[Employee Interview] My career started in retail sales! Why I became a marketing consultant at XICA, aiming to become a marketer for a business company

Hello! I'm Matsushita, also known as Macchan, and I'm in charge of human resources and general affairs at XICA!

This week, we bring you an interview with Aoki-san, who has been working as a marketing consultant in the Customer Success Department for just four months since joining the company!

Aoki originally worked as a store manager at a major interior goods chain, before moving to the head office to work in marketing.

We asked him what kind of career he envisioned when he left a business company and joined XICA, and what he feels about trying his hand at supporting clients' marketing as a marketing consultant after joining the company!

If you are looking to improve your skills as a marketer or if you are thinking of trying your hand at being a consultant, please take a look!

>First of all, please tell us about your background!

After graduating, I joined an interior goods company and worked there for five years, first as a store staff member and later as a store manager.

When I joined the company, I had a vague interest in creating mechanisms to generate sales for the store, but after becoming a store manager, I began to feel strongly about the importance of a strategy that would properly translate the hard work of the store staff into results.

The turning point came in my fourth year at the company!

Wanting to utilize my experience in the stores to be involved in marketing strategies from a management perspective, I applied to join the Strategic Planning Department at the head office. My transfer was approved, and I subsequently worked in the Strategic Planning Department, working from a perspective closer to management.

What kind of work did you do in the Strategic Planning Department?

Broadly speaking, there were two main tasks carried out in the Strategic Planning Department.

The first was sales analysis. I analyzed the factors behind good and bad sales, including both internal and external factors, organized the issues and measures, and created a report for internal reporting. In addition to monthly analysis, I also created supporting data for mid- to long-term management strategies.

The second step was to consider and implement measures to address the issues found in the sales analysis. If there was a department in charge, they proposed measures to that department, but if there was no department in charge, they were flexible in taking action themselves. Specifically, they analyzed the product lineup, in-store displays, and the effectiveness of measures from various angles.

> Mr. Aoki, you were enjoying your fulfilling days in the Strategic Planning Department, so why did you decide to change jobs?

The biggest reason was that I wanted to be able to develop strategies and solve problems in a broad range of areas, without being limited to one company or industry.

In the five years since I joined my previous company, I was able to be involved in everything from in-store customer service and sales strategies to ultimately the company's management strategy, which greatly deepened my knowledge of the retail industry.

However, having worked in the same industry and company since graduating from college, I felt that I had a limited number of options when it came to data analysis and marketing issues.

While I was in my 20s, I felt a strong desire to gain logical thinking skills and the ability to grow the businesses of various companies, so I decided to change jobs!

> At that time, what kind of career did you envision and how did you conduct your job search??

I always wanted to build a career as a marketer for a business company in the future, and that hasn't changed.

However, first of all, in order to advance my career as a professional in the marketing field, I wanted to find a job that would allow me to experience marketing strategies for a variety of companies and industries, so I focused my job search on a consulting position.

In addition, it was important to me whether the culture was one that fostered logical thinking skills, whether it was a company I would want to join, and lastly, whether it was a service that offered growth potential and that I was interested in.

>What ultimately made you decide to work at XICA?

Because XICA's product "MAGELLAN" can integrate and analyze offline advertising such as TV commercials with online advertising, I felt that I could be involved in decision-making for my client's entire advertising strategy and become stronger in marketing that is at the core of business management!

To be honest, there are few other companies that make me feel this way other than XICA.

In addition, MAGELLAN's ability to visualize offline measures, which I felt was an issue in my previous job, made me feel that there was potential for growth and a need from clients! For example, in my previous job, we implemented billboard advertisements as a measure to attract customers, but since I didn't know how many customers came to the store because they saw the billboard, I felt that there was an issue with not being able to logically explain the effectiveness of the billboard.

In addition, in the spring, the season for new beginnings, we implemented measures such as discounting household goods and holding in-store events, but we also had to analyze the factors that led to sales, such as whether it was due to those measures, seasonal factors, or the quality of the products themselves. MAGELLAN helped us solve that problem.

And all the HR people and interviewers I met at the interview were really charming! It wasn't a one-sided interview, they taught me about marketing that I didn't know about, and although it was a short time, I felt that I could grow at XICA, so I remember it as a very meaningful time!

> Now that you've joined XICA, what kind of work are you in charge of?

As a marketing consultant, XICA supports clients in solving their marketing problems.

The challenges that clients face vary greatly, but the most common challenge is "I don't know the optimal budget allocation for qualitative advertising!" Qualitative advertising is advertising that is run on instinct, such as "we run TV commercials every year, so let's run them this year too."

However, since business companies have a limited advertising budget, allocating advertising budgets in the most efficient way is a very important mission for marketers.

My job is to visualize advertising effectiveness using MAGELLAN and provide suggestions for optimal allocation of advertising budgets.

> Were you worried about working for clients?

To be honest, there were a lot of them! I had always worked for a business company, so I only ever received offers from people outside the company, and never made any proposals.

> When you actually tried working on a client project, was there any gap between your image and the end result?

It was a good thing! On the flip side of my anxiety, meeting my clients has been exciting and fun!

