Welcome back to PayPay Professionals, a snapshot into the incredible professionalism of the pros that drive the PayPay group.
This time, we interviewed Shikano-san from the Merchant Business Strategy Division about notable projects and her core values at work.
Yasuyo Shikano
Service Planning 1, Service Planning Department, Merchant Business Strategy Division
After graduating from a university in the United States, I first joined the hotel industry. About two years later, I shifted to IT service to get to know what was happening “outside,” and I took up roles such as sales, marketing, and service planning. Later, I was engaged in a range of projects doing business development in a food tech startup, after which I joined PayPay in March 2022.
Raising a kid & living in two places made me want to give back to the community and invest in the next generation
Why and how did you decide to join PayPay?
Back when I was a student, I aspired to work in tourism using English, so I went to study tourism at a university in America, and started my professional career at a hotel after graduating. I was responsible for managing bookings, but over time I felt a growing need to take up a role with wider access to business in general, so I took the plunge and changed jobs to the IT industry. There I was able to gain experience in a lot of things, including corporate sales, marketing, and service planning. In my previous job at a food tech startup, I looked after a wide range of tasks from launching a service overseas to supporting the business expanding offshore, building internal systems, and marketing.
It was after I gave birth that I started thinking about changing jobs again. Back then I was working in Tokyo during the week and only returned to Tateyama City in Chiba Prefecture over the weekend. I wanted to do something with large social impact, which would help stimulate the local economy and build a better future for the kids. The deciding factor to join PayPay was that it would allow me to engage in a payment business that has a huge influence over people’s lives, and that I could do that comfortably even with a small child thanks to the hybrid work style and flexible work hours.
What is the mission of your department and what are your responsibilities?
The Service Planning Department of the Merchant Business Strategy Division is tasked with launching new services for merchants and scaling existing ones. The Planning 1 Team that I’m in is in charge of driving growth of the PayPay Gift Voucher service.
PayPay Gift Voucher is a type of payment method with which you can specify the scope of use and expiration date. It’s used as a thank-you gift for Japan’s hometown tax program (furusato nozei), and more recently, was offered as “Coupons for Hard Workers” in the premium gift vouchers project hosted by Nara Prefecture.
Six months to launch a product only in the conceptual stage
Do you have any particularly memorable projects?
The launch of PayPay Gift Vouchers, which I was assigned to a few months after joining the company. The idea was to provide the service to a limited number of merchants so that they could offer it as a thank-you gift for hometown tax donations. The peak season is December, which was only six months away, so the timeline was verging on crazy.
I still didn’t have a clear idea of PayPay’s different services and how projects are handled, let alone what teams are responsible for what. Still, I focused on what had to get done, starting with finalizing the details. Then came sorting out the requirements of the necessary features, figuring out the legal requirements and operational framework, and coordinating with external stakeholders, among other things, which all had to be done simultaneously and at top speed.
I spent my time running back and forth between a host of teams like Sales, Sales Promotion, Business Operations, CS, Legal, Accounting, Public Relations, and Product for alignment. I often received harsh feedback because I was ploughing recklessly ahead despite my ignorance of various things, and yet, everyone helped produce alternative solutions which in the end, resulted in service launch in November last year. Today, Gift Voucher has grown into a service adopted by about a third of all municipalities in Japan.
What aspects presented challenges for you?
Initially I was arranging things for a small launch, given the time constraints as well as the fact that providing vouchers for hometown tax donations was a completely new initiative, plus we didn’t know how the authorities or market would react. However, it was suddenly proposed that there should be a major press conference alongside the press release, to get other local governments to participate as much as possible too. We were already working on a tight schedule with bare minimum internal operations planned for, but suddenly I was trying to coordinate operations 10 times the capacity initially expected.
What about this job do you find rewarding?
Since the Merchant Business Strategy Division is in charge of a B2B2C business, it is both difficult and satisfying to work out how we can deliver value to users through providing added value to merchants. Another thing that’s rewarding is that you can experience each of the 0 to 1, 1 to 10, and 10 to 100 phases.
I never would have thought I’d be involved in such a large scale project before joining the company. It’s so exciting – I feel like I’ve become a character in a movie – when you can tangibly feel the impact your work has on society.
Can you describe the atmosphere of the team?
The team consists of members with various backgrounds, with different sets of knowledge, skills, and unique personalities, but that’s why each person shines with what only they can bring to the table. When I’m not sure about something, there’s always someone I can go to who I suspect might have the answer.
Also, I think that there’s a lot of active communication in the company, not just within one department, with the aim to create something that’s better. The general approach is to think about how to get things done instead of thinking about why it shouldn’t be done, so work is fun and easy to make progress with.
Contributing to a prosperous future for merchants, users, and children
What do you value in your role at PayPay?
PayPay is like a kangaroo because kangaroos can only move forward! I also make sure I devote my attention to what I can do to keep advancing. When launching PayPay Gift Voucher, I made a conscious effort of repeating the cycle of input > process > output as speedily as possible, going directly to whichever expert I could find to ask questions.
Another thing that I make a point of when communicating with stakeholders is to share the context and overall picture instead of just asking for something. By doing so, they can work on the task knowing its purpose instead of wondering why they’re doing it. Plus, it makes things easier for them to suggest ideas about better ways to get the job done.
Please tell us your goals and vision for the future
The Merchant Business Strategy Division is a team entrusted with the mission to create services that delights merchants. But we also want to make sure they are user-centric at the same time.
There’s still much room for UX improvements with PayPay Gift Voucher. The user experience should be comfortable enough so that users keep coming back for more.
I also believe there are still many other scenarios in which PayPay Gift Voucher can be utilized, so it would be amazing if I could help with that in a way that it contributes to the community as well as our children’s future, being a parent myself.
A message for our readers please
What surprised me when I joined PayPay is that even though it’s a large-scale service used widely across society, the speed at which it does things is not different to that of a startup business. I think this is evidence that everyone in the company is forward-looking and proactive about things. The ever-changing environment can be a challenge, but it is also one of the most interesting aspects of working at PayPay. I think this is the perfect environment for people who can own what they do, who are interested in creating something new, and want to make things better. The job can be very rewarding too because if you take the initiative, before you know it, you’re assigned bigger projects.
As a workplace it’s great too, because colleagues respect diverse ways of thinking and working, and not only will team members have your back when you need help, they will also jump aboard to help figure out how to make things happen. I would love to work with someone who has a similar mindset, who can readily extend their hand to someone who needs help!
Current job openings
*Job openings and employee affiliations are current as of the time of the interview.