INSIGHTS

As 2023 draws to a close, I would like to thank and congratulate our partner company teams for another remarkable year, despite the headwinds in the software industry. In addition, I want to reflect on the year and share with you what we at Japan Cloud will focus on in 2024.

While everyone loves revenue, revenue means more than just signing deals and meeting sales targets. It means customer success. It means flawless execution across marketing, sales, pre-sales and, especially, post-sales teams who drive adoption. Dedicating oneself to this process is highly rewarding, not just financially but also in terms of building confidence, fostering teamwork and scaling an organization.

To continue scaling, we at Japan Cloud have been committed to further strengthening two areas of our business: talent development and growing our network of customers that our partner companies can access.

Talent Development and Best Practice Sharing
Talent development has always been a strategic focus for Japan Cloud－hiring Japan’s best is only the start of the GTM journey for us. We recruit people who want to grow with us, and we develop their talents further so they can build fulfilling careers for themselves.

Japan Cloud’s New Hire Orientation brought together recent recruits from our partners who were introduced to the Japan Cloud team, our GTM playbooks, and how we can work together to enable their success. We also held two large Japan Cloud Meetups where employees came together to build relationships, exchange customer stories, and learn best practices.

Further Expanding Our Customer Network
With our partners, Japan Cloud has now penetrated over 80 percent of top market-cap companies in Japan. In the DevOps space in particular, we now have over 800 companies in our database that our partners have the opportunity to access.

To accelerate the growth of our network, Yasu Fukuda and I have been building our customer network of CEOs, CFOs and CIOs at Japan’s leading corporations. We attended key roundtables and conferences over the past year to connect with CxOs, better understand their challenges and find business opportunities for our partners.

It’s clear from our conversations that they are looking to companies like Japan Cloud to provide a curated set of applications－for sales, marketing and back office operations－as well as DevOps tools to help them rapidly build world-class experiences.

Looking Forward to 2024
As we continue to add partners in 2024, we will scale our operations to accelerate their customer success and growth. Next year, we will also host our own CxO roundtables, the first of which is scheduled for February.

In addition to our ongoing efforts to build a community that partner employees can turn to for advice and support as they grow and build their careers, we plan to offer additional leadership and sales training opportunities. I am especially looking forward to the launch of our Pinnacle program. Led by Yasu and our visionary talent development head, Shuji Chiba, the Pinnacle program will develop Japan’s next generation of software industry leaders. Our vision is for these new executives to lead our partners’ business as well as serve as role models for the industry as a whole.

There was so much to be grateful for this past year. I’m confident that 2024 will be another exciting year for Japan Cloud and our partners. As always, I believe the key is to challenge oneself to do a little bit more and keep learning.

I wish everyone a safe, healthy and happy holiday season. We look forward to seeing you again in 2024!

Aruna