INSIGHTS

－An Interview with Teppei Tsuruhara, Director of GTM Consulting at Japan Cloud

Japan Cloud is proud to introduce Teppei Tsuruhara, our director of GTM consulting.  With more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry, Teppei has worked in marketing, sales and consulting roles at both Japanese and foreign tech companies in Japan, including Toshiba, Accenture, Microsoft and Marketo.  Teppei is also a visiting Associate Professor at Globis Management School in Tokyo where he has lectured on Management Strategy and Marketing since 2019.  While Teppei’s education and varied experience give him a broad view of the sales and marketing process, he’s a hands-on professional who thrives on implementing, as well as developing, our partners’ GTM plans.  Teppei’s relentless focus on execution and his passion for learning and self improvement are an inspiration to all who work with him.  The interview has been edited for clarity.

What is your role as Director on the consulting team?

I’m a consultant by title, but I’m actually Director of Marketing for our partner companies (laughs).

Consultants are usually on the outside of the companies they work with.  At Japan Cloud, I have to be on the inside of our partners’ business.  Our partners are just getting started in Japan, usually without marketing leadership, so my job is to take on the role of marketing head, develop their GTM strategy and implement it.

I meet with our partners’ customers as often as possible to understand their issues.  I spend a lot of time interviewing customers to develop success stories and inviting them to speak at events.

I’m fine with this level of involvement.  I feel great satisfaction understanding what resonates with customers and getting our partners to a point where they can explain what they do in a few words.

So, again, my title is consultant, but my work is on the front lines of our partners’ business.  I  take ownership of their GTM, from planning and implementation to the recruitment and development of the best talent in the market.

What challenges do your partners have in common?

Awareness, of course, is a perennial challenge, and while building awareness takes time, the expectation is that we make an impact on the market as quickly as possible.

We’re constantly learning from and incorporating our partners’ global best practices, but the reality is that the Japan team doesn’t benefit much from English language media coverage or content on LinkedIn, which isn’t widely used in Japan.  So we have to start from scratch.  We leverage global content as much as possible while constantly looking to develop and implement local content.

This is where Japan Cloud’s Playbooks come in.  While we’re always targeting different decision makers－whether they’re CIOs, CFOs, CMOs or their equivalent－and there’s always trial and error involved, we look to replicate past successes based on the practices that we’ve developed.  I’m extremely proud of our Playbooks.  They get better with every partner we work with.

What’s the key to GTM success for SaaS companies entering Japan?

The key to success in Japan is no different from the key to success in any other region.  It comes down to knowing your target customers and delivering a value proposition in the form of impactful content through the appropriate channels.

Again, you need to adapt global best practices to Japan while incorporating as much local content－preferably in the form of customer success stories－as possible.

And you just need to keep executing and constantly improving your content and processes.

Could you share a success story with us?

This would be in the area of events, and it was in the early stages of COVID.  Japan was just entering lockdown, so we had to pivot to doing the event 100 percent online.  The same event the previous year was extremely successful with over 600 attendees, and we of course had to top that.

I collaborated closely with my colleague and head of PR, Otsuki-san.  We announced speakers, partners and sessions.  We ran ads on social media.  We established a great drumbeat.  We literally did everything in our marketing Playbook to secure attendees.

In the end, we secured 2,000 attendees, including senior executives from 140 of the 200 target accounts, and generated new business opportunities.  It was the most exhausting, yet successful, marketing event of my career.

What are you most passionate about?

I would say I’m passionate about three things.  I’m passionate about the IT industry; trying new things; and working with and learning from quality people.

Communication is what makes us human and IT of course enables communication and connection. I believe IT empowers us to evolve as people.  This may sound grandiose, but working in the IT industry makes me feel like I’m contributing to human evolution.

I also feel like I’m making Japan more competitive because we’re enabling the success of Japanese companies with the most innovative cloud solutions in the world.

I’m also passionate about trying new things.  I’m insatiably curious.  I tend to get bored doing one thing.  I love variety and getting out of my comfort zone, which is why I enjoy working with our partners at Japan Cloud.

Finally, I’m passionate about meeting and working with great people and learning from them.  I’m constantly learning from my colleagues at Japan Cloud, from our partners and from the people we recruit.  I learn from the customers we interview.  The opportunity to learn from the people I meet is a great motivator for me.

Why should Japan be a priority for cloud companies looking to go global?

Japan is a huge market.  It’s the second largest enterprise software market in the world.  It has the most companies in the world with more than 100 million dollars in revenue after the U.S., and these companies have a myriad of challenges.  Their productivity is extremely low.  They need to improve their online customer experience.  There’s so much opportunity to improve their performance.

Also, working with large, complex Japanese companies presents a great learning opportunity for global SaaS companies.  The knowledge and experience they gain in Japan can be applied to other markets.

I believe SaaS companies’ success in Japan will prepare them for success elsewhere.  This is one of the benefits of doing business in Japan.