2023.08.29 Cocone

Realizing Business Expansion. Business x Corporate Design Dialogue

※This article is machine translated.

Cocone is committed to further expanding the scale of its operations to serve customers around the world.

In this issue, we interviewed Naoi, the project manager of “Pokecolo,” which will soon celebrate its 12th anniversary and continues to lead Cocone’s business, and Muroi, the manager of the Corporate Design Division, which designs the company from both institutional and facility perspectives, including human resources, public relations, and general affairs. We interviewed Mr. Naoi, the project manager of “Pokecolo,” who is still leading Cocone business, and Mr. Muroi, the manager of the Corporate Design Division, who designs the company’s systems and facilities, including personnel, public relations, and general affairs.

First of all, please introduce yourself.

Naoi: My name is Naoi, Project Manager of the Pocket Colo Project. I joined the company last July. I have been in the digital entertainment industry for about 20 years, and previously worked as a planner and director in the game industry. I look forward to working with you.

Muroi: I joined the company in February 2021, starting as an engineer recruiter and expanding my domain as a hiring manager for a year and a half. Now, as manager of the Corporate Design Division, I am expanding my domain not only to human resources but also to the entire back office to see what I can contribute to employees and management.

Not just a little change, but a big change.

As a company, we have set big sales and business goals for this term.In addition, there is a big goal of creating three 100 million DAU services in the future.Please tell me what you are working on as a division and what you would like to work on.

Naoi: First of all, I have a goal to step up this year.When I thought about what it would take to achieve that, I put up the keyword change.I thought it was necessary to make a big change, not just a small change.From the beginning of the new year, I told my members that this year’s theme has changed and that I will not fight in the same way as before.
We are actively challenging ourselves to do things we haven’t done before or haven’t tried before, and our goal is to grow as a service. The first thing I did was to get everyone to have the feeling that we are going to make a change. I thought it was important to first create that feeling.

What are you working on and what do you want to work on as the Corporate Design Division?

Muroi: First of all, the Corporate Design Division is responsible for designing the company in terms of both systems and facilities. I think people have an image of the back office as supporting the company, but CEO Takatani and the management team expect us to be not only supportive but also aggressive in expanding the business while running with the business divisions.

We are also engaged in various other activities, such as hiring, but I think it is important for us to gather information from everyone on the business side about the kind of environment in which employees can concentrate on creating products and services, and then design that environment in a tangible form. And while it is important to pick up the voices of employees, I think one of our major roles is to digest the messaging and vision of the management team and communicate it well.

Boosted by the environment and institutions

What do you think is necessary to achieve your big goal?

Naoi: I think it is probably a combination of the environment. Institutions and environment are easy to encourage, aren’t they? When I heard Mr. Muroi’s story, I wondered if more things could be done. For example, if you sit in a different seat every day, you can play bingo (laughs). It would be on the level of a joke, like I was stimulated in various ways by sitting in a different seat than usual.

I think that internal awards such as the Good Challenge Award are part of the system. If the selection criteria are based on “challenges,” I think they will naturally appear, and I and the management team are sending out such messages. In the end, when the systems and environment within a project mesh well with the systems and environment of the company, a good project can be created.

For example, one of the first things I did in the Pokecolo project was to make information more open. slack and Google Drive were in disarray, and it was difficult to find information, so I organized them. These things are also rules and systems. By doing this, information collaboration as an organization is enhanced, isn’t it? We also do this in our projects, and we are thinking about what kind of rules we should establish as a company to create the most synergy and make it easier for everyone to demonstrate their abilities.

There is the environment and system of the project, and there is the system and environmental design of the company as a whole. People’s feelings, direction, and impetus are encouraged and returned by these factors.
I think this will lead to the expansion of the scale of our business after all.

Message from management, how do you communicate it?

Management is sending out a variety of messages, but they are received in different ways. Employees differ in age, understanding, and experience, and as an internal PR person, I am very concerned about this.

Muroi: Of course it is important for the sender, but I think it is also important for the receiver to digest the message. I think Cocone has a lot of messages from the management team. Video messages from the CEO are released on a regular basis, and the executives speak at monthly company-wide meetings. I think they are very frequent, but we don’t have much opportunity to hear how they are received by the recipients.

I think it is important to ask them what they thought of the message, and it is also important to have them output it. It is important to ask them what they thought of the message, and it is also important to have them output the message. I think that unless we are able to output what we have heard in our own words, the message will not spread.

