Yoko Nishitani is actively involved in an extensive project to introduce smart water meters that utilize IoT*1 and cloud-based technology to a customer’s water services infrastructure. Here we would like to introduce her career from starting as a new graduate, gaining experience in sales of systems for local governments, and eventually becoming a specialist in water services DX*2.
Yoko Nishitani
Public & Social Sales Division
Assistant Manager
Nishitani started at Hitachi Systems in 2010. She devotes her time to acquiring new prefectural government-designated city users as sales of systems for local governments. Through her activities in sales for newly released public enterprise accounting systems, she has achieved a range of groundbreaking achievements that include securing the second user to adopt such systems in Japan. After her immense success was recognized by her peers, in 2015, she was invited to undertake overseas business training in Malaysia. After returning to Japan, in 2019, she started a new role in account sales* for a certain water authority. Here, she worked as a specialist in water services DX and focused on improving the design and development of "smart water meters for small water distribution pipe".
This is the ultimate goal of Nishitani. To realize this goal, she is playing the key role of promoting the adoption of DX in a customer’s water services. Now, we would like to cover some highlights of her 11-year career with the company.
Nishitani says that her career as a new graduate actually started with disappointment. She was hoping to work as a system engineer (SE) in the public sector as that would give her a chance to leave a positive mark on society. However, she was actually offered her second choice which was a sales position. Nishitani said she initially felt shocked and a little depressed for a few days, but after being taught effective sales techniques from her superiors and learning to utilize these skills for herself, she discovered a new interest in working as a salesperson and satisfying the expectations of customers.
When she looked up the contact information of target departments on local government websites, she would call them straight away and she sometimes just turned up to present business opportunities without even making an appointment. Nishitani closed sales orders one after another with her smooth-talking and high-level communication skills, in which she takes pride. In her third year at the company, she made efforts to increase the sales of newly released public enterprise accounting package systems and managed to secure the second user to adopt such systems in Japan. At that time, the package systems did not utilize any sales promotional tools such as websites or catalogs. Nishitani had to create her own sales promotion tools which ultimately secured orders.
This success caught the eye of managerial staff in the Public & Social Business Group departments, and in her fifth year at the company, she was selected as the first employee in Public & Social Business Group departments to be eligible for overseas business training. Nishitani, considered this to be a great opportunity to expand her career and happily accepted the offer which would involve her moving to Malaysia for one year. During her stint in Malaysia, she worked on public sector projects such as introducing a system from the Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency to the Malaysian fire department, and she also worked hard to promote sales of the systems for general private companies. Although Malaysians used a different language and had very different business customs compared to Japan, Nishitani utilized her natural flexibility to adapt to the new environment and her high-level competitive skills were recognized by the local staff. This led to her training period being extended by one year. While she was enjoying her time and flourishing during her stay abroad, she was already thinking about how her experience there could lead to a future career. All the Japanese business people she meets while abroad were a specialist in a particular field. Their high level of expertise meant that their skills and experience were highly sought after by local companies, even though they were foreigners who had a less than perfect grasp of English. On the other hand, Nishitani lacked "an area of specialty that she could advertise" to make her more attractive in the job market. Although she found merit in the work she was doing, she desired a higher level of fulfillment and failed to see the significance and necessity of working on the global stage so far away from Japan.
As her two-year training period was approaching its conclusion, Nishitani began to seriously ponder what field she should specialize in and what direction she should push her career.
After returning to Japan, she returned to her familiar role of sales in the public sector, but 2019 would prove to be a turning point in her career. She was transferred from the sales of new systems targeting a wide range of prefectural government-designated cities in Kanto region to account sales for a certain water authority. In account sales, salespeople determine target customers, work to become more familiar with the businesses and work of those customers, and perform problem-solving. As Nishitani was seeking to focus her expertise into a specific field, this transfer was a precious opportunity.
Although she immediately started filling the boots of her predecessor, she encountered a tough challenge. Her work with the certain water authority was drastically different from her previous role that mainly involved setting up networks and systems in the IT field. It was now not uncommon to have to work with design drawings for things such as manholes and water service pipes, and there was also a requirement to have knowledge of IoT devices such as sensors and LPWA*. Although she needed to learn the ropes of an entirely new field, she realized that fulfilling the role of utilizing IoT technology to promote the adoption of DX for water services is a completely novel career yet to be established worldwide. This gave her renewed determination to pursue this unique specialty in the emerging field of "water services DX".
Nishitani immediately started studying everything she could about the water services and IoT technology and in 2020, she successfully secured an order from the certain water authority to develop and install "smart water meters for small water distribution pipe". This project acted as a demonstration of the capabilities of smart water meters to enable remote monitoring of the flow of water through water service pipes over an entire city and quickly identify water distribution abnormalities or equipment failure. This is important technology to protect the water supply which acts as a lifeline. This is crucial for a city that not only houses citizens, but also acts as a hub for the economy, industry, and functions as the country's capital.
Although there was only a short time from the initial disclosure of the project to the deadline, Nishitani coordinated the in-house full-time SE team and collaborated with external business partners, making her the driving force behind their success in securing large-scale orders. This groundbreaking project was featured in trade magazines and attracted the attention of local government officials from all over the country as an example of utilizing advanced DX technology for water services. Nishitani continues to work toward the success of the project while keeping close contact with stakeholders such as a certain water authority.
In regard to her career, Nishitani said, "Japan's water services are currently facing a variety of challenges such as aging infrastructure, decreased tax revenue due to the declining population, and labor shortages in the water services industry. Under such harsh conditions, Hitachi Systems' water services DX is an indispensable initiative to ensure the country has a stable water supply services. I feel that my work can have a significant positive impact on society."
In order to protect the lifeline of the people, Nishitani is committed to continuing her work as a water services DX specialist to ensure that the entire country has access to high-quality water services.
The Water Services Smart Meter Trial Project run by a certain water authority aims to provide momentum to the adoption of smart water meters by standardizing meter specifications to reduce implementation costs and sharing the know-how gained through the project with other cities. Hitachi Systems also shares the goal of introducing "water services DX" to local governments all over Japan by actively sharing the results and knowledge gained from participating in this project with other local governments. As a specialist in "water services DX" at Hitachi Systems, Nishitani is set to play a central role in this effort and will keep working hard to ensure the full adoption of high-quality water services.
As the adoption of digital technologies is vastly improving government administrative services and regional revitalization projects are increasing, the Hitachi Group is committed to facilitating the promotion of local government DX. Although Nishitani's main mission is to promote "water services DX" that utilizes IoT technologies such as smart water meters, she is also involved with the promotion of a wide range of local government DX initiatives such as the digitization of systems for receiving user applications in the water services industry, the introduction of RPA*2 and BI*3 tools, and the utilization of big data. This will contribute to improving the QOL of all people involved in administrative services, not just the water services.
In addition to securing a number of new orders for new systems used in the public sector, Nishitani has also made a wide range of contributions that fall outside of her role as a salesperson. This includes providing project management support and improving the motivation of members in order to ensure that the projects can run smoothly. Taking advantage of her wealth of experience, she is determined to continue to help strengthen organizational capabilities in the public sector by fostering the next generation of sales staff and building highly productive teams through the perspective of both a team member and a manager.
(This article is as of August 2021)
Information contained in the articles are as of the date of publication, but may be subject to change without prior notice.
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