Tell us about your company and individual roles

Mr. Shou :

Our company is a creative company, centering client works. We are in charge of consulting services such as analysis, strategy design and planning in marketing and communication that companies and administrative organizations, brands and products require. And, we are also in charge of production works, actually produce and deploy works according to the plan. In the marketing or creative field, It is common to divide into two types of companies. There are companies only taking responsible for strategy and planning, while some other companies are dealing with production solely. Unlike this, our company deals with both, and therefore one-stop operation is one of our company’s characteristics.

What were the issues before the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Shou :

In the past, there was a lot of communication held via email, SNS messenger, and phone calls. Basically, checking the document and its data has been carried out by attaching to mail or SNS. Except for some projects, schedules were managed in a very analog way, such as checking at the meeting or filling out the whiteboard.

 

First of all, the first problems was that it took significant amount of time when confirming various types of information. To take our company as an example, either the designs or products can be opened to the public only after the president confirmed to be okay.

 

Even though we strived to received confirmation from our boss, we could not receive the feedback instantly from our boss via email and phone calls as well. If we were not to receive a confirmation until our president return to the office, the manager who referred had to remain in the company for minor changes. The president also had to come back to the office from outside working on a deliberately late hour to check the product. Secondly, we spent too much time during the meeting. We had to wait for all the participants to be present at the meeting. Or even when the information that was shared in advance the meeting was not well unified, we even had to explain the purpose of the meeting and further goal of the meeting. With this, we felt that we were wasting the time needed to be spent reasonably.

Mr. Kazuo :

In terms of scheduling, each employee was managing its own schedule with individual tool. Because of this, when one of the mandatory meeting participants could not attend the meeting, we should check schedules of other participants individually and re-schedule the meeting. And, this was burdening and inefficient. Also, even if we send the emails to the other employees, we could not find out whether the recipients checked the email. Therefore, we had to call back to figure out whether the recipients actually receive and checked the email sent. I am spending most of time working outside these days. It was burdening to work outside since I could not check the issues if not turning on the laptop and connecting to the Wi-Fi. Due to this, I had to come back to office to deal with the issues. I believe this contributed to the delay in making responses.

What was the decisive reason that drove you to turn to LINE WORKS?

Mr. Shou :

We already acknowledged about LINE WORKS since February, 2017 through news report. Since our company acquires the P mark (Privacy mark system) and ISMS (Information Security Management System), so we need to protect privacy and security thoroughly. We have considered introducing other groupware tools for several times in the past. In cost-related perspective as well too many features, however, found to be mismatch to our company. For this reason, we ended up not using any of them. Unlike other groupware, LINE WORKS has benefits of customizing its tool to make it fit to our company style and also has simple and clear UI which enables us to easily accustomed to the tool. There was no extra feature too. Because we did not find any issue with related to security, we decided to introduce the tool to our company.

How exactly LINE WORKS is being used? Also, what are the effects after the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Kazuo :

Modifying schedules and information sharing has become convenient. Since we now can see the schedules of all the employees, it is very helpful when scheduling. We can simply modify the schedule just by sending ‘Are you available at this time?’. Also, when holding a meeting, we can share the agenda through Home function and make sure all the meeting participants check, bring idea and opinion about the agenda and even think of the result in advance. By doing so, we found that the time we spent on the meeting have decreased than the past.

 

In the past, there were a few employees too busy reading the email with the agenda. Due to ‘Read’ notification, however, we can assure ourselves that all the employees have read the email. LINE WORKS is currently used for company communication, while email is used for communication outside the company. This method has been established and settled as official communication. As a result to this, the number of shared emails that were previously close to 100 to 200 per day has dropped to less than half.

Mr. Shou :

What has changed the most is that we now rarely use email or SNS for company communication. We did not force to quit using such tool. Instead, it vanished naturally, and started to use LINE WORKS as an alternatives. We encouraged employees to make chatting room per each project. This way, we can follow up the overall process of project simply by checking the messages inside the chatting room. This is very efficient way of working. When sharing information or document, we are also attaching the files to the chatting room. It also possible to instantly check the attached files at the chatting room using LINE WORKS viewer.

 

After that, we can either send comments on the documents or just simply send okay sticker to the chatting room when there is no extra issues to be discussed. Like this, remote communication gets faster than before. We no longer have to wait for our president to come back to the office for the confirmation. And, this led all the employees to process and finish their work faster. Similar to this, it was general to make comments like ‘Let’s talk about this after returning to the office’ or ‘Let’s share this agenda at the office’. Just by using chatting room, however, we can immediately have conversation. With this, we rarely hold quick face-to-face meeting, standing in the corner of the office. In fact, in the field of creative works, efficiency and short working time cannot go along with quality. I used to work at the office until late night during peak season. But after the introduction of LINE WORKS, the finishing time has shortened overwhelmingly. I felt that as more spare time the employees have, the better productivity the entire company have.

