In July 2024, Takuya Ito was appointed head of the MAGELLAN club and is active as a playing manager.

Currently, he is the person ultimately responsible for each project handled by five team members, and while he is in charge of QCD (quality, cost, delivery date) management, he is also in charge of multiple projects himself, facing clients from various angles.

How can we gain the trust of our clients and continue to engage with them? We spoke to Itoda, who has been serious about building relationships with his clients, about the growth he has experienced at XICA.

Takuya Itoda
General Manager, MAGELLAN Department, XICA Corporation

In his previous job at a general advertising agency, he was in charge of sales and strategic planning, mainly focusing on media work for government agencies and commercial facilities. Wanting to implement evidence-based strategic improvements through data analysis, he joined XICA in 2022.
As a customer service representative, he has provided a wide range of marketing support to major home appliance manufacturers and telecommunications companies, from upstream strategies to proposing operational improvements to advertising strategies, using the advertising strategy verification tool (MAGELLAN). In July 2024, he was appointed head of the MAGELLAN department.

Three levels of value provided by XICA

── Before joining XICA, you worked at an advertising agency for 10 years.

I worked at a railway advertising agency, where I was involved in sales, media planning, and web advertising buying, as well as being seconded to the parent company to request work from other agencies.

── Why did you decide to leave the advertising agency where you had worked for a long time and move to XICA?

I think I was able to gain a wide range of experiences because I was there for a long time. However, I also felt something was missing.

I felt that at an advertising agency, there were many situations where I was asked to make proposals that reflected my sensibilities and were in line with the client's needs.

Clients would ask us to "increase sales" or "attract people," and we would put our teams together to meet their expectations, but often projects would move forward without ever seeing actual data such as sales.

The lack of satisfaction I felt was"Logic" as the basis for the proposalI thought.

At XICA, clients share performance data such as sales figures and data on past measures they have implemented. We analyze this data and make proposals based on a logical, evidence-based approach, which I feel has filled the void I felt at the time.

── Please tell us about the MAGELLAN Club, of which you are the director.

Our mission is toIncrease client satisfaction and understanding of the analysis, and continue to maintain relationships.

Continuing to provide value to clients and making them feel that XICA is meaningful will lead to retention.I believe.

── What exactly is the value that XICA provides?

Although what each client wants varies, the most obvious is, Visualization of the effectiveness of marketing measuresOptimizing budget allocationis not it.

Large companies, especially, often have numerous marketing initiatives, including promotions, carried out simultaneously.

Are these budget allocations really optimal? Can better results be achieved by allocating the same budget differently? Many marketers have questions like these.

By comprehensively analyzing the correlation between measures and results, we visualize the contribution of each measure to results and propose optimal budget allocation.I think this is an easy-to-understand example of the value we provide.

── First of all, you provide the value of "visualization." What other values ​​does it provide?

Even if you can visualize things and know the optimal budget allocation, the question remains, "So what should you do next?"

there,Suggest next actions based on analysis resultsThis is the next value we provide after visualization.

We don't just hand over the results of our analysis; we provide suggestions that lead to the next action, which is what gives meaning to our support.

── By providing this kind of value, we are able to maintain relationships with our client companies.

In fact, what's important is what happens next.

It's a waste to only review your marketing once. By reviewing it regularly and reflecting and implementing your next actions and marketing plan, you can improve the accuracy of your marketing.

By including XICA in this cycle, our client companies will be able to continue to win.I believe.

In particular,Building a flow and organizational structure to keep the PDCA cycle going in marketing.

Transforming business operations and organizational structuresI believe this is the greatest value we can provide right now.

Verbalization means facing something sincerely

── In order to provide that value, is there anything that you consider important?

Verbalizing goals and issues.

── What does it mean to "face" something?

What are you struggling with and what do you want to achieve?

Although the client has a vague idea, often the client himself is still vague.

so,Rather than accepting the vague problems and issues we receive, we need to articulate them precisely and get all project members on the same page.I think it's important.

By continuing to work with clients, the amount of information and communication we receive increases. Therefore, it is important to maintain the relationship in order to improve the accuracy of the issues we address.

── Are there any factors that determine retention?

There were certain factors that we considered important that determine retention, such as satisfaction with the analysis results, but even knowing these, there was a time in the past when we struggled with churn (cancellation).

This experience prompted us to articulate in more detail the elements that we considered important, thereby increasing the resolution within the team.

Instead of ending the discussion at a point where they "kind of understood it," they raised the resolution to a level where they could apply it to their own actions and decision-making.I feel that this is helping to increase clients' willingness to continue using our services.

Growth gained from facing verbalization

── Please tell us your vision for the team and what it will be like in the future.

There are two goals:

First, we need to expand the capacity of our team.

Our department makes proposals to customers mainly about "MAGELLAN", but rather than becoming people who only work on MAGELLAN, we want you to cherish what you want to do and the future you envision, and become valuable personnel wherever you go.

I would like to expand the area that the entire team can handle by supporting each employee to go beyond their area of ​​responsibility and accomplish tasks beyond what they are currently doing.

The other is the expansion of the organization.

Although it is becoming more widely known in society, I feel that there is still room for growth in understanding MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling) itself and in awareness of MAGELLAN.

In the future, I would like to increase the number of our members and make our organization stronger and bigger in line with the needs of the world.

── What skills will team members need to have in order to achieve the future they envision?

From detailed tasks like schedule management to considering how to provide optimal value to highly abstract clients,Moving between two perspectives with different granularityproject management skillsI think it's necessary.

later,Hypothesis building abilityThat's right. There are many times when clients ask me to explain "why a certain analysis result is what it is," and I am required to formulate my own hypothesis, such as "maybe this is the reason," and then communicate it.

The last part is a bit cliché, butCommunication skillsI think that creating a good atmosphere is an essential skill for a project to proceed smoothly.

── It's been almost three years since you joined XICA, Mr. Itoda. Do you feel that you have grown in any way since joining the company?

Looking back, I feel that I lacked a variety of skills before joining XICA.

I am still learning, but the biggest change I have noticed compared to three years ago is,Listening, speaking, reading and writing skillsI feel that each of these areas has grown.

"Listening skills" are the skills of asking questions in an active listening manner to clients who have problems that are difficult to verbalize, encouraging them to verbalize. "Speaking skills" are facilitation and presentation skills, and "reading skills" are the ability to look at numbers and graphs and interpret them to think, "Maybe this is why these numbers are going up." I was also able to hone my "writing skills" by creating documents and reports.

── Have there been any other changes compared to when you were an agency?

When I was working at an agency, when people asked me to reflect on my life, I could only answer vaguely.

However, after joining XICA, I continued to face the challenge of putting things into words without running away, and as a result, I was able to properly answer questions about my own growth. This interview is no exception.

── Thank you. Lastly, please tell us your goals for the future. As individuals, as a project team, and as a company called XICA, I want to work hard every day to become a "partner" that is always by our clients' side.