Co‑creation Project Between Nojima and GlobalLogic Japan
2023-09-01
“What surprised me the most was the overwhelming sense of speed.” Nojima, a home‑appliance retail store that focuses on quality, boasts high customer satisfaction achieved through a unique customer service strategy. Always taking on new challenges, the ever‑evolving company has begun a DX project at its digital home‑appliance specialty stores to create a new customer experience in collaboration with GlobalLogic Japan, a Hitachi Group company. Here, we share their ongoing co‑creation activities, with a focus on PoCs*1 to verify the efficacy of their ideas.
An electronics retail chain with a focus on quality over quantity. Opportunities to buy rather than a place to sell. Employees who help customers make purchases instead of simply pursuing sales. These are words that have been used to describe the stance and corporate culture of Nojima Corporation (hereinafter Nojima), which puts the quality of the customer experience above all else, including sales volume and figures, and always approaches business from the customer’s perspective.
The most defining feature and, indeed, what has become the forte of Nojima’s digital home‑appliance retail stores is their consulting‑based sales approach, whereby customers are attended to by Nojima employees, rather than by salespeople dispatched from manufacturers. Nojima’s unique style of customer service, where employees can objectively recommend the best products to their customers without feeling bound to any particular manufacturer, lets them uncover each customer’s latent needs and achieve high customer satisfaction.
However, for this style of customer service to work, Nojima’s employees must have a wide breadth of knowledge about products from various manufacturers. Furthermore, industry rivals have caught on to the advantages of Nojima’s unique customer service approach and, in recent years, have been taking steps in the same direction.
Against this backdrop, Nojima has been pursuing even greater customer satisfaction with the philosophy that “standing still is the same as going backwards,” and commenced an in‑store DX co‑creation project with GlobalLogic Japan, Ltd. (hereinafter GL Japan). Established in April 2022, GL Japan is the Japanese subsidiary of GlobalLogic, a leading U.S.‑based company in digital engineering that joined the Hitachi Group in 2021. This project was GL Japan’s first*2 real foray into co‑creation.
Hirofumi Kunii
Director, Executive Officer, and General Manager of the Sales Promotion Department
Nojima Corporation
Participating in the project that launched in June 2022 were various Nojima managers with authority in their respective departments and responsible for areas such as store operations, service development, and IT. These figures included Junichi Yamane (General Manager of the IT Systems Department), Hirofumi Kunii (General Manager of the Sales Promotion Department), Ayako Ishihara (General Manager of the Service Innovation Department), and Takeshi Uchida (Manager of the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area Joban Section of the Sales Promotion Department). Many Nojima employees working on the sales floor also participated. At GL Japan, many specialists gathered from all around the world, including from GlobalLogic’s team in India, a team that has a wealth of experience in developing front‑end applications. These specialists mainly consisted of people in four roles: strategists who handle business, designers who plan user experience, architects who design systems, and program managers who oversee projects.
Ayako Ishihara
Executive Officer and General Manager of the Service Innovation Department
Nojima Corporation
To carry out the project, GlobalLogic adopted a “two‑in‑a‑box” team structure, where specialists inside and outside Japan paired up according to their function or role, and adapted its advanced technologies and expertise to fit the characteristics of Japan’s market and business practices. The team was further joined by DX specialists in the Data & Design group from Hitachi’s Digital Engineering Business Unit and took advantage of the features of Lumada Innovation Hub Tokyo, Hitachi’s flagship co‑creation site.
For the project, the team first identified business goals and performed market and customer analyses by way of visiting Nojima stores and interviewing employees to uncover and identify issues on the sales floor. In addition, workshops to gather ideas were held with the managers of various departments. Based on the knowledge and insight gained through these and other activities, GL Japan first proposed approximately 20 ideas to Nojima. The ideas were then closely examined to determine their benefits and feasibility, with the essential parts eventually being consolidated into four themes and five proposals for DX measures to be implemented at Nojima stores. Then, in January 2023, a series of PoCs began with the aim of increasing the productivity of salespeople who attend to customers and further improving customer satisfaction.
Hidenori Akatoki
Senior Engineer
GL Japan Business Operation
Applications Services Division
Digital Engineering Business Unit
Hitachi, Ltd.
In the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, PoC demos were carried out at two Nojima stores that mainly serve different customer groups. In these demos, employees tested and verified the value of each proposed measure to see how it would actually work on location.
For each PoC, GL Japan first prepared a clickable UI that allowed users to easily move between screens with a simple click. Following a series of demos in which Nojima employees actually used the UI, GL Japan listened to the employees’ opinions and requests in regard to the usability and functionality of the UI. The feedback was collected into a backlog, where each item requiring action was then assigned a priority level. PoC applications were iteratively developed and updated based on the agile development methodology, which quickly cycles through processes for each function. Each time, the results were applied to the scope definitions, which clarified things such as the work content, scope, and deadline for developing the MVP*3 (the minimum product that would meet the customer’s needs).
