See How Sales Strategy Navigates the Path to Maximizing Corporate Value

PayPay Leader Interview is a series of interviews with PayPay group top executives that show a glimpse into their personalities and perspectives. In this installment, we sat with Yusuke Shikata, Division Head of the Sales Strategy Division.

The First Mission was to Introduce the Service Nationwide in Six Months

Please tell us why you joined the PayPay project and then transferred

When I was in Softbank, I participated in a top-secret project to increase the number of merchants, which was my first task in this company, when the name “PayPay” did not even exist. My mission was to make the service available throughout Japan in six months. Starting with about 10 members who were mainly involved in the street sales of Yahoo! BB, we were engaged in arranging sales offices, hiring sales representatives, and other chores to set up the business. I transferred to PayPay in 2020, and before I knew it, it was already five years since the launch of the service (laughs).

I am very happy that I was able to create a new business from scratch with people I have been working with for a long time. Thanks to them, I was able to come this far without any doubts at all.

What was the most challenging experience for you in PayPay?

That would be when I was suddenly told to hire 3,000 salespeople despite not having even a sales office yet. Without a manager, a sales organization doesn’t function at all even if you secure enough personnel. So, first I invited some people from SoftBank as Managers and Senior Managers, and then we went ahead recruiting in a wild hurry.

In the early days, I managed to hire all the temporary and outsourced employees on my own. Come to think of it, those days were quite exciting and thrilling. We did not manage to reach 3,000, but the organization gradually expanded and now more than 1,000 members including folks on the ground are making great efforts to grow PayPay. I have a lot of confidence in them.

Data-Driven Sales Activities Lead to Achieving Business Goals

Please tell us the role and mission of the Sales Strategy Division

The Sales Strategy Division plays an indispensable role in leading the sales organization towards a destination, like a ship’s navigator or a mountain guide. To achieve PayPay’s business goals through sales activities, we lead and guide the sales teams after deciding on a specific path.

The division’s mission is to lead the sales teams to accomplish our business KPIs together with merchants’ in order to maximize PayPay’s corporate value. As a hub connecting the business and sales teams, we are responsible for a wide range of tasks from setting sales targets and sales strategies, managing performance, to preparing the rules and manuals for sales activities. In order to get thousands of people to move in the same direction, we need to establish proper systems and structures. In general, a sales strategy team is sometimes viewed as a back-office function, but I always tell my division members that we are like a cornerstone in business growth, leading other sales teams.

Compared to other companies, what areas has PayPay’s Sales Strategy Division been focusing on and what are its strengths?

Data-driven sales are our forte. PayPay is a tech company, so we make a point of showing data to convince the merchants in explaining the effectiveness of our services.

For example, PayPay Coupon. It is a sales promotion service that helps stores attract more customers. We charge a service fee based on appropriate guidelines in line with its actual effects. It is difficult to analyze and prove how much the coupons contribute to improving sales only with our internal data, although we have an enormous amount of it, so we need to combine it with various information like external purchase data. This is because PayPay still only contributes a few percent of sales at stores.

We spent several years accumulating and sharing skills to analyze data from an objective perspective and are now in the process of developing a system where the sales representatives can utilize these skills in their business negotiations themselves.
These are PayPay’s unique intangible assets and I believe we have been able to create an environment that other companies cannot easily imitate.

What are the challenges the division faces and what aspects do you want to strengthen in the future?

We should give the highest priority to improving sales productivity through generative AI. While operational tasks like customer service are gradually incorporating AI, sales still has a long way to go before introducing it. It would be good if salespeople could first make full use of AI systems on their own. For example, negotiation materials would be automatically prepared through conversations with AI on customer management tools and sales reps would talk with their clients based on these materials. Next, we could digitally communicate with stores that have potential needs without manual operations. By doing so, I hope more stores will utilize our sales promotion support services.

With the development of LLMs (large language models), it is becoming increasingly important to write good prompts regardless of your engineering background. I think people who are interested in AI and good at giving instructions to others will be able to expand this field.

Aiming to Be the Best Sales Team in the World

What do you keep in mind in your daily work?

When communicating, I take into account the other person’s position and situation. I constantly keep in mind that I should not deny the other person without allowing him/her to explain.

As for deliverables, I have always been mindful of going beyond the expectations of the other party. When I am asked to do something, I think about the background and circumstances of the request, rather than just doing what I am told, and fashion my ideas while thinking how I can make them better. This usually gives the requester a pleasant surprise and helps him/her to give a pitch to clients with confidence. Plus, an accumulation of these efforts can grow a mutually trusting relationship.

Anything you would you like to tell your members?

If you want to grow, find someone that you think is great or you want to exceed, fill the gap, and surpass him/her. You can start by imitating a role model and trying to become that person by copying what he/she says and does. This can bring your way of thinking closer to that of the role model. It doesn’t have to be one person. If you imitate the good aspects of several people, I’m sure you can grow as a businessperson. I got to where I am today by observing and adopting the wonderful characteristics of people I’ve met, and I want to continue learning from the strengths of others.

What makes your work worthwhile at the Sales Strategy Division?

In PayPay, we have many colleagues with high ambitions. In general, as a company grows in size and the number of employees increases, opinions will vary all the more. But PayPay recruits people by focusing on those who can share our vision of becoming the No. 1 global fintech company. If you want to do something interesting with passion during your time in the labor force, PayPay is the suitable environment!

Lastly, a message for job seekers please!

Thankfully, PayPay has been used by as many as 60 million people and is often viewed as a large company, but we are a startup which was established only five years ago. We are still growing and must continue enhancing our corporate value. I’m sure people who eventually want to start a business or expand a burgeoning business will flourish here, rather than those who are simply seeking to land a job at a major company or join a stable business.

We will also need the help of professionals to go international in the future. We are looking forward to working with you to grow PayPay, regardless of your previous background. In fact, many people from various industries are active in PayPay today.

Let’s work together to build the world’s best sales team and become the leading fintech company!

*Job openings and employee affiliations are current as of the time of the interview.