Mr. Umezawa :

Under the mission of “seeking the blossoming of new culture by promoting the convergence of Eastern and Western cultures,” Daito Bunka Institute operates three schools: Daito Bunka University, Daito Bunka University Daiichi High School, and Daito Bunka University Aogiri Kindergarten. As an Executive Director, Secretary General and Planning Director, I assist the chairman of the board and I am in charge of general management and operation of the institute, including corporate decision-making procedures, financial and office organizations, human resources affairs etc.

As the Chief of Staff in the Institute’s General Information Center Office, I am in charge of information systems including network, server, backbone network and client PC, and I also take care of adoption of IT devices, maintenance, and operation management.

Ms. Maekawa:

In the Faculty Course Center located in Daito Bunka University, we support acquirement of teacher’s licenses and finding career paths as a teacher. As a member of the center, I am in charge of gathering and delivering information related to job and volunteer opportunities in schools for students who wish to become teachers.

Mr. Watanebe :

PCs used by office workers who handle students’ personal information can only be accessed through intranet for safety purposes, and in principle, taking them outside of school is prohibited. Nevertheless, this factor has been impeding work efficiency, and we felt the need to create an environment where information can be accessed from the outside, and promote communication among employees.

Ms. Maekawa :

For students who aim to become teachers, we post information about teacher recruitment in the school portal and also on the bulletin board. However, as it is difficult to catch students’ attention with the bulletin board in the faculty course center, we were searching for an alternative means to share information that could substitute the paper notices, which were quite cumbersome to make and replace.

Mr. Watanabe :

After comparing and reviewing various tools, we came to notice LINE WORKS, which has the same interface with LINE many young employees use. We decided to introduce the service because there was no special training needed before the introduction, and because operating and managing the service didn’t seem burdensome.

Mr. Watanabe :

We made a regulation prohibiting employees from describing information related to students’ personal information, and informed the employees through orientations, LINE WORKS’ ‘Home,’ school intranet and etc. But we tried to stay away from unduly detailed regulations as much as possible, in order to bring about the active use of LINE WORKS.

Moreover, this coincided with the time when we provided iPads to all employees to pursue paperless work environment, so we kitted and distributed the LINE WORKS app.

For office workers who were not provided with iPads, we allowed using LINE WORKS through personal devices like mobile phones. But since we also ban taking iPads outside of school in principle, we allowed BYOD (Bring your own device) for all employees, creating an environment where information and work-related contacts can be shared, regardless of time and place.

Mr. Umezawa :

Prior to the implementation of the “Work Style Reform Act,” we organized employees into groups so that they could voluntarily start projects on how to change the way they work. About 70 out of 200 employees took part in the project, even though it was a voluntary activity outside of working hours. There were also many people who wanted to know about the project’s progress but could not participate, so for them I uploaded a video explaining the project’s guidelines in the LINE WORKS message room as a kickoff. Afterwards, we conducted a survey with LINE WORKS’ ‘Form’ (which has just been introduced) on pending issues, and we could collect so many responses compared to the surveys conducted in the past. Based on the responses, we established six subcommittees, and they are utilizing LINE WORKS along with discussions and face-to-face meetings.

It wasn’t easy for employees to participate in the existing project while juggling with daily work, but LINE WORKS has enabled them to exchange ideas anywhere, anytime—message rooms almost serve the role of group study rooms. Although young employees find it quite challenging to speak out in a typical face-to-face meeting, ‘Message Room’ enables everyone to participate in the discussion regardless of age or rank, and also to check previous conversations and review the flow of discussions. I think this is a big strength of LINE WORKS. Although these groups are a place for voluntary learning for employees, without particularly aiming to make proposals to reform policies, we plan to combine the results achieved in each subcommittee and use them as a reference for establishing policies to change the way we work.

Mr. Watanabe :

The Institute’s General Information Center frequently gets inquiries from other departments regarding the backbone network and client PC. After adopting LINE WORKS, we get most of the inquiries through LINE WORKS, not calls. When we received calls, we often had to stop what we were doing to respond to the inquiry right away; but when we receive them through message rooms, we can judge whether we can respond when we have time, so there is less psychological burden for response.

