Sales Strategy Division Leads The Way to Creating Data-Driven Sales

The Sales Strategy Division acts as a hub between the business and sales departments to optimize the sales functionality in the merchant business, from the formulation of sales strategies and projects, to forecasting and performance management, and designing sales guidelines, sales evaluation systems, and workflow.
We spoke with three members from the division, who are taking on the challenges of implementing data-driven sales.

Creating a win-win profit-sharing model for both the merchants and PayPay

You have been with the company for two years, one year, and six months, respectively. Now, if I may ask frankly, are you all enjoying your work?

Mitsunushi:
Okay, that was straight to the point! I’ve been with the company for almost two years now, and I still enjoy PayPay the same, where we’re still making up the right path as we go. I was really excited by PayPay’s grand mission to “beat cash” and jumped at the opportunity to join this incredibly fast-growing company. I push forward with all I have, realizing fully in my daily tasks that we are working in the midst of great change and growth.

And now that we have more mid-career hires in the entire division and the team, I appreciate all the new discoveries and daily inspiration as I work with diverse colleagues.

Yamauchi:
I have been with the company for exactly a year now, and I’m very comfortable at this organization, which has a homely feel to it. Many of my colleagues take pride in their work, and each person has their area of expertise. I sense that they have enough freedom to give their best performance at work.

Before joining PayPay, I was working for a railroad company that I joined as a new graduate and was involved in revitalizing the railways. One day I had lunch at this restaurant near the company that’s been around forever. I overheard the owner saying, “PayPay drew more people to this town,” referring to the municipal campaign PayPay was running at the time. Sensing the company’s positive social impact and the great possibility of O2O business was the clincher for me to join the company. Once I joined, I felt an even bigger impact and potential that lies with this company.

Fuse:
I joined the company in May 2022, and six months went by in a blink of an eye. I am entrusted with work related to a fairly large project for someone who’s been with the company for only six months. So I realize that I have some influence and am feeling quite some responsibility, and am experiencing the speed firsthand on a daily basis. I feel the same way as Yamauchi-san about the atmosphere in the division and in the team. My impression of the organization is that each member has an extremely specialized skill set, and these skills mesh well together to make breakthroughs on a variety of issues.

What spoke to me the most was how PayPay allows me to be involved in various products and services through payments, whereas in my previous job at the travel service company, the only product we sold was “travel.” Since joining PayPay, I’ve been mesmerized and surprised not only by the diversity of products and services but also by the broad scope of operations and work I get to experience because of where PayPay currently stands in its business phase. It’s incredible how many opportunities I have to participate as a core member in large-scale projects this early after joining the company.

Tell us more about your current responsibilities

Mitsunushi:
I better introduce the work of the Enterprise Planning Team first because I am involved in a wide range of the team’s work as the leader. The Enterprise Planning Team’s work can be divided into two main pillars: the payment business and another business we call “merchant subscription services.” First, in the payment business, we design service fee guidelines with the premise of improving PayPay’s profitability, we establish appropriate operational processes in accordance with corporate governance practices, and we also plan sales incentives.

In merchant subscription services, on the other hand, we are responsible for building profit-sharing models for various new services, promoting pipeline management through Salesforce and forecast management based on revenue projections, and designing service fee guidelines based on various internal and external data and the analyses of that data. We are also in charge of promoting data-driven sales, such as the promotion of advanced feedback on the effectiveness of merchant measures taken.

Yamauchi:
We are working on optimizing service fee guidelines for payment and merchant subscription services and designing incentives for sales to acquire merchants. Regarding the optimization of service fee guidelines, we are mainly working on setting rate proposal policies for sales so that both the merchants and PayPay can benefit from optimal profits. We work daily with a variety of data to optimize and maximize the use of payment data to achieve this win-win situation.

Fuse:
My team, which is the Data Planning Team of the Index Analysis Department, is responsible for compiling data for analysis pf PayPay services available to merchants and building the analysis infrastructure. Another team handles the reporting to management using the compiled data and analysis infrastructure. My team is mainly responsible for building a system and environment that makes it easier for internal members to utilize the data. For the future, we are looking beyond PayPay’s payment data to include external data for the establishment of a data analysis platform that includes competitive trends such as cash.

