B Dash Camp panel: New tides in social B2B

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This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013.

The afternoon session of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013 included a panel on the changes in B2B business brought about by the social web. Participants in the discussion included:

  • Akira Kurabayashi, senior director, corporate development
  • Koki Uchiyama, CEO, Hottolink Inc.
  • Masahide Nakamura, President and CEO, Allied Architects Inc.
  • Moderator: Yasuhisa Tsubata, Reservation service unit manager, media services, Yahoo Japan

16:05 – Kurabayashi: “In the US, social networks exist in business, not just in the consumers space. There are so many players in the business social area.” He explains a little about Marketing Cloud, their leading social marketing platform.

16:08 – Nakamura: About 3000 companies in Japan using social B2B, but we figure the number of companies that will use social for business will increase. […] We think this is like 15 years ago in the consumer space, where things are only just starting to take off.

16:12 – Tsubata notes that maybe if more people use Line for B2B then maybe it can boom. He observes Line CEO Morikawa taking notes in the front row. Mr. Uchiyama says jokingly that he’d like to partner with them!

16:15 – Nakamura: There’s lots of information moving about these days, and for example, if you eat at a restaurant you may recommend it online, and this sort of social data is abundant online — and search might not be the most efficient to sort though it. I think the volume of data will only get larger, and we’re still in the early stages of sorting though it.

16:23 – Uchiyama: In 2010 there was a stock forecast system using social media, so I think with things like that there’s not a big gap between the US and Japan. […] On Japanese companies not yet being aggressive: Japanese companies are often thinking about past cases, rather than new ideas. […] The literacy level of the customers is very different as well.

16:27 – Nakamura: Asia’s GDP is projected to soon account for 52% of the world, so I don’t think it’s merely about exporting US services to these regions, but you also have to localize of course.

16:31 – Tsubata: B2B is a good sector to invest in, and there are lots of companies looking to market on the web and in the social world, and I think there’s lots of potential there.