Ms. Maekawa :

I consulted Watanabe from the Institute’s General Information Center about how we can efficiently deliver information related to teachers’ recruitment. He recommended creating the center’s LINE WORKS account and sending information to students’ LINE accounts just like [LINE@.] Based on his counseling, we built an environment where we can connect with students’ LINE accounts through external conversations, and send information about recruitment and volunteer opportunities in message rooms through PDF files.

After recruiting applicants who had wished to receive a LINE alarm among students, most of the students who had completed the teacher training course have registered. Students can additionally fill in information about name, student ID, major, and the kind of local government or school (elementary·middle·high) they wish to apply for through tags; based on this information we use the ‘search’ feature in message rooms to search for tags, and send information customized for each student.

Mr. Maruyama：

Our company raise milk cow and deliver 13 to 15 tons of milk daily. Myself, as a leader of the farm, I am taking leading roles in financial and production management.

Mr. Okada：

I am in charge of overall management of the farm, including taking care of the calves and cows, as well as the employees working on site.

Ms. Hasegawa：

I am in charge of managing feedstuffs for milk cows.

Mr. Maruyama：

Since the average age of the employees is about 25-26, which is comparatively younger generation, we previously used LINE as a company communication tool. What was the most problematic at that time was sending the wrong messages. In the past, because we were using the LINE for both private and business purpose, there was problem like sending the message to the colleagues, instead of sending it to the friends. It was risky and unstable in security perspective since we often share confidential information through messenger.

Also, in order to notify the symptom of the diseased milk cow in detail as well as to share professional information about the machine and facilities, we often share photos and videos through LINE. However, what we found problematic with LINE was that it was impossible to archive those attachments. For this reason, we hoped to use the business version of LINE if launched.

Mr. Maruyama：

Our company is planning to expand the business, and in the same sense, we are planning to increase the number of employees up to 100 near in the future. To build an organization and make improvements to the communication tool, we have been thinking that an IT tool should be introduced to our company.

While searching for a business communication tool that is similar to LINE, we found LINE WORKS on the internet. Because LINE WORKS enables us to manage all the employees based on their positions, we believed that this would help us constructing organization. Also, as a ‘business version of LINE’, it sounded interesting to us. Those who are working at the farm are not all IT intelligent, and therefore, maybe a few employees who are having hard time memorizing the usage of the new tool. If it were LINE WORKS, however, we believed that employees soon be able to get accustomed to the tool due to its similarities of LINE.

Ms. Hasegawa：

Honestly, I was a bit nervous about having another application since I am not good at using machines and internet. But, as I start to use LINE WORKS, I realized that it was easy-to-use. Also, it was not having group chatting rooms inside LINE, but having them inside the LINE WORKS. This enabled us to share information much easier. Because we are using two different applications, it was good to have different notifications, since it allows us to find out whether the message is for private or business purpose.

Mr. Maruyama：

Our company encourages not only the employees but also mechanics and vets to make LINE WORKS accounts. If one of our machines is broken, we can directly send messages to the chatting room, in which mechanics as well as related people are also participating. This way, everyone can figure out the issue immediately, and does not forget to order pieces for repair. In addition, as all the employees share both symptoms and medical record of diseased cow through LINE WORKS, even with those who were not at the office could respond promptly to such issue. This has also contributed to maintain the health of the cow.

Mr. Okada：

We share information about milk cows’ childbirth as well as daily issues through messenger. We also upload meeting logs to the board. Previously, if we had a meeting with specific employees or project members, we used to print out the computer-written meeting logs and told the employees to write names on the paper if they read the log. With LINE WORKS board, however, it allows us to read the meeting log whenever we want and we can also find out whether every employee has read the log or not.

Ms. Hasegawa：

I am sharing information with all the employees with regards to feeding the milk cows. We decide the amount of the feed to give to the milk cow next day, based on how much did the milk cows eat their feeds on the day. And bad conditioned feed is one of the reasons to consider. We constantly share information in order to track what are the ingredients are included in the feed and act accordingly to it.

