Mr. Hiroi:

Our company operates ‘Atema Kogen Belnatio’ accommodating a hotel, a golf course, and various nature activities in Tokamachi City, Niigata Prefecture. As a manager of the Management Department, I am in charge of general affairs and human resources, system operation, facility management, etc.

 

Mr. Kanazawa:

As the General Affairs·HR manager of the Management Department, I take care of system -related management such as salary, attendance check, and introduction and maintenance of PC. I am also involved in operating and managing LINE WORKS.

 

Mr. Saiki:

As a manager of the Guest Relations Department, I am in charge of overall customer service for resort facilities including hotel and restaurants.

Mr. Hiroi:

Our resort started getting more spotlight after winning Gold for the ‘Rakuten Travel Award 2017,’ an award given to accommodations with exceptional user reviews. In order to provide and maintain quality service, employees need to communicate closely and share information seamlessly. Nevertheless, the risk of ‘shadow IT’—confidential information being leaked while employees share work-related information through mobile devices— has emerged as an important issue to be solved.

Mr. Kanazawa:

We used groupware technology to announce various kinds of information in the office, but checking them frequently was a challenge since information could only be accessed through a PC in your designated seat. As prompt sharing of information with employees in reception is a must to manage a resort, we had to consider an additional communication tool.

 

Mr. Saiki:

In the Guest Relations Department, we adjust the shift schedule of about 50 employees to match the number of customers each day. In order to do this, we contacted employees through phone or mail, but some staff off-duty could not be reached, and some employees who did not own company-provided mobile phones felt burdened to share their private phone numbers.

Mr. Kanazawa:

After considering various tools, we took note of LINE WORKS, a service that allows users to share real-time information through mobile phones regardless of location, and which is certified with a global security standard of SOC. There were also some customers wanting to use LINE messenger to communicate with the hotel. We were attracted to the fact that it is a tool that can be managed by the company and also be integrated with LINE, and also that it does not require additional training because it has the same interface with the widely-used messenger, LINE. After trial operation with the CEO and the General Manager included, we could feel its convenience and improvement in work speed. Consequently, we decided to officially introduce the service. We opened around 200 accounts including part-time employees to utilize it for managing work shifts. As there were only a few employees provided with mobile phones from the company, we introduced the service as a BYOD (bring your own device), asking employees to download the app in personal mobile phones.

 

Mr. Hiroi:

The Management Department established basic operational regulations, such as restricting file downloads to mobile phones because of security issues, and stipulating that work-related contacts should be made only through LINE WORKS.

Mr. Kanazawa:

We have naturally come to use LINE WORKS when making work-related personal contacts, and groupware when delivering information across the enterprise. It is a rule not to carry a mobile device in reception except for the staff in charge of emergency contacts, so we asked employees to use LINE WORKS in the back yard. As a result, we could feel that information we needed to share with reception employees was being communicated faster than before.

 

Mr. Hiroi:

Unlike groupware where you have to access it to check information, we can receive a LINE WORKS alarm anywhere in the resort. This has significantly reduced the time it takes for sharing information, and in turn sped up the general work process.

Mr. Saiki:

Every day, our resort runs five shuttle busses that connect hotels to various regions such as Tokyo and Niigata, and when the number of passengers increases due to sudden bookings, we also need to increase the number of customer service employees to prevent chaotic situations. After introducing LINE WORKS, it has become easier to ask night-duty personnel to come to work early, on bus arrival time. We can also contact employees with much ease and clarity when we urgently need to change work shifts, due to emergencies like sudden banquet reservations.

 

When we notice any damage in the facility and need to get approval for repair and changes in room layout, we send photos to our supervisor and ask for judgement. Before, we used to print out the photos or send them through groupware, so sometimes it took us two to three days for the supervisor to reply if he was on a business trip. After introducing LINE WORKS, we can get real-time instructions, as supervisors can immediately reply wherever they are.

 

Mr. Hiroi:

With LINE WORKS, you can call someone whom you don’t have the number of. Moreover, I believe that there is more communication now with the use of message rooms, and teamwork improved.

 

Before, employees used to make reports and ask for consultations mostly through phone calls, but after the introduction of LINE WORKS we are using phone calls only in times of emergency—most other issues are delivered through messages. As we receive less and less work-related calls on the holidays, we can sense quality improvement in personal time.

Mr. Saiki:

I think we might utilize the integration feature for external conversations. Then we will be able to use the service for contacting buyers in the beverage sector. At the moment we are making contacts mostly through the phone, but if we could keep such conversations in record, we would be able to manage the order-to-delivery process more efficiently.

