field. So, it is our job to listen to the field staffs and make the working condition better. But because I was in the manager position, which is difficult to find our information besides peripheral information. I wanted to hear the real voice on the field.

 

 

Mr. Takeshi：

While we were providing mobile phones and tablet computers to outside workers like headquarters, manager of headquarters, sales representative and supervisors, we changed mobile phones to smartphones in the fall of 2016. When I was thinking of adopting a more work-friendly chatting tool that can be easily used on smartphones, one of our telecommunications companies introduced LINE WORKS to me. I found this tool was originally made for the company and therefore, security features were well-established. This led me to feel assured about integrating LINE WORKS to our company.Moreover, this tool has the same UI with that of LINE. This implied that there would be no trouble in terms of availability. I made a decision to adopt LINE WORKS after having a conversation with President Miyazawa and we did not have to review the other chatting tools.

Mr. Takeshi：

As we prepared for the adoption, about five employees, including Mr. Miyazawa and I, used LINE WORKS first and checked manual or application methods. We prepared by organizing the order of use and etc. by the manual. About a month later, we introduced LINE WORKS to 95 employees. Once LINE WORKS fully introduced to employees, we encouraged employees with less activity on LINE WORKS to use more frequently. Employees who do not send messages first or in areas where it is unnecessary to keep in close contact, there may need to make urgent contact through LINE WORKS so it is It is important to encourage employees to understand the information in advance.

Mr. Takeshi：

Specific use cases for LINE WORKS are daily reporting, contact, and consultation related to work. I think more than 50 percent of the information that I have been sharing by phone or e-mail have been exchanged by LINE WORKS. Not only you can share your work progress at once, but also you can assure that you have confirmed it with ‘read’ sign on message even you did not get a reply. Because message com in text-form, other employees think they don’t have to take notes and this reduced simple verification errors.

 

Also, I like the fact that you can exchange small talk with LINE WORKS, which is hard to do with computer mail. I also find difficulty facing with my superior but the president Yuichi is actively using stickers in LINE WORKS in order to change the company’s communication in a casual direction.

 

We also created a group to share supplies. Up to this point, if a single business place had closed and generated large quantities of supplies that had to be disposed of, it had been disposed of as industrial waste. In contrast, if we opened a new business office, we were buying the supplies we needed each time. It was a cost-effective procedure for both the disposal and the purchase. But now on when we get supplies that we don’t need anymore, we post a message to our group chat room, ‘Is there any office needs these supplies?’ to confirm or ‘I’m looking for ○○’ to transfer supplies among business offices. You can attach a photo using LINE WORKS so it is easy to recognize color and size. We are saving at least 10% by eliminating almost no disposal.

Mr. Kunio：

The nursing field is open 24 hours and 365 days. According to the care insurance policy, the number of employees should be arranged according to the area of the facility or the number of tenants and if there is a vacancy, we need to get help from another facility to make up for it. LINE WORKS is very convenient to communicate in an urgent situation like that.

Mr. Kunio：

Nursing field often deals with confidential information like the residents’ personal information. There are things that residents can’t say over the phone because the people around them will be able to hear. Until now, residents have to meet the person in charge face to face in order to figure out what’s going on. After LINE WORKS was introduced, by using personal contact via chat room, it made easier to recognize a situation and instruct orders. ‘Human’ is the core of the nursing business operations so there are human-centered troubles occurred. LINE WORKS improves the precision of communication so it can enable detection and response at an early stage before troubles become more serious.

 

Mr. Takeshi：

The biggest effect is faster response speed in an emergency situation. A few days ago, we had an infection at one of our offices, and we created a group chatting room to deliver a necessary message to employees who needed to be contacted at once. The one-day response process, such as who would response in the field, preparation of necessary supplies, and checking the nurses’ response, was completed within 10 minutes using LINE WORKS.

Also, the operation of nursing facilities provides the residents an invisible time and space. Nursing staffs have responsibility for supporting residents in a communal life to have a smooth daily routine and for excluding any distraction as soon as possible. In another business perspective, when we have on-day contact related to facility tours or urgent issues from hospital or care managers, it is important to contact rapidly with sales department representatives because it directly related to company’s reliability and sales. With LINE WORKS, employees are able to get in touch and response faster than before.

Mr. Inuta :

I am in charge of overall systems-related works, including fixing the employees’ computers, maintaining and repairing the company servers.

 

Mr. Noguchi :

I am mainly responsible for rear support from the Sales Headquarters, such as preparation of sales support system and data preparation.

