• News

Tokyo—November 16, 2017—Hakuhodo Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masayuki Mizushima, President & CEO), Japan’s second largest advertising agency, has concluded a partnership with Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd. (MKI) (Minato-ku, Tokyo; Isao Kohiyama, CEO) to help companies make the digital transformation. The two firms will provide a full array of services to assist companies shift to a subscription model, from business consulting to developing and operating systems by leveraging IT tools like the subscription platform Zuora*.

Recently the subscription business model, in which a fee is charged for a service depending on the length of time it is accessed, has been spreading in many different sectors as part of a trend away from one-time purchase and ownership to recurring purchase and use. Adopting the subscription business model in line with this trend creates opportunities to build an ongoing relationship with clients and thus generate increased revenues, even for companies whose business model has until now focused on selling products for customers to own. The subscription model best suited to a specific company, however, varies depending on the nature of the product or service it offers and the environment in which it operates, including its target audience. Appropriate preparations and support are therefore needed during adoption.

Hakuhodo and MKI will recommend subscription business models to companies intending to offer subscriptions to their services. To that end they will pool their respective strengths: the expertise that Hakuhodo has built up in business consulting and digital marketing, and MKI’s development experience and extensive portfolio of IT tools, especially the subscription platform Zuora.

Hakuhodo has to date offered numerous business consulting and digital marketing services in areas ranging from customer understanding to behavioral design and customer development. These couple the planning capabilities and unique creative flair that Hakuhodo has developed as a full-service agency with its Sei-katsu-sha Data Management Platform, which contains data made available by advances in digital technology on the real-time information and shopping behavior of sei-katsu-sha (Hakuhodo’s term for consumers with a heartbeat), 365 days a year. MKI has, as the first authorized Zuora dealer in Japan, been promoting adoption of the platform by companies there; it also has extensive experience with installing SFA/CRM and core business systems, with which the subscription business platform needs to be coordinated. In partnership with MKI, Hakuhodo is now ready to provide more comprehensive support to companies entering the subscription business or otherwise making the digital transformation.

*For more information on Zuora see (in Japanese): http://www.mki.co.jp/biz/solution/it_platform/zuora/index.html

Read news release