Bringing a fresh wind to a company with no digital marketing foundation. What decided it was the people.

■ What they do
・Comprehensive staffing services (temporary staffing, contracted work, recruitment, placement of highly skilled foreign professionals and registered support organisation for Specified Skilled Workers, engineer dispatch and contract development/design, translation and interpreting)
・People development (tiered training for new employees and others, specialist training)
・Workplace improvement
・IP (research and filing for intellectual property, patents, etc.)
・Green services (landscaping and flowers)

Sunstaff Inc., a Toyota Industries group company, offers a wide range of services centred on comprehensive staffing services such as temporary staffing, recruitment and contracted work, together with people development, workplace improvement, IP (research and filing for intellectual property, patents, etc.) and landscaping and flowers. We began working with them in April 2023.

Behind the start of our work together was the wish of the person in charge to create a foundation for digital marketing within the company, leading to new customers and services. About six months after we began, how has the situation changed? We asked Mr Masuda, a director of Sunstaff Inc., who was in the Management Reform Department at the time of the request and is now General Manager of the Comprehensive Staffing Services Division, about the background to asking NowVillage for marketing support, the results, and what he expects going forward.

A company with no foundation for digital marketing: how to make it take root in the culture

― Please tell us your position and department.

I’m Masuda, General Manager of the Comprehensive Staffing Services Division at Sunstaff Inc. This division mainly runs temporary staffing, recruitment and contracted work.

At the time of the request I was in the Management Reform Department, overseeing the groups for profit management, PR and IT promotion, as well as a department with an overall sales management function, and I was driving various projects and plans.

― What are the goals of your department (team)?

We are now a profit-generating unit, so our most important metric is, naturally, operating profit (sales).

― Before coming to us, what marketing challenges did you have?

There were challenges with marketing itself, but we had nobody with digital marketing experience, and even when we tried to build a foundation for it, the very definition of “marketing” was vague.

In our management strategy too, I think the basis of marketing, “what to offer to whom and how”, was very weak. In that situation, we couldn’t quite take a concrete first step towards getting people to understand the importance of digital marketing.

― How did you come to know about us?

Around January 2020, I happened to meet Mr Imamura at a gathering of business owners. We exchanged contact details, but then we had no contact for about two years.

Then in February 2022, Mr Imamura got in touch to say, “I’ve set up a digital marketing company.”

So one of our employees attended a NowVillage seminar to try it out. From hearing that employee’s impressions, I understood (NowVillage) to be roughly “a company strong in digital marketing using social media”.

The deciding factors: a strong ability to grasp our needs, and “personality”

― And then you actually consulted us in November 2022.

At the time of the request, as I looked at the company as a whole from a corporate planning standpoint, I gradually came to see the issues. That’s when your company immediately came to mind.

Because our business model is mainly about providing services to our parent company and group companies, it is true that some departments rely on “relationship-based selling”. That matters too, but there is an unavoidable tendency to make sales visits only to those companies. This had been one of our issues for some time.

When those departments tried to deal with customers outside the group, I think they had neither the marketing knowledge nor the means, and had done hardly any competitor analysis.
They believed their products were good, but they had not really managed to establish, objectively, whether they had a USP in the market; they came to see lots of even more impressive competitors and lost sight of their own strengths.

Also, we have relied on outside companies for much of our advertising and promotion until now, so we have little know-how in-house. So when it came to getting serious about digital marketing, the conversation would start from “Which vendor should we ask?”

I felt that this way we would never become a truly strong company. I wanted to increase the number of people in the company who are skilled at digital marketing, and to grow the number of people and colleagues who are studying it even a little; with that in mind, I consulted NowVillage.

― What was the deciding factor in choosing us? 　

I can say this now, but at the time I was going round asking five or six people, “Do you know of a good digital marketing support company?” I heard from several companies, but sometimes our intentions didn’t get across well, and the large firms quoted amounts our company couldn’t really afford…

Amid all that, it was Mr Imamura who listened properly and grasped our needs. As I touched on earlier, ultimately we want to raise the skills (or “capabilities”) of our own people and bring digital marketing and promotion in-house. I believe this is an essential stage in strengthening our business as a company. I see it as one important part of developing our people.

Mr Imamura and I have had many meetings to align our thinking, and I feel we have constructive communication. Thanks to that, our understanding of the issues the company faces has become much sharper. Since we are developing our employees together with an outside party, I think the substance and speed of communication matter.

Also, as you talk with someone, you gradually come to understand what they value in their work, how they live and what kind of person they are, don’t you? It’s a bit embarrassing to say in front of (Mr Imamura) himself, but in the end the deciding factor really is “personality”.

For small and mid-sized companies that want a catalyst for change

― Please tell us about the results you have gained through our in-house capability support.

At our annual mid-term management planning meeting, we decided to first create an opportunity to discover our own strengths and think about what we should do to make use of them in our business, and members at group leader level and above worked through frameworks. We did a cross-SWOT based on 3C and PEST analysis, and since quite a few employees were unfamiliar with them, it was well received as a good opportunity to change how they see the company.
After that, NowVillage’s training started at just the right time, and it is becoming the engine for spreading this to other members.

Quantitative results are a little hard to point to at this stage, but if I had to name one, it would be our training services. The USP analysis we carried out as part of bringing things in-house prompted us to try selling outside Aichi Prefecture, and from there we were able to hold online meetings and have discussions aimed at winning orders. Gaining the confidence that “this is how we can sell outside the group”, and finding that we can compete in other areas too, was a big step forward for the sales team, I think.

― Finally, what kind of companies would you recommend our services to?

In a word, I’d recommend them to any company that wants to broaden the scope of its business. We are currently discussing what related services we will expand into and what new services we will create in the future, and we also consult them about initiatives to make that happen. It’s a great help that it’s easy to consult them even about small things, and that we can move forward while consulting them.

Among small and mid-sized companies, the way they sell products and services or communicate their value can be one-way, and I think there are still companies that rely solely on visits from sales staff. But I believe the times are changing at tremendous speed.

Companies need to properly accept that it’s no longer just about sales staff making frequent visits, and change in a new direction. If even one person in a company wants to do DX or digital marketing, I think things will move forward strongly, but I think many companies don’t have such a person. I think there are many companies looking for change, and for a company like NowVillage that will come inside and drive things forward energetically.