Our company also schedule and operate events. From the preparation and installation of the equipment to the actual events, there are times when we communicate to all employees of the company on the date of the event. This way, we can show all the employees how to prepare for the installation or how the booth is being completed. That is, we can show  whole company about the overall operation process, including employees who are not directly involved in the event. As a result to this, employees, even if they were not originally participated in the event operation, could easily feel as if it is their own work and even appreciate one another for the accomplishments. We definitely think that it has heightened the sense of unity among employees.

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

Each Sales coordinator takes care of 30 dispatched AD employees!
Impossible to figure out whether messages are properly delivered to each coordinator due to an absence of unified communication tool

WEST Co., Inc., well known for offering delicate care to AD employees, sales coordinators meet each AD employee at least once a month to ask for concerns they encountered while dispatched to the field. Since it is standard for AD employees to work at each broadcasting company, they normally did not have company-issued email account. For this reason, before enterprise communication tool was introduced to the company, either work rescheduling or communication have been made through email, SMS, and LINE. Each sales coordinator takes care of 30 AD employees. However, there was a problem that the contact method was all different for each AD, and the mail sent from the computer was often declined or not properly received by mobile phone. Also, sales coordinator could not figure out whether AD checked the email. This has caused the overall communication burdensome and definitely took a lot of time.

We first introduced other enterprise communication tool, but integration has failed

About a year ago, WEST Co., Inc. introduced enterprise-level communication tool, hoping to hold more efficient communication. It is true that the company achieved their goal in the perspective of making their communication more effective than before. However, the tool could not successfully be integrated into the company due to its difficult operation method. There were a lot of AD employees who failed to utilize the tool. The situation that not being able to check whether the employees read the message was not improved as they wished. For this reason, the company decided to introduce LINE WORKS, which has easy usage, interface, and ‘Read confirmation’ function like LINE. This was also believed to be the right choice for younger AD employees in since most of them are the active user of LINE.

After integration, we could immediately feel how comfortable LINE WORKS is

Just by transforming their communication tool into LINE WORKS, WEST Co., Inc. has been able to add employees to the company contacts as well as start group chatting much easier than before. Furthermore, the AD employees who had trouble using the messenger or those who only use LINE, could also easily been adapted to LINE WORKS with no extra training or education. Particularly, Mr. Shimazaki, a sales coordinator who had to contact many AD employees, is deeply feels the convenience of the ‘Read confirmation’ function. If the employee instantly checks the message he sends, he considers the moment as the right time to make a call. On the contrary, if the employee does not read the message for a long time, he considers the employee as busy and wait for a reply. Like this, communication has become possible to be made according to the situation of the other party. Because LINE WORKS provides ‘Read notification’ feature, its usability is going beyond that of LINE in terms of finding out who read the message or not.

We can concentrate more on work-related communication by distinguishing it from the other

For Mr. Onose, who works at the TV program production field, had to use various communication channels including LINE and smartphone email to communicate with employees or directors from different program production teams. After LINE WORKS integration, office communication has centralized into one collaboration app. It has caused him to be able to distinguish work-related communication from other personal ones. This has also caused him to hold active communication with the clear understanding of the purpose.

The introduction of LINE WORKS has reduced the sense of distance and we can still grasp the situation even if we cannot meet in person

In the field of broadcasting production, where the intensity of work is high, it is most important to quickly identify and improve the anxieties or the tangled relationship of AD employees. In WEST Co., Inc., the sales coordinator must meet with the AD employee once a month to hear their story. For example, the change of the assigned program or work shift schedule of the week may cause the employee problems related to human relationships. And, this may have never been heard unless meet them in person. Regarding this issue, Mr. Shimazaki, a sales coordinator, feels that LINE WORKS has close the distance between the AD employees, and made it easier to hear the relationships and troubles at work from the parties and the surrounding friends of AD employee. As an AD employee, Mr. Onose feels that it has become comfortable holding casual conversation with LINE stickers. Also, he believes that it enables communication with the sales coordinator to be made easier, even when there is no scheduled meeting. LINE WORKS is being used not only for business contacts, but also utilized as an ideal communication tool that helps communicate emotions among the employees. With all this, more delicate care is possible.

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