 

Mr. Hiroi:

I would like to use ‘Form’ and build a system where we can check employee status in case of emergency.

 

Moreover, every week, the management staff get together to report on what happened during the week— I would like to utilize voice and video call feature so that even employees in the Tokyo branch can take part and share information face-to-face. I believe that the risk of ‘shadow IT’ that has been a big challenge has decreased, but since it hasn’t been long since the introduction of the service, we plan to continue in our efforts to establish regulations to use LINE WORKS more safely, and to utilize its various features.

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

LINE Corporation is broadening its scope by starting Fintech business like LINE Pay, as well as starting AI business using intelligent assistant ‘Clova’. According to this, the role of our Enterprise IT center has become growing. As a chief of the IT Support department from Enterprise IT Center, I am responsible for works related to help desk. Implementation of the communication tool is also our work. Lastly, I am also in charge of supporting systems to not only Japan, but also all global hubs including South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Primary company communication tool is definitely LINE, which is the basis of our company. When joining a company, the employees register their LINE ID to LINE WORKS Contacts and use it company-wide. We have organizational level of groups such as Groups for IT support and HR department, as well as other groups made based on its unique characteristics such as nationality or hobbies. Each group actively exchanges information and contributes to the activation of communication. LINE WORKS is the communication tool used all across our affiliates. We assign ID to all the employees who have joined us, and basic tasks such as chatting, mail, calendar, bulletin board and file sharing are done through LINE WORKS. Slack is also used by employees who have a lot of contact with engineering teams and engineers.

Slack is a tool introduced in response to the era of “communication tool for engineers = Slack”. Not only Tokyo, Fukuoka and Kyoto, but also engineers working in development centers in Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia are also using it. If a question is posted on a public channel someone in the public domain replies to the question. It is a very convenient tool for engineers who are used to open source development.

 

On the other hand, office workers beside engineers are using LINE WORKS as their primary tool. When there is a need to search for employees, LINE WORKS, which allows all the employees to register their face photos and real names on the contacts when entering the company, is more convenient. Many employees love and feel friendly about LINE WORKS because they can use stickers like LINE.

 

Of course, we do not choose which tools to use solely depending on the job, but who we work with. That means, service planner working together with engineers also use Slack. While Slack feels like we are having a comfortable meeting with a lot of people in an open space, LINE WORKS feels like one-on-one meeting in a conference room. We are distinguishing the use of two different tools and use them in this way. We assign LINE WORKS accounts to all of our employees, including work consignment or dispatched employees and guide them to use the tool separately according to their work.

We communicate with our customers by email, but we sometimes use LINE to contact some of our clients who have established a trust relationship with us. However, in order to prevent us from exchanging company confidential information with personally used LINE account, the auditing division, in which dealing with personal information, clearly prohibits use of LINE in the company and encourage to use LINE WORKS instead. Of course, when the disaster occurs, we check make sure that each employee is safe using LINE. If our communication partner does not check LINE WORKS or Slack, we use LINE in order not to lose the communication.

Since we are working as a team of multinational members, we share information regardless of time period. For this reason, we would like to appreciate the LINE WORKS for enabling multinational members to share information in the same environment, can be used both PC and mobile, and have the high security level. We can check work and schedule at anytime anywhere. We can also communicate and share documents with other employees, which boost overall working speed. Multilingual translation is one of the features that we find very convenient.

 

In order to establish communication with the employees whom entered the company at the same period, we have created a group in LINE WORKS. Because personnel staffs from HR department are also joined the group, employees can easily ask questions or concerns, even if they have newly joined to the company. Of course, after a few months, we will leave our personnel in the chat rooms and run them independently. Since our company has a hiring date twice a month, we are trying to communicate with the newly joined company through such utilization.

Since LINE WORKS has a lot of external public APIs, we would like to make more use of it in the future. For example, we do not have a reception desk in offices other than our head office, so we are considering introducing an automatic reception system. ACALL (Acol), an RPA service for visitors, has recently announced linkage with LINE WORKS *. In the future, I would like to make it possible to connect directly with the department that I want to visit by linking with LINE WORKS. It is said that we are one of the companies who provide demanding and meticulous suggestions on LINE WORKS improvements.

 

We are proud that we have been improving LINE WORKS through dog pudding ※, as we became users from the early stages of its development.

 

 

※ ACALL : providing a RPA (Robotic Process Automation) service that automates the response of visitors.
※ Dog pudding : To check the usefulness of testing or improving the beta version of the product and find out the problem for the improvement, while employees use their products or services on a daily basis.

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