Sakurai

Our mission is to provide services that streamline indirect cost management for companies, while supporting the strengthening of governance and operational efficiency. Our primary targets range from large enterprises to mid-sized and small-to-medium businesses in Japan, with a particular focus on approaching accounting departments, information systems departments, and, in recent years, DX departments.
While the market is seeing the emergence of multiple competing services, our strength lies in our ability to provide expense reimbursement solutions that span both domestic and international markets, combined with high levels of global integration and connectivity. This enables consistent operational management even in complex environments involving multiple locations, currencies, and regulatory systems.
Although we initially focused on large enterprises, we have now gradually expanded our target to include mid-sized and small-to-medium enterprises, broadening our market reach. In the mid-sized and small-to-medium market, we are actively pursuing proposals for switching from existing expense reimbursement tools to our service, and we are strengthening our support by lowering the hurdles to implementation and providing operational assistance.

Yamazaki

In addition to expense reimbursement, we have three main pillars: travel management and invoice management. We have expanded our service scope, particularly by launching the Standard Edition for mid-sized and small-to-medium enterprises. Adoptions driven by trends such as Work Style Reform and Digital Transformation have increased significantly.

Yamazaki

The Marketing Division consists of the Marketing Department and the Sales Development Department. The Marketing Department is responsible for lead generation through various initiatives such as trade show exhibitions and digital marketing, while we in the Sales Development Department are responsible for generating sales opportunities as inside sales. Our department is segmented into Enterprise (focusing on the Tokyo metropolitan area and Western Japan), Large Enterprise, and Mid-Market (small-to-medium enterprises). We also have teams dedicated to proposing additional solutions to existing customers and teams focused on the public sector. Each inside sales representative collaborates with several field sales representatives to conduct proposal activities.

Sakurai

At the time, we were using another corporate database, but we faced two major challenges. In the marketing department, data cleansing of leads obtained from exhibitions and webinars was performed almost manually, such as by cross-referencing Excel sheets. However, because the information provided by customers in forms often contains variations in company or department names—even for individuals from the same organization—managing customer data was extremely time-consuming. We also assign corporate numbers to manage customer data, but for mid-sized and small-to-medium enterprises, information on corporate numbers is often missing or difficult to assign, which became a management issue.
Furthermore, from an inside sales perspective, it was difficult to assign industry and sector information to leads from mid-sized and small-to-medium enterprises, and we felt challenged in managing segments. Therefore, we hoped to leverage intent data to predict which competitor products a target company might be using, allowing us to formulate hypotheses before initiating our approach.
As with other products, today's consumers conduct thorough research online before making direct inquiries. I felt that for B2B customers as well, capturing their pre-purchase behavior at the earliest possible stage would be a key factor in our future sales activities.

Sakurai

We decided to adopt the service after verifying its various capabilities, such as the richness of the information and the ability to analyze companies we are approaching in detail.
Corporate data in uSonar includes information such as industry, sector, and company size, which has made it easier to create a common understanding across departments, such as agreeing that "this company belongs to this industry and this segment." As a result, discussions regarding which companies should be prioritized for outreach have become smoother, leading to improved accuracy in our inside sales activities.
Additionally, the "Story" feature allows us to classify companies using various criteria, such as "companies expanding overseas," "companies with fiscal year-ends in March or June," "companies with increasing expense reimbursement," or "companies with growing profits." I saw great potential in being able to send optimal approach emails tailored to the specific characteristics of each company based on these classifications.
Furthermore, the highly attentive support we received after implementation was very reassuring. From our sales and customer success representatives to the detailed manual reviews, they carefully accompanied us through meetings and training, allowing us to proceed with the implementation with peace of mind.

Yamazaki

The essential features that were in SideSonar were successfully migrated, and since it has potential for development as a core service in the future, we made the transition without much hesitation.

Sato

I am responsible for enterprise companies in Western Japan. Because I manage a large number of accounts, it is quite difficult to handle them all alone, so prioritizing my target list is essential. I use PLANSonar's intent data to check my target list for clients searching for legal-related keywords, such as "Invoice System," "Invoices," or, a while back, "Electronic Book Preservation Act." Of course, the keywords I check vary by product; for Concur Travel®, which manages business trips, I prioritize my approach based on clients searching for keywords related to service characteristics, such as "Overseas Business Travel."

Sato

I believe intent data is extremely useful when forming hypotheses before making an approach. By knowing what a client is interested in beforehand, I can structure my messaging for the first call. I am convinced that this is vital data for building trust and demonstrating necessity.

Shoji

I am in charge of the large enterprise market, which involves a very high volume of accounts. Although I only joined the company in January, I feel that PLANSonar is a tool that allows even a newly appointed representative like myself to efficiently prioritize outreach targets.
In particular, I utilize the "Mixer" function to identify themes for "Stories," such as "Companies with frequent overseas business travel," "Companies interested in DX," or "Companies with high overseas revenue." I then use that information to develop context for my outreach and apply it to my daily sales activities.
Additionally, I find the ease of list management to be a significant benefit. For example, when using Excel, company lists become massive, making progress tracking difficult and cumbersome. With PLANSonar, I can register my own approach lists and use the "Priority" function to manage and review progress in detail. I believe this is a highly convenient UI/UX that I would like to recommend to future team members.

Yamazaki

In the Marketing Department, since implementing uSonar, the time required for matching and consolidating customer data has been reduced to one-tenth of what it used to be. Previously, we had to manually check for duplicate corporate data using Excel functions. Since we started using uSonar, we simply upload our lists to PLANSonar, and the core organizational data, such as corporate registration numbers, is automatically assigned.

Yamazaki

We will continue to aim for further penetration among mid-sized and small-to-medium enterprises in parallel with our efforts for large corporations. Regarding the future utilization of PLANSonar, we have expectations in two directions.
One is the "ICCI (IC Card Integration)" service, a direct automatic linkage with transportation IC cards that only we provide. This is a highly convenient feature that automatically links transportation expense data—such as station names, dates, times, and fares—to Concur Expense® upon passing through ticket gates. Since companies in urban areas will find this particularly beneficial, we would like to proactively propose it. Therefore, I believe we can utilize PLANSonar to create targeted approach lists of companies located along specific train lines.
Another is the proposal of "Verify," an AI-based fraud detection service recently launched in Japan. This service allows AI to check for over 38 scenarios, such as the reuse of fraudulent receipts, excessive billing, and detection of personal use, which helps strengthen corporate governance. I believe we can utilize PLANSonar to extract "companies that are proactive in utilizing AI for business operations" or "companies that prioritize governance" for this purpose.