Mr. Noguchi :

We can now send MR staffs the same information on urgent contacts related to medicine and medical supplies simultaneously. We are also feeling that the employees’ message checking rate has also increased when sending the information through SMS. Not long ago, we sent out the information to the employees and checked their checking time. We found out that 80% of those employees read the message within 30 minutes. In the past, it was almost impossible to check whether the employees read the message or not. With LINE WORKS ‘Read’ notification, however, it is much convenient to actually see how many of those employees read the message.

 

Mr. Inuta :

For those field employees who cannot visit the office often, we believe that it has become more convenient to communicate with others due to LINE WORKS since it enables seamless communication through the tool. For example, once the field employee finds a defect from the product at the customer’s place, the employee can now be able to take the photo of the product and send it to the Product Management department at the headquarters immediately. What changed the most is that it is now possible to make immediate response for the requests from headquarter. The speed of sales activities has definitely changed.

 

Let’s hear from Mr. Nouta and Ms. Date, who are actually using LINE WORKS.

Mr. Nouta :

We are sharing information such as reactions of the doctors when making business-related contact, introducing our products, or even sharing the trends of the competitor companies through LINE WORKS. Also, when we need certain information, we use LINE WORKS to find the employee who knows about the information.

 

Ms. Date :

We are mainly using LINE WORKS as a means of delivering the customer contact history or the request to the MR, who is mostly working outside the office. For example, when we receive a contact from our customer asking for more supplies, we notify MR and ask him or her to make response accordingly to the contact.

Mr. Nouta :

Because our conventional means of communication was telephone or company’s computer e-mail, there were only a limited number of people who could communicate with each other. Further, for some employees, they could not reach out to the computer all day. For this reason, we often experienced time difference during information sharing. Today, however, speed of information sharing became much faster than before. Also, because we can find out whether the employees read the message or not through ‘Read’ notification, our overall workflow became much smarter and faster.

 

By frequently sharing information and the news regarding trends of competitor companies, our company can now place future foreseeing sales activities. As we can freely share information by oneself as well as instantly hear from other employees about their idea and opinion, we can proactively place various activities.

Ms. Date :

Up until today, we felt that SMS communication is more like one-sided communication since we could not find out whether the communication participant has checked the message or not. However, ‘Read’ notification from LINE WORKS helps us a lot, enabling both sender and receiver to find out who read the message. Specifically, younger employees are sending more responses to the massage than the past. As we can communicate with others only using the LINE WORKS stickers, the communication are actively held and this helps us a lot.

 

In fact, I have never used LINE even for personal purpose. Due to this, when I first heard about the introduction, I felt worrisome and also thought ‘Oh well, I do not know how to use the tool’. After actually using the tool, however, I felt that LINE WORKS was easy-to-use tool. I cannot imagine myself going back to those old days. I would be very much embarrassing if there is no LINE WORKS.

 

Mr. Sogou :

Our company constructs telecommunication facilities, sells electronic equipment and devices, and provide services related. This year is our sixty-ninth anniversary.

 

Ms. Matsuda :

I am member of department in which takes care of IT systems. We work as a company help desk, meaning that we build PC or servers and suggest IT tools, while managing the introduction and answering questions about LINE WORKS.

Ms. Matsuda :

In order to verify LINE WORKS before the introduction, we collected targeted users from each department and division and promoted them to use the tool. During the trial period, we also encouraged the users to use as many features as possible to collect the actual usage experience. Ultimately, we could hear opinion from the users that Read notification at the chatting room and File sharing on the Drive have reinforced the overall working process more efficient than before. After the verification, we decided to introduce the tool earnestly.

 

Mr. Sogou :

In fact, we have also received negative opinion from our employees, such as communication can still be well handled through smartphone SMS. In spite of this, our company could not accept smartphone SMS because SMS cannot be managed by company and becomes shadow IT. To solve this, the company rather to chose promote positives about LINE WORKS features such as Read notification and File sharing through Drive, than telling negatives about shadow IT. We encouraged the employees to voluntarily use LINE WORKS.

Mr. Shimazu :

I am mainly responsible for construction management and maintenance of social infra projects. Also, I am in charge of integration of the company security systems. Thanks to LINE WORKS, constructing the training center project, which is one of the company projects that I am leading, is easily progressed. We used to struggle with getting the responses from the persons concerned since the project participants are chosen from different departments who manage different works. Since we have all different working situations, it was awkward sometimes to even make phone calls to them.

 

After the introduction of LINE WORKS, we are now communicating through messenger, instead of using phone call or email. We are utilizing when sharing product information with other employees, making decisions, notifying the opening of the conference. We now rarely have problem when sharing information, and this increased the response rate. This ultimately, led us to process the project with speed.