Responsible for project management at GL Japan, Hidenori Akatoki and Wako Hatsuda were careful to stay in close communication with Nojima team members and to elicit clear answers regarding items of high priority. Of the actual development procedure, Akatoki further explained, “We started with development in areas that we thought were less likely to be affected by change. From creating and updating the clickable UI, to developing and updating PoC applications based on the UI, conducting demos to verify the applications, creating a backlog to manage feedback from the demos, and confirming, updating, and examining the backlog—tasks at every level were being carried out in parallel.” On top of that, the team improved development productivity by employing a “two‑in‑a‑box” team structure that spanned national borders; sharing opinions quickly, meticulously, and in real time; and using Digital Accelerators (basic components that have been specialized for each type of industry).
Likewise, Nojima responded promptly, with the people in charge of the relevant departments (those corresponding to the roles of core GL Japan team members, namely, strategists, designers, and architects) rapidly putting together their opinions and making responsible decisions. Hatsuda highlighted the key points of agile development, saying, “Agile development involves making continuous improvements through trial and error. To make sure the project doesn’t stray off path due to individual opinions, managers who have the power to make decisions need to do so quickly and clearly.”
Thus, by the middle of May 2023, four months after the project’s start, all planned PoCs had been completed. Based on the results, the team has now shifted their focus to developing an MVP. They plan to maximize product value by implementing the MVP in the live environment from an early stage, making improvements, and then cycling through the process iteratively.
Process of co‑creation between GlobalLogic Japan and Nojima
Wako Hatsuda
GL Japan Business Operation
Applications Services Division
Digital Engineering Business Unit
Hitachi, Ltd.
Regarding the PoCs, Nojima first praised the speed of agile development, which quickly gave shape to the ideas in their heads. “Within a week of the clickable UI and two weeks of the PoC application, our feedback and requests had been applied and a revised version produced. The speed was incredible,” reflected Ishihara. She offered additional analysis, saying, “Our company emphasizes the views of people working on the sales floor and has implemented swift decision‑making by eliminating cumbersome and roundabout practices such as ringi*4 and consensus‑building. Over the course of this project, I felt that GL Japan’s speed fit nicely with our company’s corporate culture.” Kunii expressed his growing expectations for actual implementation, saying, “I’m sure our customers will love each and every idea. I can already imagine their looks of surprise and delight during their next shopping experience.”
Both indicated that, while they had initially considered each of the five PoCs to be completely distinct, over the course of iterative demos, they came to realize that the PoCs were all interconnected. “We were able to develop a mechanism for supporting customers at every key point of the shopping experience, from when the customer comes to our stores and looks for products they want, to when they consider and actually make a purchase. I think they’ll be able to feel the fun, joy, and excitement of shopping on a whole other level,” said Ishihara. Kunii also touched on how the in‑store DX measures helped raise the consulting skill level of Nojima employees, saying, “Through proper consulting, our employees were able to discover latent needs that even the customers themselves were unaware of. With these measures, I think we can further impress upon people the benefits of coming to one of our physical stores rather than simply shopping online.”
For many years, Nojima has cultivated a corporate philosophy that prioritizes, first and foremost, delivering satisfaction and inspiration to its customers, and this philosophy is evident even in the new in‑store DX measures.
Of the success of the PoC, Akatoki remarked that Nojima was able to keep pace with GlobalLogic’s speed because of the strong commitment of key persons in charge of each department. “We were able to maximize the power of a united team, coordinating the roles of team members between Japan and India as well as between GlobalLogic and Nojima,” he noted, eager to continue leveraging the team’s cohesion in the upcoming development phase.
Similarly, Hatsuda reflected on how they were able to reaffirm the value of agile development, where rather than deciding on the right answer from the outset, the team instead responded flexibly to each situation as it arose. “At GlobalLogic, we have pet phrases like ‘fail fast, learn quickly’ and ‘the market itself is a laboratory.’ Through this project, we experienced firsthand the meaning of these phrases,” she commented. Over the course of the first PoC, the team went through many iterations of trial and error and imaginative creation, through which much was learned and observed.
Nojima has always placed the utmost importance on the employees working on its sales floors and fostered a corporate culture where employees think for themselves. “That’s why many employees from various locations voiced their opinions and requests regarding the MVP to be developed,” mused Ishihara. “It’s not over as soon as we finish making it. We keep searching for more convenient and better ways to do things, and are always looking a step ahead at our next challenge.” As she says, there is no end to Nojima’s efforts to create new value. Going forward, Nojima and GL Japan will continue their pursuit of value through new customer experience by implementing ideas that transform stores and inspire customers.
In addition to operating its digital home‑appliance specialty stores concentrated in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and its cell phone carrier shops located throughout Japan, Nojima Corporation has also been expanding its business online and overseas. At its digital home‑appliance specialty stores, which are the focus of its efforts, Nojima employs a consulting‑based sales approach rather than stationing salespeople from various appliance manufacturers. Through this approach, Nojima’s own employees offer customers objective advice in choosing the right product from a wide selection, resulting in high customer satisfaction.