After the introduction of LINE WORKS, various changes are made to our company, and it helped us with efficient working as well as human resource management.

Because it is a tool that we use on a daily basis, we can follow the rules regularly

In order to keep the resting place for cows as clean as possible, we put sawdust on the cow bed. Before using LINE WORKS, random employees, who thought about changing the sawdust did the cleaning once in two years. But, after the introduction, we started to write the cleaning schedule on the Calendar to do the cleaning once every three months. As a result, we could sustain the beddings for the cows clean and ultimately, we could also reduce the possibilities of cows getting diseases.

We can save unnecessary time for travel since we are able to check about 200 manuals using smartphone

We have about 200 manuals on the works needed in the farm, such as milking and coping method for cow disease. Before the introduction, all the manuals are saved on the computers located inside the office. For this reason, we had to go to the office to check the manual. After introduction, however, it became much comfortable for us since we can save all the manuals at the drive and download them on my smartphone whenever wanted.

‘Listening to opinion’ has become our new culture. And, with this, we could successfully finish our cleaning project!

We had a problem keeping the farm clean and neat for a long time. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, we came up with a goal to make a successful story of making our farm clean. We immediately started an organization and cleaning project using the Note feature. The employees first visited and inspected the clean farms as an example, and we shared reports with photos attached to the Note in order to decide which farm to take it as an example. Furthermore, we conducted a survey asking questions like what are the problems at our farm and which part of our farm should be cleaned. Two months later, we could successfully finish our cleaning project and keep our farm clean. In fact, the project was meant to be started 3 years ago, but it did not go well at the time. Because we could gather up all the employees’ ideas and thoughts in one place, there was no detailed idea made regarding the project. With Note and Survey feature, we could share thoughts and ideas and listen to others as well. We believe this motivated all the employees in our company.

We were able to create a business credo that reflects the will of the employees

As the number of employees increase, we were constantly thinking about documenting the company’s business credo as well as value of the farm with the aim of keeping our corporate climate strong and tight. To do this, all the employees gathered through the LINE WORKS Survey feature. All the employees answered what they thought about the social significance and responsibility of Asagiri Maple Farm. Before the introduction of LINE WORKS, employee’ comments were received via written memo or verbal communication. Also, we had to fill the excel form to accumulate the survey result. The overall process was burdening for all of us. We also had difficulty communicating opinion with others. LINE WORKS survey, however, was very easy to use. Because collecting and sharing opinion became so easy, the feature has enabled us to create our business credo together with our employees.

By sharing and checking up calves’ birth in real time, the calves’ fatal death rate has been reduced from 10% to 5%.

Our company had a mission to reduce the calves’ fatal death rate since we had a bit higher rate when compared with other farms. For this reason, we started to use LINE WORKS Messenger feature to increase the frequency of observing cows and share the situation in real-time. As all the employees are able to acknowledge about the condition of the cows, we could be more cautious and pay more attention to those cows. About 6 months after the introducing LINE WORKS, we could reduce the fatal death rate from 10% to 5%.

Mr. Maruyama：

As information sharing became smoother, we can process all the projects harmoniously. In corporate perspective, growth rate as well as group gathering force have also increased. Moreover, as we can now manage our work, efficiency of production management has improved, which is positive change made to our company.

Mr. Yamamoto :

Our company is a Holdings company, and our business covers from housing wholesale to manufacturing and sales. Main business is the wholesale business which mainly covered by Japan Construction Materials Corporation. However, we also have interoffice in which doing housing construction business. I am a member from Finance Accounting Department, Business administration Headquarters, but also as a member of Office Rationalization Committee, I was in charge of introducing LINE WORKS to our company this time.

Mr. Yamamoto  :

A purpose of Office Rationalization Committee is to introduce systems or tool which enables efficient working environment. We had a mission to find a communication tool that is suitable to use, since we did not have such tool. We used to use a groupware as a communication tool. However, there are limitations such as it can only be used inside the office and if the employees were to use outside the office, they had to connect VPN every time.

Moreover, not all the employees had the accounts to the groupware. Therefore, we had to use phone calls obligatorily in order to connect with other employees. Phone calls, fax, and groupware communication has been continued for decades.