 

Ms. Honke :

I am responsible for sales, suggesting IT solutions. Back in the old days, whenever I work at the field and urgently need either schedule or an estimate, I had to come back to office to check it. But today, I can immediately ask my assistant at the office to send such document through LINE WORKS. Response that ‘I had to bring it to the office to solve’ can be processed on the spot. This has quickened the responsiveness of our clients and ultimately enabled to play the sales business which clients satisfy.

 

We are also utilizing LINE WORKS on company communication. For example, our employee ID card was renewed few days ago and had to turn paper to check roman characters of each employee. It took a while to check all of the employees’ since there were employees who were working at the field or the employees on consulting at the moment. For this reason, we took a photo of this paper and send it to the team members. With this tactic, what other team took for about a day to finish checking was only taken us about 20 minutes to complete. It is natural for people who use LINE, but there are still a few people who are not accustomed to this. In recent days, we are thinking about introducing IT tools to our customers with the purpose of reforming the work style. In order to process the reformation of the company work style, we would like to provide ideas of utilizing LINE WORKS in the perspective of the young colleagues.

 

Mr. Sogou :

Our company has a lot of architects on telecommunication facility construction and also employees with craftsmanship. For this reason, our company takes some time to introduce something new. However, if we do not change ourselves by introducing new and comfortable tool like LINE WORKS, we would not be able to survive in the future. We have decided that it is important to first introduce the tool and we actually did it. As a result to this, we already found the positive changes from our working style. We are expecting LINE WORKS to be a turning point for improvement of employee consciousness.

Mr. Kakinouchi :

Our company is a subsidiary company of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Group. We provide IT supports to each company inside the group and we provide know-hows which we gained to the other companies.

 

Business Solution headquarters mainly responsible for provision of systems and services for each company in the group, and the development of infrastructure systems related to railway services, accounting, and personnel and so on. Headquarters Administration, in which I work for, is responsible for new solution planning and one of the projects was the introduction of LINE WORKS.

 

Ms. Nishisaka :

I am mainly responsible for system maintenance for estate-related clients. I gave a birth to my child and used parental leave at the end of 2015, when the project was progressing actively. Currently, I am using short-time work after I came back to office.

Ms. Nishisaka :

As the fall of 2016, we started telecommuting as a part of work style reformation and use the chatting as well. Unlike phone, we can continue our conversation even after leaving a seat for a while. For example, when I have to communicate on the phone while taking care of my kid, it is hard for me to talk calmly. With chatting, however, I can continue the conversation even sometime after. Also, it is very convenient to ask for confirmation or materials necessarily needed at the time when I am comfortable.

 

We have regular video conference. However, we have to wait until the conference to ask questions and also takes time to receive the response. But chatting not only have the time limits but also more comfortable than emailing when sharing the short notice. Furthermore, I can easily send request to the others when there is something to ask.

 

Mr. Ishida :

As a boss of Ms. Nishisaka, it became a great help to be able to keep the track of the situations during her teleworking. It is possible to check all the minor details about the work, which are not necessary to call and make deliberate inquiries. Also, it is possible to naturally share the situation with the team members via group chatting room. It seems like LINE WORKS plays a big role in terms of being enable us to check the overall situation with minimal communication. We believe that it is great pleasure to the company to have the opportunity to have smart and talented employees return to the office and show their ability with the work.

Ms. Sakakida :

We are utilizing LINE WORKS when creating the chatting room with other members and check detailed specifications or receive instructions from our boss. Because we sometime have obstacles for collaborations such as, seats of the participating members are located far away or the member is absent, there were the cases when neither confirming the work nor adjusting the opinion did process well enough. Ultimately, delayed time in development as well as re-do the work were unavoidable sometimes.

 

After the LINE WORKS introduction, we felt that the unnecessary time wasted while waiting for the response or reworking rate have been reduced than before since we can still share opinion regardless of its physical distance. Waste of communication has also reduced as the checking process with the employees is now simplified. As we can contact each other more often than before, we feel that the cohesion of the team got better.

 

Ms. Tanaka :

Work processing time has been speeded up. If we forward questions or issues need to be checked via LINE WORKS, we can do our work before receiving the response. Since we can also response to the received messages immediately with LINE WORKS, we are able to use our time efficiently. Up until today, it took time to communicate with the boss who are working outside the office regarding small issues and checks, since we only had phone or email for communication. With LINE WORKS, however, we can ask any question without feeling burdensome and our boss can also give simple reactions like ‘OK’.