Sakurai

Our company provides services with the mission of "streamlining indirect cost management for companies, and supporting the strengthening of governance and operational efficiency." Our primary targets range from large enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses in Japan, with a particular focus on approaching accounting departments, information systems departments, and, in recent years, DX departments.
Although there are multiple competing services in the market, our strength lies in our high level of global integration and collaboration capabilities, in addition to providing expense reimbursement solutions that span both domestic and international markets. This enables consistent operational management even in complex environments involving multiple locations, currencies, and systems.
While we initially focused on large enterprises, we have now gradually expanded our target to include small and medium-sized enterprises, broadening our market reach. In the small and medium-sized market, we are actively working on proposals to switch from existing expense reimbursement tools to our service, and we are strengthening our support by lowering the hurdles for implementation and providing operational assistance.

Yamazaki

In addition to expense reimbursement, we have two other pillars: travel management and invoice management. We have expanded our service scope, particularly by offering the "Standard Edition" for mid-sized and small-to-medium enterprises. The adoption of our services has increased significantly, driven by trends such as "Work Style Reform" and "DX".

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 shows and digital marketing, while we in the Sales Development Department are responsible for generating sales opportunities as an inside sales team. 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, lead data consolidation from exhibitions and webinars was performed almost entirely manually, such as by cross-referencing Excel sheets. However, because the information provided by customers in forms often varies in company or department names even for 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, corporate numbers are 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, making segment management a challenge. Therefore, we hoped to utilize intent data to predict which competitor products our target companies were 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 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.
uSonar's corporate data 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/June," "companies with increasing expense settlements," 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 the sales representatives to the customer success team, they carefully walked us through the manuals and provided dedicated support during meetings and training sessions, allowing us to proceed with the implementation with confidence.

Yamazaki

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

Sato

I am responsible for enterprise clients in Western Japan. Because I manage a large number of accounts, it is quite difficult to handle them all on my own, 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." Naturally, 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 Trips."

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 the messaging for my 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 use this information to develop context for my outreach and incorporate it into 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 it difficult to track progress and view data clearly. With PLANSonar, I can register my own approach lists and use the "Priority" feature 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 Division, since introducing 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 and similar methods. Since we started using uSonar, we simply upload our lists to PLANSonar, and the core organizational data, such as corporate registration numbers, is automatically appended.

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.
First 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 boarding/alighting station names, dates, times, and amounts, to Concur Expense® when 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 along specific train lines.
Another is the proposal of "Verify," an AI-based fraud detection service that we recently launched in Japan. This service allows AI to check for over 38 types of scenarios, such as the reuse of fraudulent receipts, high-cost claims, and the 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.