Mr. Yamamoto :

Under such circumstance, important information such as announcements on personnel as well as medical checkup cannot be delivered to the all the employees. Especially, ‘Japan Construction Materials Corporation’ is consisted mostly with salesperson, and therefore, the administration department considered about not being able to share various information to them. In order to make sure the information is delivered successfully to each employee, some of the branches print out the written mail and receive the paper with the employees’ signatures on it. Still, it costed a lot of efforts.

Company provided cellphones were mostly 2G phone, which only provide calling feature. For this reason, we often use personal smart phones to communicate with the employees from both working inside and outside the office. Notably, the number of employees who are using LINE as a communication tool was increasing. It is unavoidable if the customer wants to communication through LINE, but this was still not perfectly suitable. Although we wanted to prevent our employees from use LINE as a business communication tool, we had no other option to replace it.

Mr. Yamamoto :

We compared various communication tools to find the most suitable option. But, with the purpose of regulating the contacts held between the salesperson and the customers through LINE, we paid attention to LINE WORKS. For other applications, we had to install a certain program in order to communicate with the customers. However, LINE is already well being used by the people, including our customers. The most decisive factor for LINE WORKS introduction was that it is easily connected with LINE.

Also, LINE WORKS is cost-effective, when compared with other tools. We wanted all the employees to use LINE WORKS, instead of the current groupware that only certain portion of employees are using.

Mr. Ishizawa :

We were thankful about that there is no need for manual or education needed for LINE WORKS introduction. Because most of the people were already using LINE, we believed that the employees would soon be able to get used to LINE WORKS. We were not sure about the other tools since they had different user interface to LINE.

Mr. Yamamoto :

In 2017, we started a project to reform our working style, and 10 participants from the project started using trial version of LINE WORKS. And, soon we received positive feedbacks from the participants such as, ‘Response time gets faster’, ‘I can definitely contact everyone inside the company’, ‘Read notification feature is comfortable’. It took less than a month to actually introduce LINE WORKS to our company.

Mr. Yamamoto :

Employees from administration department to part-time workers, we are able to communicate everyone working in the company without feeling difficulties to it. This definitely has broadened our communication. One of the great features of the LINE WORKS is that we can easily reach out to the people whom did not know their contact information. We are encouraging our employees to record their duties at the LINE WORKS profile. And when we have questions like ‘Who is in charge of this agenda?’, we can easily check the profiles of the employees and reach out the right person.

We can work time effectively as we reduced unnecessary time we spent in the past, such as waiting for omitted emails to be checked or waiting for a call to be connected. We believe that overtime working at night time will soon be eliminated. By sending photos about the question we want to ask, it is now possible to share thoughts and opinion in depth.

Mr. Oshio :

As one of the employees from Human Resource department, dramatic increase in survey response rate and active communication with prospective employees are the two key accomplishments. It is cost-effective to use LINE WORKS because we did not have make individual tool for each agenda. Also, we curtailed expenditures by changing the tool from the SNS tool that we previously used to LINE WORKS.

Mr. Ishizawa :

We would like to implement auto-answering chatting bot based on AI near in the future using LINE WORKS. Setting aside from the working style that we have continued for decades using phone calls and fax, we expect that the introduction of innovative tool called LINE WORKS would bring us big impacts to our company.

Ms. Ito：

‘Nail & Eyelash Syisyu’, a beauty company located in Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Hawaii, has a first-class nail artists and a trained eyelash therapists. We offer great technique and design at a reasonable price.

Ms. Ezaki：

I am a store manager of SyiSyu Umeda branch and in addition to greeting customers and nail procedures, I am responsible for overall store management like sales management, customer acquisition, and employee training.

Ms. Ito：

Before introducing LINE WORKS, the internal communication methods were mainly e-mail, telephone, and Fax placed on each store. Only limited staff members use their own LINE to communicate when there was an urgent communication needed.

We were unable to accept phone calls during working away from the office or greeting customers. If an employee continues to use the phone because of in-house contact, he or she may not be able to answer the customer’s reservation call.