Supporting PayPay’s monetization enhancement through the creation of a data-driven sales mechanism

I hear that the move for going data-driven is in full swing at the Sales Strategy Division.
①What challenges and reasons convinced you to become fully data-driven?

Yamauchi:
PayPay is now transitioning from a business growth phase to a monetization phase, so we need to build a revenue structure for each service. The key here is to have the correct sets of data as our basis. That’s why we are focusing on being data-driven—to be on the correct footing.

Mitsunushi:
From this year in particular, we have been releasing more and more marketing solution services for the merchant subscription services. We need to firmly promote and prove to our merchants the effectiveness and value in marketing that our services can provide, which is to say there’s more to our services than the mere functionality of a payment app. So naturally, there’s been more demand for data analysis and its use, which I think was a huge factor in becoming more data-driven.
Also, as Yamauchi-san mentioned, we are in the monetization phase, and data is becoming even more critical in order to build a relationship and revenue model that is a win-win for both merchants and PayPay.

Fuse:
Precisely. For further business growth and monetization, it’s indispensable to analyze not only the internal payment data of PayPay, but also various external data such as the environment surrounding payments and purchasing behavior outside of PayPay. However, the information we can currently get our hands on is only a handful of that big data. You could say that the biggest driver for building a data analysis environment is the desire and need to appropriately collect and accurately analyze different internal and external data necessary for business growth and problem-solving based on more data-driven approaches.

②Can you share more details of your projects?

Mitsunushi:
The Enterprise Planning team is primarily responsible for promoting data-driven sales. Specifically, we are creating an environment in which every salesperson can make full use of data by providing data analysis/extraction tools to the sales team and conducting sales study sessions to understand profit sharing. This year, we are focusing on acting as an agent verifying the effectiveness of measures provided to merchants in order to promote further sophistication of our sales activities.

Yamauchi:
We are creating service fee guidelines based on the correct understanding of and data in the revenue structure and model of the merchant subscription services. Think of it as having a system to maximize sales revenue. In the future, we would like to incorporate a data-driven process into the formulation of an MBO (Management by Objectives) framework and create a system that allows more sales resources to be invested in services that can generate more revenue.

Fuse:
I am in charge of promoting the project led by the Index Analysis Department in building a data-driven environment. Since it is not something that can be completed within the company or department, I act as a coordinator between many stakeholders, including the neighboring sales, marketing, and information security departments, as well as external partner companies.

③What are some of the interesting and rewarding aspects of the above initiatives?

Fuse:
The fact that most of the initiatives are unprecedented and all of them are for the further advancement of PayPay! It is also rewarding to be able to experience the impact of my own contribution to the promotion of a project.

Yamauchi:
The most rewarding thing for me is the feeling that I am contributing to the monetization of the company. Optimizing the profitability of the merchant subscription services is directly related to the company’s profitability, so it gives me a sense of great responsibility and it is very gratifying.

Mitsunushi:
For me, it was establishing the first profit sharing model at PayPay by creating a model for verifying the effectiveness of the PayPay Coupon, which is the mainstay of the merchant subscription services, and using that data to formulate service fee guidelines. At the end of the day, creating a system that directly contributes to business revenue is incredibly satisfying and fills me with a sense of accomplishment.

④On the other hand, there are surely some challenges and difficulties. Can you share some examples?

Fuse:
Of course. It is sometimes challenging when working on a project with all these stakeholders, who often have different perspectives. There are times I find an unexpectedly great angle or solution from some chit-chat. So although we are in a fully remote environment, I try to create opportunities for more active communication.

Mitsunushi:
I guess it’s about building consensus and nurturing understanding. It is imperative for merchants to understand PayPay’s profit-sharing concept for building win-win relationships between merchants and PayPay, which is ultimately our goal. With that said, that concept itself is new, so nurturing an appreciation for this idea is very challenging. That is why I believe this is where more attentive explanation and proof are needed by making full use of internal and external data to compile a review deck on the effectiveness of the measures and provide consultation on each measure taken.

