XICA combines three capabilities, "consulting," "execution support," and "technology," to implement data science into business. XICA's consultants are in charge of the "consulting" area.

We spoke to Minami Yusaku, who serves as deputy director of XICA's consulting department, is responsible for running the organization as a manager, and is also the owner of several projects, about the work of a consultant.

Yusaku Minami
XICA Corporation Consulting Department Deputy Director

After graduating from Tokyo University of Science, he joined McCann Erickson and worked as an account director supporting the strategy, planning and execution of marketing communication activities for various clients. In September 2021, he joined XICA. As a consultant/manager, he supports the marketing activities of major domestic clients with solutions based on data science, from strategy formulation in the marketing field to tactical planning and the construction of a policy evaluation platform.

## The challenge of non-creatively driven marketing

── I heard that XICA is your first job change.

South:Yes. I joined a foreign advertising agency as a new graduate and experienced a wide range of execution areas, from communication strategy planning to campaign design and mass digital activation. The clients I worked with were from a variety of industries. I had been there for about 13 years, so I felt that I had experienced to a certain extent what I could experience at an agency.

── What prompted you to change jobs?

It all started with the COVID-2020 pandemic in XNUMX. I had been vaguely feeling the need for a change of environment for a while before that, but with the mood of entering a period of transition, I think it was an opportunity to seriously think about my own future. While searching for a place to take on a new challenge, I came across XICA.

── What was the deciding factor?

I was interested in what would emerge if I looked at marketing and branding from a completely different perspective.

In my previous job, I focused on a creativity-driven approach to design and planning, but at XICA, I took a completely different approach to supporting my clients' marketing activities, using data science to scientifically determine the direction they should take.

I thought it would be interesting to consider marketing from that lens as my next challenge, so I decided to join the company.

## Aiming to update to a "winning organization"

── What kind of work are you doing now, Minami?

I am currently the deputy director of the consulting department at XICA, and I have two main roles.

One is to run an organization as a manager so that the team can move forward with the same perspective.

Another thing is to promote projects as a player. At XICA, we don't have separate departments for each client's industry, so we work with clients in a variety of industries.

── What kind of projects are you working on specifically?

We undertake a variety of projects depending on the client's challenges, but I think they can be broadly divided into three categories.

One of them is a project that thoroughly explores customer insights.
This involves exploring customer needs, such as what kind of needs the customers of your brand have in the first place, and uncovering what it is about the brand that loyal customers find valuable and make them purchase from you. There are also projects that use large-scale language models (LLMs) to explore customer interests and overall market trends.

The second type of project is one that explores ways to win in business.
A representative example is the recently launched"XICA COMPASS"However, many companies are struggling to choose which elements they should improve through marketing investments in order for their brand to be chosen by target customers. This project aims to address such issues by verifying and clarifying which of the hypothetical elements that are thought to be the brand's strengths and winning strategies have the greatest impact on results.

The third project is to visualize the effects of marketing activities and support the improvement of results and performance. XICA's MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling) solution"XICA MAGELLAN"By utilizing this, we can visualize which marketing measures are having an effect on results. From there, we can derive better investment allocation and accompany you to ensure that you can implement the PDCA cycle for your marketing.

Both positions are based on XICA's strength in data analysis, but are also stimulating jobs for people involved in marketing, who are always required to have a multi-faceted perspective on customers, business, competitors, etc.

── So you are flexible in moving projects forward depending on the client's challenges. What is the role of the consultant in this?

I'd like to start from the top level. First, there is a company called XICA."A data science professional company that supports data-driven decision-making".

By moving away from the traditional decision-making method based on intuition, experience, and courage (KKD) and implementing a data-driven decision-making cycle,Maximize the sustainable growth of client companiesThis cannot be achieved through SaaS products like MAGELLAN alone, or through data analysis alone.

That's where XICA consultants come in.

Our consultants will understand the client's marketing issues, grasp the data they possess, the state of their organization, and the status of their marketing operations. They will then present the issues and measures that need to be addressed in order to make data-driven decisions, and accompany the client towards resolving the issues.

Our mission as consultants is to co-create this way to update our client's businesses so that they can continue to win sustainably.

▲ Missions undertaken by XICA consultants

Most of XICA's clients are enterprise companies that invest a lot of money in advertising and promotion. Among them, the person who leads the project as their counterpart is often a section manager, and the person who makes the decision is often a department manager or higher. Therefore, it is necessary to communicate with people at that level on the same level.