Ms. Ezaki：

I was usually notified by the store’s email about staff members schedule management and new products. However, it was often not delivered properly because miscommunication happens or verbal mistakes occur during delivering messages. We have used FAX many times, but we need to copy what we received from FAX and deliver that message to every staff member or each employee takes a picture of it on their Smartphone and saves it again, which is a waste of both time and paper.

Ms. Ito：

Contacting from headquarters to stores, stores contacting each other, or inside the store etc all internal communication in our corporation is mostly done by using LINE WORKS.

Schedule sharing and managing

We check the employee’s desired schedule and upload the confirmed schedule chart to the Home to share. It is very convenient to check or make changes schedule at any time.

Nail design checking

Nails need to be replaced regularly, and trends change so that store staff makes a new commercial design every month. When technical manager sends a new nail design draft, you can check it on a chat room, and you can verify clearly because it is easy to attach photos to the LINE WORKS chatting room.

Nail design sharing

The new design, which is decided after the design check, is uploaded from the headquarters to the ‘Drive’ that has file storage feature and shared the link URL at Home. Until now, photos have been sent as zip files to each store via email, but there have been frequent problems such as zip files are not opened and people check only the text, not attachment. Drive is easy to share designs with the ability to view photos at once using Smartphone. I think it is very good to convert into your Smartphone size.

And when sharing on Home, we put a nail color number for that specific design in order to check right away when processing procedure.

Ms. Ezaki：

If you send a chat, you can tell who read it at a glance. So even if you don’t get a reply, you can assure that the message has been delivered. Information was sent to each employee’s smartphone in batches, which eliminates the need to operate copy machine or shredder; it saves not only FAX paper or trashes but also employee’s time burden. The schedule can be viewed on a smartphone, so you can check it right away even if you are not at the store. An employee just needs to check LINE WORKS, which is very convenient way.

Also until now, we did not contact with other store managers, but LINE WORKS’ ‘Store manager chat room’ enables to contact easily and we can share other stores’ information such as sales management and customer acquisition. For example, if weekend sales are not good enough, we listen and refer to how other store’s status or method of attracting customers.

Ms. Ito：

We think the biggest effect is that field staff can notice the contact from headquarters right away. So far, we have failed to check email or missed confirmation. However, now we can directly deliver a message to all of the employees without having middle steps like through a store manager or a mail. Especially, if we showed pictures of a nail in a meeting before, people only who was in a meeting could know it. However, now that we can send files directly, employees who aren’t in a meeting can also see that picture and I think that is the biggest advance.

We can reach each employee one by one, so every contact has been made and no one has been left out. Information that delivered only to the manager level has started to pass on to entry-level workers and this gradually increases employee’s responsibility. We think this is because workers keep in mind that ‘I am also a valuable employee’ and participate in work as a team. Because our industry is sensitive to trends, we think using the latest tools like LINE WORKS will also motivate our employees.

Mr. Sato :

Our company mainly designs, manufactures. And sells nail guns and various types of equipment for manufacturing companies. For the nail guns, we are occupying more than 90% of overall domestic demand. With more than 40 years of experience, we have been supplying factory facilities for manufacturing companies.

Mr. Ebi :

I am in charge of planning and supporting sales activities of each department, and making promotion tools. Moreover, I am responsible for managing company infrastructure, website, as well as filming product videos.

Mr. Haneuda :

I am mainly in charge of designing, producing, and installing the factory facilities.

Mr. Sato :

Even with trivial troubles and issues occurred at the site, it may be regarded as major and important for the company, and eventually become important ‘issue to be solved’. I think that the value of the company is determined by how quickly does the company identify the issue and cope with it accordingly. For this reason, we are countlessly encouraging the site staffs to ‘correct the issues as soon as possible’, and ‘those who are at the site should collect the issue and report to the office’.

In order to do so, we are providing cellphones to every employee. Also, we have been thinking that information sharing and collaboration tool as the most important factor for flawless and fast communication.

I was the member who tried using LINE WORKS during trial period. After figuring out some of the features, we came up with the conclusion that LINE WORKS is the collaboration that we have been looking out for. And, we decided to adopt LINE WORKS to the entire company.

