As society continues to develop, there is a shift from "goods" to "services," and a worldwide trend toward third-party industries and services is happening. Even in Japan, the service industry is growing in size, and this trend should continue in the future. Many of the service industry companies are BtoC, and are directly related to our quality of life (QOL).
Despite its importantance, Japan's service industry and multi-store and multi-location businesses face the challenge of low productivity. The reasons often cited for this are issues on the service provider side, such as delays in digitization and mechanization, and non-standardization of operations, but there are also significant problems on the consumer side. In particular, "the high quality demanded by consumers".
When I was consulting for a major BtoB company, I was once asked to return a product because the cardboard was dented, even though the product inside was undamaged. As such quality is demanded for BtoB, even higher quality is required for BtoC, which targets a large number of unspecified customers. Of course, companies have no choice but to respond to these needs. As a result, the quality of products is often judged in terms of "taste" for the restaurant industry, and "quality of goods" and "price" for the retail industry. Productivity is declining and there is a lack of focus on delivering essential value.
On the other hand, for people from overseas, the Japanese service industry has an aspect of "meticulous service that they have never experienced before. Even quality that is taken for granted by Japanese people can be of great "value" to the rest of the world.
In recent years, Asian countries are also showing economic growth. It can be said that Japan, which has been leading the way, has entered a "phase of being overtaken" by mere economic growth. We believe that one of the ways for Japan to survive is to demonstrate such "value" to the world and have people rediscover its attractiveness.
So far, ClipLine has focused on "execution support" for multi-location businesses, particularly in the service industry, and has worked hard to solve industry-specific issues through the use of short-form video. For example, in the service industry, the "first month" is critical. By using ClipLine to train new employees when they join the company, we have been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of the service industry in retaining and promoting the success of its human resources.
In addition, we have received comments from customers that the use of videos has eliminated the issue of misinformation, “playing telephone”, when new products are introduced from the head office to the field, and so on. As a tool to be utilized when "new changes" occur, its introduction has expanded to 15,000 stores and 410,000 employees (*as of August 31, 2022).
One of the reasons for creating the new "ABILI" brand is that the environment surrounding the service industry has changed since the time ClipLine was founded. ClipLine was founded in 2013 with the desire to provide support on how to implement management strategies onsite, based on the "difficulties of multi-location business”, which we acutely felt in our past experiences. No matter how good the management strategy was, it was difficult to communicate it quickly and accurately to the field due to the large number of locations scattered throughout the country.
Ten years have passed since the company was founded, and momentum is gradually building to eliminate the “telephone game between headquarters and the field," which was seen as an issue at the time. DX has also progressed within the industry. So what is it that the service industry should be focusing on now? We believe the key is how to eliminate "variation". Despite the advances in contactless services and labor saving, the service industry is ultimately a "people" business. No matter how much efficiency is achieved, people will remain. There will always be variations in the services provided by people.
To begin with, unlike the manufacturing industry, it is difficult to establish detailed "standards" in the service industry. Since the manufacturing industry is a “making things" industry, there are standards for the products being manufactured. Once standards are established, it is easy to mass produce and improve efficiency by introducing machines and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, services have characteristics such as"intangibility," "variability," "disappearance," and "simultaneity," making it difficult to develop know-how and efficiency.
The know-how required for a service industry job runs into the thousands. For example, even a single answer to a question from a consumer requires the input of numerous pieces of knowledge, such as an understanding of the product, the point service being offered, and the current campaign being rolled out, as well as how to deliver the knowledge. While service providers have traditionally visualized their business performance, they may not have absorbed the processes and know-how that lie behind the scenes.
The key to making the service industry stronger is not only the elimination of variation, but also the vibrancy of work in the field. We place great importance on the "service profit chain". The idea is that increasing employee satisfaction contributes to improving a company's performance.
From working with many of our clients, we feel that in many cases, they are not able to invest in their employees. Of course, in order to maintain a corporate organization, it is necessary to improve performance in the short term, so in some respects this is unavoidable. On the other hand, there are many progressive companies that focus on employee relations, as well as business performance, and manage their business in a very well-balanced manner.
The "store manager is particularly important. It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of the members working in the field is in the hands of the store manager. Working with a good manager increases the likelihood that members will be successful. They may also want to work with the manager more, and may even apply for a full-time position from a part-time position. Conversely, if the manager has a negative influence, not only will the members not be able to perform well, but there is also a risk that they will dislike the brand.
ABILI can also help to correct variations in the skills and know-how possessed by store managers in each store. Each member will be able to learn know-how not only from their immediate manager, but also from other excellent managers throughout the chain. For store managers, ABILI will also make their work easier and lead to better performance by compensating for areas in which they are not good at. Through doing this, ABILI is a tool that maximizes the potential of each store or location.
The new ABILI brand focuses on the current status and issues of the multi-site businesses described above, and has established a system to provide a comprehensive service from visualization to implementation support. "ABILI Board" visualizes management and on-site situations, and "ABILI Voice" collects customer feedback. "ABILI Clip” is a video-based execution support system, and "ABILI Partner” is a service that provides content production and implementation support. Through visualizing issues and know-how scattered throughout the company, the platform helps to build a strong frontline while eliminating the differences among stores and locations. All this will contribute to improving profits.
With ABILI, the good points and areas for improvement in each store can be visualized. Each member of the team will improve on the visualized issues, coming up with their own solutions.By repeating these cycles and having fun with them like a quiz, the most important factor in a multi-location business, motivation will increase. This will lead to improved business performance through consistent service quality.
We believe that the “variation in service” that ABILI aims to eliminate is not limited to Japan, but is a common issue throughout the world. While promoting the introduction of ABILI to Japanese companies that are expanding overseas, we will work to realize a world where the motivation and productivity of front-line workers is enhanced and the quality of life of all those involved in the service industry is improved.
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