── At XICA, I believe projects are carried out across departments, including consultants. What is the team structure like?

Consultants are in charge of project design and project lead, while strategic planners are responsible for research design, interpretation of analysis results, strategy formulation, etc. Analysts and data scientists are responsible for designing the analysis approach, designing the data, and carrying out the analysis. In addition, for projects that utilize the MMM tool "MAGELLAN", MAGELLAN consultants are also assigned to the team to play a central role in supporting clients in using MMM.

We also work with the marketing department to create opportunities for communication with clients through events both inside and outside the company, and we communicate daily with the business planning department to align business plans with the business situation.

We work not only within the business division, but also with the management division and human resources division, as well as the development division to reflect client needs in the product, so the business is promoted throughout the entire company.

▲XICA's organizational structure. The entire company works together to advance the business

── What do you consultants focus on when solving client problems?

Many of our projects are centered around analysis, but the process before the analysis is actually very important. At XICA, we consider there to be eight basic steps in data analysis, and of these, Step 8 to Step 1 are:Objectives, issues and hypothesesThis is the part.

Before that, I think there is a "Step 0".Understanding the current state of the client's marketing (As Is) and co-creating the To Be, or the ideal state they should aim for in the future.

After building this common understanding, we need to get a high-resolution grasp of the problems and issues that need to be addressed in this project, and then think about how to use them as an exit point... It's like narrowing the focus of the lens. If the settings here are loose, you might end up forgetting what you're doing it for halfway through, so I think it's important to get these things in order before the analysis.

── What specifically are you doing to achieve this?

This is a hearing before the project starts. We ask about the other party's business situation and current strategy, and ideally we aim to understand them to the same level of detail as the client.

── There may be cases where they won't be open about it from the beginning...?

Yes, there is. So, rather than trying to understand everything at the first interview, it is important to build trust as a partner as the project progresses. By doing so, they will casually tell you about their concerns that they have not mentioned before, and it is not uncommon for a new project to be born from that.

If the goal is to follow a formulaic process and produce output, it will not lead to building trust..The shortcut to building trust is to look at the problems and issues that clients want to solve from the same perspective, demonstrate your strengths and get recognition, and work alongside them toward the same goal.I think it 's.

── Of all the projects you've been involved in, is there one that made a big impression on you?

This is the story of a client who started out with a short-term, small-scale project.

Naturally, it was difficult to get information about the other party's situation at first. However, regardless of the scale of the project, our team worked diligently to find ways to increase value for the client, and as a result, the scope of our support gradually expanded over the course of about two years.

Now, I think we have built a relationship where we share information about the client's business and their upcoming challenges on a daily basis, and we can work together to find solutions toward the same goal. I find it very rewarding to be able to work hand in hand with the client in this way, accumulating ingenuity and ingenuity to achieve our goals.

## Always think about value for your clients

── It's been about three years since you joined the company in September 2021. What do you think is the appeal of working at XICA?

The biggest attraction is,A place where collaboration across departmental boundaries is possibleI think so. You can have very close conversations with data scientists and analysts who are professionals in the field of analysis.

There are no battles that sacrifice overall optimization in order to protect each individual area.With the desire to deliver value to clients, we can work together on projects by combining our respective expertise.I think that's what's great about XICA.

You mentioned expertise, but what do you think is essential to perform well as a consultant?

The basic skills required of a consultant are to understand the client's issues.Insight, building relationships of trustCommunication Skills, to view things in a structured and systematic way and plot the course of the projectProblem-solving skillsWe will act as the in-house control tower to ensure QCD (quality, cost, delivery) and drive the project to completion.project management skillsI think there is.The ability to envision a vision that is in line with our customers' visionis also necessary.

Analytical know-how and skills are nice to have, but they are not a must. As I mentioned earlier, I think you can learn these skills by working on projects with in-house data analysis professionals.

However, before knowledge and skills,The down-to-earth nature of going down an untrodden path, and theEnjoying the challengeI think that's important. XICA doesn't sell fixed products. We customize projects for each client company and then launch and run them.

Therefore, we first consider what value our clients will gain from our work, and then we make full use of our internal resources to flexibly design and execute projects.This mindset may be what is most needed in a consultant.

▼ The following article also introduces examples of projects that Minami has been involved in.

Marugame Seimen Co., Ltd. | Marketing Success Case | XICA Co., Ltd.
https://xica.net/client-interview/marugame-seimen/