Mr. Ebi :

One of the obstacles for collaborative work was that we could not share information fluently under the environment in which computers cannot be used. For example, when employees are out for either long-term business trips or construction sites, we could not find out if the collaborators checked the email or the information in properly shared until receiving the response from them. For this reason, there were delays in response as well as a number of employees were involved to solve the issue. This was so inefficient in every aspect.

Mr. Haneuda :

Before LINE WORKS integration, we used to contact each other through phone calls or emails. Using email as a communication tool was burdening and ineffective since we could use it only after successfully setting the network. I think this was one of the reasons causing delays in the response.

Mr. Haneuda :

We have created the chat rooms for each construction plan or project, and encouraged the employees to both share information and report the issue there. We are mainly utilizing LINE WORKS when reporting the construction status while working outside the office, or consulting the troubles occurred.

We do collaboratively work with other franchisee offices located in Saitama, Nagoya, and Doyama. Even with the physical distance, LINE WORKS enables us to instantly share the current status of the situation by sending photos or videos on the chatting room. With LINE WORKS, we can also download the structural drawings and continue our work smoothly in real time. Unlike computer, using smartphone version of LINE WORKS allows us to check the message straightaway. Further, we can notify and share information with a number of employees at once just by sending messages on the group chatting room, and we found that pretty efficient.

Mr. Sato :

After LINE WORKS adoption, the approval process on various estimates has become overwhelmingly faster than before. Up until now, employees had to write initial estimate by hands, and attach the copy of the estimate to the email and send it to the people related in order to get approvals. Because the approval was made in order, it took times to get the final approval from the CEO. Also, if CEO is on a business trip, it was inevitable to have delays in receiving the approval, and sometimes, the delay was even last for about a week. After LINE WORKS adoption, we open up a chatting room based on the agenda, invite all the employees related, and upload the estimate file to get approvals. Those who have joined the chat room can sign an approval on the document regardless of the approval order. Once the staff from the General Affairs find the estimate has received the approvals from everybody in the chatting room, the staff send the estimate. Even without turning on the computer but just using LINE WORKS on the smartphone, it allows us to easily make approvals on the document received, and we can also make approvals while on the business trip. With this, the speed of the overall working process has improved. What used to took a few days to process has now only take about a few hours to complete.

Mr. Ebi :

As LINE WORKS is fully aware of enterprise level of security requirements, we feel secured from company assets and data leakage. In the perspective of workflow, we are truly thankful to LINE WORKS with the effects to eliminate reports and contacts missing, and even eliminate the unnecessary work repetitions. As a result of transforming the email communication into LINE WORKS, we now can continue our communication with the same feeling of having conversations with the collaborators. Along with such sense, we feel that the overall communication and collaboration speed has become faster. As it becomes easier for every employee to share the ideas, ask for consultations, and even report easily, we are sure about that there are more chances available to have communication with one another.

Another limitation for using email was that it only allows us to send files with the maximum size of 5MB. For this reason, we had to divide the file and send several times of emails in order to send file that the size bigger than 5MB. After LINE WORKS adoption, what becomes the most comfortable is that we do not have to worry about the file sizes as LINE WORKS covers the size up to 100MB. Workflow has now economically changed by directly sending big sized files like videos, construction maps, and even program data on the LINE WORKS messenger. Employees no longer worry about making mistakes like miss out reference or attachments when writing emails. And this definitely is another advantage we gained from using LINE WORKS messenger.

By allowing us to open up the chatting rooms for each department or project, LINE WORKS assures that necessary information that we send through messenger will be sent to those whom it may concerned. If we use LINE WORKS messenger, we can simply write the core information, even without writing pointless introduction, or just send the file for the urgent matter. Previous communication history can also be comfortably checked and reviewed. Specifically, if one of our clients ask the question that we have discussed before, we can simply check the message by checking the archived conversation history. Since we are currently making the best utilization of LINE WORKS, we cannot even imagine us working without it. Moreover, close in the future, we would like to archive every portion of our company data and asset on LINE WORKS.