In order to visualize the effects of offline measures that could not be visualized before, the analysis results are inevitably something that clients have never seen before. Therefore, clients who have contracted with MAGELLAN look forward to receiving the analysis results every time.

There is pressure to meet expectations, but it is also rewarding, and the feedback we receive from clients on our analysis results varies depending on their industry, so we learn a lot.

>Apart from the gap, have you had the experience of both marketing for a business company and working as a marketing consultant for clients? Do you feel any differences?

In comparison, the difference in being able to "develop a multifaceted perspective" is overwhelming!

There are two reasons. The first is that we can face the marketing challenges of clients in a variety of industries. We can accumulate marketing knowledge from a wide variety of companies and consider how it can be utilized by other companies that may at first glance have nothing in common, which is something that a business company cannot do.

The second is that I can work while exchanging opinions with members who have strengths from various angles regarding marketing! For example, I always learn a lot from members who used to work at major supermarket chains, who give me their opinions on the difference in sales due to product display and turnover rate, and the actual situation of how it is affected by the economic situation.

In addition, when I talk about marketing with members from different backgrounds, such as those from advertising agencies, former sales staff at a manufacturer, and former national civil servants, I learn new things every day.

What are some moments in your work that you find rewarding?

When I'm able to provide valuable suggestions to a client and the resulting action leads to sales!

In my opinion, valuable suggestions are "8% understanding, 2% discovery." Our clients' marketers approach their marketing work with hypotheses based on past experiences. By visualizing marketers' hypotheses, we hope to help them understand them better, and by identifying measures that are more effective than marketers expected, we hope to help them discover new things.

Based on this, we would like to assist you in making final marketing strategy decisions.

I myself have had the experience of struggling to logically interpret the effectiveness of marketing initiatives, so I am happy to be able to help marketers at my client companies who have the same concerns.

On the other hand, are there any difficult aspects of your work?

Understanding of statistics, which is the logic behind MAGELLAN, is essential, but since I'm a liberal arts student, I've never had a chance to learn it properly, so it's been a struggle...! Whenever there's something I don't understand, I ask my seniors or talk to members of the Analysis Department, who are professional statisticians, and that's how I study.

Also, I still have a lot to learn about communication with clients. Naturally, it is different from an internal meeting, so I am constantly trying and testing things, from how to create materials to how to present, so that the value of MAGELLAN can be understood in the short time of a meeting.

>How have you been catching up over the past four months?

First, he spent two weeks in the Analysis Department, which is responsible for data analysis, learning about statistical analysis and MAGELLAN through classroom training. After that, he moved to training in the Account Management Department, where marketing consultants belong, where he deepened his understanding of the overall work by supporting the mentors in creating materials and accompanying them to meetings.

I had never created materials or given presentations for external parties before, but since joining the company I was assigned a mentor who always gave me feedback on my materials, and I also got role-playing sessions before meetings, so although I still have a lot of challenges ahead of me, I am gradually being entrusted with working with clients!

Although it is still a venture company with only 60 employees, it has a very solid acceptance system in place!

>As you are catching up, is there anything from your previous job experience that you are able to use?

Yes! There are two things I am able to utilize from my previous job experience.

The first is to have the same perspective as the client. The client always creates hypotheses from the customer's perspective when analyzing the causes of the results of their marketing measures. In my previous job, I also created hypotheses from the customer's perspective, so even now I am able to use that perspective when discussing with clients.

The second is how to report to management. In my previous job, I was in charge of reporting the results of marketing measures to the company's executives, so I was always conscious of what information management wanted to know most. Since most of the decision makers at my clients are from the management team, I always try to make reports that are easy to understand and can be used for decision-making.

It's been four months since I joined the company, but the other day I received a message from a client that Mr. Aoki is in charge of.MAGELLANI heard that you have been granted a continuation of your program. Congratulations! Please let me know if you have any ideas or ideas!

Thank you! The client I took over from was due for contract renewal in two months, so I owe a lot to my predecessor, but what I was careful to do was to carefully hand over the work so that the client would not feel uneasy about the change in responsibilities.

During meetings, we actively communicated with the client, such as why they decided to introduce MAGELLAN and what they expected from it, and made an effort to thoroughly understand their challenges!

>Have you mapped out the career path you were aiming for when you joined the company?

Of course I can draw it!

In order to become a marketing professional, I am now able to engage in the marketing strategy consulting work that I had envisioned.

Furthermore, there is so much to learn every day from my clients and the people I work with, so I feel that this is a great environment for growth!

>Finally, are you glad you changed jobs?

Yes! It takes a lot of courage to step into a new environment, but now I have team members who think about marketing issues with me, and I'm learning every day, so I think I'm able to increase my market value.

XICA allows me to utilize my experience in marketing, and it was the perfect environment for me as I was looking for an environment where I could broaden my horizons as a marketer and accelerate my own growth!

What did you think?

Would you like to advance your career from a marketer at a business company to a marketer who can support the marketing activities of major Japanese companies?

First of all, if you are even slightly interested in XICA, I would be happy to have a casual chat with you.

We look forward to receiving your messages and applications!

*The affiliation and title of the interviewee are those at the time of the interview.