Multiple Accenture personnel in executive positions. Bic Camera “IT Subsidiary” Challenges “DX of Consumer Electronics Mass Sales”

“Assumed annual income of 12 million yen as a manager candidate”

“People with experience in consulting firms are changing jobs to executive positions one after another”

If there are people who can immediately imagine that this explanation is “Bic Camera’s topic”, it is probably someone who is familiar with the industry.

DX (Digital Transformation) of Bic Camera, a major consumer electronics retailer, is now in full swing. Six months ago, in June 2022, the company announced partnerships with two major cloud vendors, Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Salesforce.

In September of the same year, BIC Digital Farm, a wholly owned subsidiary for in-house system development, was established in order to fully launch the EC site “BicCamera.com” and the “in-house production” of the company’s internal systems.

The purpose of establishing a separate company was to create a platform for excellent human resources. According to the interview, several people have already participated in Accenture, a major consulting firm.

What is going to happen inside Bic Camera?

Mr. Masataka Nohara, Bic Camera Executive Officer Digital Strategy Manager and President of Bic Digital Farm, responded to the interview.

Multiple Accenture talent for engineering executives

Mr. Nohara is a person who has a history of serving as the head of the IT Innovation Promotion Office at his previous job at the home center “Cainz.”

Joined in September 2021 to realize Bic Camera’s “in-house production of IT systems”. Since then, he has been building an engineering organization.

Big Digital Farm will have 60 employees as of December 2022. Since September, 4 to 5 engineers have joined the company almost every month, and the organization has been strengthened.

When I asked what kind of background people were appointing as executives, I was surprised to find that many of them were from Accenture.

“(Before and after the establishment of the corporation) First, in May 2022, an engineer from Accenture who was in charge of logistics and online shopping for a major client participated as the person in charge of system planning.

Also in August, a manager-class engineer from Accenture who has experience leading a development team of about 70 people joined the company. A UI/UX specialist also came from Accenture and joined the company in October.” (Mr. Nohara)

Among the core human resources listed here are members that Mr. Nohara trusted in past projects, as well as people he headhunted through his own connections.

It makes sense to recruit people who are known for their achievements and personalities through referrals to the core human resources of the organization.

“If these three people hadn’t joined the company, I wouldn’t have had the physical strength,” Nohara jokes.

Furthermore, in 2023, an experienced senior solution architect at AWS (Amazon Web Services) joined the technical lead leading the engineering team. Such recruitment shows the seriousness of Big Digital Firm’s efforts to bring cloud engineers into the company.

“It is natural to match treatment with market value.”

However, on the other hand, it is impossible to acquire good human resources only by “interesting work”.

Skilled engineers in the job change market are in a competition. Benefits such as salaries are also on the rise.

What is interesting about the recruitment strategy of Bic Camera (Bic Digital Farm) is that the expected annual income of engineers is completely different from that of store staff.

The recruitment requirements include conditions such as “annual income of 8 million to 12 million yen for manager candidates” and “up to 9 million yen for experienced senior engineers.” This greatly exceeds the average annual income of 4.67 million yen and the average age of 36.5 years old (as of August 31, 2022) for Bic Camera as a whole, including retail store employees.

We often hear that domestic companies are having trouble hiring engineers and data scientists because they can’t come to terms with their treatment.

Looking back, Mr. Nohara recalls that it was not an easy decision to design salaries to match the market, of course, in the case of Bic Camera as well.

“Before the announcement of the DX strategy in June (2022), we had repeated discussions with management (how to treat them, etc.) for about three months.

When you want to do system development in-house, no one will come even if you say, “Why is our average salary like this?” If the purpose is to in-house production, it cannot be done unless the salary level is adjusted accordingly. I think it’s self-evident.”

The working conditions were also completely different from Bic Camera.

“Specifically, from September 2022, we will open the internal dress code so that engineers can work in T-shirts, hoodies, piercings, and blonde hair.

This is truly unheard of for a consumer electronics mass retailer. I don’t know when I’ll go to the store to support the team, so I’m going to wear a white shirt with no colored stitching. The same is true for members of the department. But I said, ‘Then you can’t get an engineer to come.’ We had those discussions all the time.”

On top of that, where is the interest in Bic Camera attracting people with experience in major consulting companies?

Mr. Nohara asserts that “the appeal of working at Bic Camera is that it is a business company.”

“In IT companies and consulting firms, it’s ‘work for customers,’ but with Bic Camera, we can do engineering work that we’re directly involved in.

Another interesting point is that it can handle large amounts of data held by stores and online shopping sites. Thanks to this, about four to five engineers join the company every month.” (Mr. Nohara)

If you think about it calmly, Mr. Nohara’s words give me a strong impression that he is making reforms that are unthinkable in the industry.

Why “in-house”?Reason for Bic Camera

In the past, it was common for Japanese companies to outsource the development of internal systems to external IT companies called “vendors.”

Why did Bic Camera turn to in-house production at this time?

“The first reason for in-house production is to increase the agility of the business.

Of course, documents are important, but in the case of small-scale development such as smartphone apps for customers, the app itself is the deliverable. You don’t have to spend time cleaning up your documents. In that case, it would be better to establish a system that allows engineers to develop immediately.”

Another aspect is cost reduction, says Nohara.

“Using an external vendor requires not only the cost of development, but also the cost of understanding Bic Camera’s systems and operations.

Therefore, I think it would be more rational to have an in-house engineer who is familiar with Bic Camera.” (Mr. Nohara)

An increasing number of companies are improving the speed and accuracy of development by in-house manufacturing and strengthening of digital marketing such as smartphone apps, online shopping sites, coupons and e-mail magazines, which are points of contact with customers.

Mr. Nohara’s former job, Cainz, has gained popularity with its owned media, “My Neighbor Cainz,” while retailers Ito-Yokado and Life are jointly developing an online supermarket app with startup 10X.

This is because strengthening contact points with customers and reminding them of their own use will lead to differentiation from competitors.

Home electronics mass retailers have an “interest database”

Currently, Mr. Nohara continues to explain to the company that “we need to create a database of interest” as an explanation of Bic Camera’s DX and data utilization.

Consumer electronics mass retailers compete with each other for the selling price of the same product. Depending on the area, there are areas where competition is crowded within walking distance. No matter how good the customer service is, it is also true that customers will decide which store to buy based on whether the product they are looking for is 3,000 yen more expensive or cheaper.

“If that happens, the electronics retail industry as a whole tends to focus on manufacturers who offer sales promotion costs, rebates, and discounted purchase prices,” says Nohara.

Mr. Nohara says that the retail industry should be customer-centric, so instead of selling on the axis of products and trade areas, it should be reassembled into a business centered on CRM (Customer Relationship Management). points out.

However, there is also a difficulty because it is a home appliance mass retailer.

“(What is different from general retail stores) is that we do not sell consumables.What the “sales record” (sales data) shows is only a suggestion that “Mr. A will not buy an organic EL TV for 5 to 10 years.””

So what you need is “a database that analyzes how users consider products before they buy, and when it’s time to buy.” A single history of who bought what is meaningless in the consumer electronics mass retail business. That’s why we have to make it a “interest database”.