Moreover, a holistic consultation is required, as new services roll out one after another, to determine how to define the effectiveness of each service and how to apply the profit-sharing concept to each service. We will continue to try various initiatives to provide measures with the greatest impact on our merchants.

Yamauchi:
This relates to Mitsunushi-san’s comment, but the tricky part is not all merchants have the same understanding and appreciation of the service fee guidelines and other indicators shown by PayPay. That is why we try to accumulate correct data on each service through data-driven sales promotion and present merchants with a more convincing logic.

⑤What are the goals and objectives of your various current initiatives, such as promoting data-driven sales and building an analytical environment?

Fuse:
The goal is to build a data infrastructure that can analyze cash and other competitive trends, as mentioned earlier.

Yamauchi:
Ultimately, we’re looking at monetization for the company. To this end, our immediate goal is to internalize payment data analysis operations, which are currently conducted with the help of outside partners, and to increase the speed and provide better grounds for decision-making for our businesses.

Mitsunushi:
We want to help realize our merchant’s business growth through PayPay, and we hope that, as a result, PayPay becomes a solid business partner for our merchants. As an added bonus, it’d be ideal if PayPay’s revenue grew and the business growth accelerates!

Promoting a cashless society through the establishment of a data analysis platform, inclusive of competitive trends such as cash

What would you like to accomplish or try in the future?

Mitsunushi:
I’m sure we will continue to offer a wide range of services to our merchants, but what matters most is for PayPay to become a valuable partner that supports our merchants’ business growth rather than being just another payment service. To do that, we would like to put more effort into various initiatives in the current data-driven sales promotion. By visualizing the effects of every measure and providing convincing information and plans based on data, we hope our merchants and PayPay can grow together. We will continue to take on the challenge of creating various mechanisms and schemes to achieve this goal.

Yamauchi:
We want to make all of our services sustainable by calculating the correct revenue model for all PayPay services and creating a system that will ensure a solid profit for both merchants and PayPay.

Fuse:
The current project we are working on, of establishing a data analysis platform, including competitive trends such as cash, is both gratifying and challenging. Some might say that data from over 51 million PayPay users alone is sufficient. But I want to consider analyzing not only the PayPay transaction history, but also the payment behaviors outside the realm of PayPay payments, which is not visible in the current database. I believe these initiatives will allow for the kind of data analysis that will pave the way to creating a cashless society. As PMO, I want to find a way to make this project work.

I know you are actively recruiting, but what kind of person do you think would succeed in PayPay?

Mitsunushi:
PayPay is a young company that’s been in business for only four years. We don’t have the correct answers , failure-free strategies, or a neatly organized operational flow. This is precisely why we are always required to think about “what is best” and “how it should be” and derive answers. So I think that people who enjoy an environment where they can create their own processes and produce results, rather than just quietly performing routine tasks, will be a perfect match for PayPay. If you have experience multitasking and working on multiple assignments at the same time involving various stakeholders, or if you think that kind of work style suits you, this is definitely a place where you will enjoy working.

Fuse:
Right, I agree! This might be cliché, but I think someone who enjoys change fits well in our company. There is so much more that PayPay has yet to achieve, more things we want to accomplish. If you are someone who wants to build on your skill sets and leverage your experience to enhance your specialties, there are a great many opportunities and possibilities for you. This is a company where you can increase and expand the fields and opportunities to succeed in!

Yamauchi:
Not to sound like I’m just playing telephone, but it’s exactly as Mitsunushi-san and Fuse-san said. You won’t find many tasks with a fixed way of doing things, so you might face different obstacles every day, but if you are someone with a can-do attitude and disposition to tear down one barrier after another, you can certainly thrive here!

*The recruitment status is current at the time of the interview.

Special Thanks: Yuki Mitsunushi, Takefumi Yamauchi, Kaori Fuse / Editor: Sura / Author: PayPay Inside-Out Editorial Team / Photographer: Tak
*Employees’ affiliations are as of the time of the interview.