Naoi: I think each team unit has its own communication type. I don’t even know what kind of conversation each of them is having. It is possible that there may be a “company is the company and we are us” conversation going on among them. I don’t think we can control all of it.

If I were to ask where the disparity in interpretation comes from, I think it is simply the level of the person. If the president’s perspective is at this high level and someone else is at a lower level, I think we need someone to connect the gap. In order to connect, output is necessary. When we talk to each other about what we think among the team members, I think it will gradually fall into place when we hear what someone with a slightly higher perspective among those members says, “Oh, so that’s what you mean.
I think it would be good if we could discuss things in a more horizontal relationship or with a slightly higher level of people in the mix, and gradually deepen the interpretation, rather than just dropping things that fell from the top.

Muroi: This is something we would like to do within the Corporate Design Division. Both in human resources and in public relations.

Creating an environment and culture

Muroi: We have a vision to create three 100 million DAU services.I think the division, the development headquarters, and the back office must take action in accordance with that vision.

NAOI: Perhaps that goes back to the root of the story. Whether it is a project or a company, when you are trying to accomplish something, it is people, isn’t it? So how can we take action on people’s awareness and actions toward a big goal? I think it is necessary to create an environment and culture in order to create awareness and action.

We need a lot of people who believe in making three 100 million DAU services.I myself think it’s tough, but I think it might not be impossible.The impetus is different between those who can imagine and those who can’t.I think the more people you can imagine, the more likely it is to be realized.

Naoi: When we put into action plans for high goals, I think there are a few moments when we have to make a forceful move. It would probably be difficult to suddenly say, “Let’s all do it together! would probably be very difficult, so I think we will work with people we can believe in and from places we can believe in.

Muroi: How is the temperature at the site now?

NAOI: Not many people believe that high goals can be achieved.
I think the rest will change if we keep drawing an action plan to reach the goal and the milestones in front of it. I think we all like to draw our dreams. I think that if there is no path to reach the dream, it is probably hard to believe in it and keep going.

So you are saying that by gradually accumulating successes, you will be able to see your lofty goals as reality.

A person who is conscious of opening up and can think about how to act next.

I believe that people, as well as the environment and systems, are important factors in business expansion.

Naoi: I recently thought that you must be someone who is willing to open up.
It is difficult to put into words, but although Cocone has many employees, it is still a venture company. It is difficult to find people who are willing to think about how to take the next action as if it were their own. We need people like that.

Do you feel that you are lacking now?

Naoi: I don’t think there are not enough. I just think there should be more. I don’t think there are many companies that encourage people to take on challenges like this. I have been entrusted with a lot of responsibility, and I think my superiors probably had a lot to say (laughs). But they left it to me. I think that is the culture of Cocone.

Keep cutting through it rather than protecting it. There is no doubt that if we continue to protect, we will have no future. We are not selling a necessity.

Muroi: Is the awareness of opening up something that you originally had?

Naoi: I think it is mostly decided by at least the early 20s. Whether it is a new graduate or a mid-career worker, I wonder if it is hard to change his/her feeling unless he/she has a lot of experience. Which do you prefer, to be adventurous or to build a solid bridge and move on? Or which one would they choose? In the end, I think it’s a person’s karma.

Muroi: The people who open the way for the company, as you mentioned, are of course the creators as well, but I think they are the same for all positions. Of course, there are back-office workers who need to be protected.

It is important to listen to the needs of the business side and give them shape, but it is also absolutely necessary to have a firm perspective as the Corporate Design Division, and to have the mindset and thinking of what is necessary, what should be done, what the company is doing now, what is necessary, and what the purpose of the project should be.
You mentioned that the sense of opening up may be strong originally, but if we can open up from the back office side, such as the atmosphere and structure of the company, I think we can contribute to the business and the company, and I would like to aim for such an organization.

Naoi: I think there should be more like small-scale projects. Right now, I am working on three core projects, “Pokecolo,” “Pokecolo Twin,” and “Livly Island,” as well as new projects. It is not easy to test your abilities from start to finish while you are still young. It is not necessarily a failure, but a learning experience.
For example, a game company may have recently released a board game or casual game. Put one person in a small project and spend all your energy to release it. It might be a good idea to provide opportunities for that kind of growth.

Cocone is focused on expanding the scale of its operations to serve customers around the world. We asked them what they need to do to achieve this and what factors are important to them.

Good projects are created when the systems and environment within the project and the company mesh.
Institutions and environments can encourage people
Creating an environment and culture is necessary to create awareness and action to achieve major goals

We want to challenge you to work with us toward Cocone’s big goal! If you are interested in joining us, please read this article.