Perspective Inc., founded in 2006, leverages its years of business experience to provide services centered on the life sciences and healthcare industry, including pharmaceutical companies. The business pillars are “Management Consulting Business” and “Real Business Business.” The two businesses form a cycle that creates synergy, and the company is enthusiastic about maximizing the value provided.
The company’s characteristic is thorough customer-first principle. Positioning itself as “a running partner aiming for goals hand in hand with customers,” it thoroughly commits to contributing to customers’ success. We asked President Nishitani, who says, “Our customers’ success is our success, and our customers’ growth is our growth,” about his entrepreneurial journey, the company’s business, and his thoughts on customer-first principle.
Hiroki Nishitani
After graduating from Doshisha University’s Faculty of Commerce in 1992, joined Uchida Yoko Co., Ltd. and experienced new business planning/launching, service development, and solution development. In November 1999, joined PricewaterhouseCoopers Consultants Inc. (now IBM Japan, Ltd.), leading projects in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry such as corporate integration/divestiture, strategy formulation, concept formulation, organizational design, business improvement, and IT system implementation/operation. As head of consulting services in the pharmaceutical commercial area, he contributed to expanding IBM Japan’s business with pharmaceutical companies. In April 2006, founded Perspective Inc. and became Representative Director. He has led the company as Representative Director for 18 years.
Going independent after consulting experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Behind it was the desire to “commit to customer success”
——President Nishitani, you consistently engaged in pharmaceutical industry consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers Consultants Inc. (now IBM Japan, Ltd.).
I was first assigned to a pharmaceutical company project, and after that client evaluated me well, I handled pharmaceutical industry projects for most of my time. During the early 2000s when I was there, pharmaceutical company mergers were very common, and I was involved in many projects including pharmaceutical mergers, business divestitures/integrations, carving out parts of businesses to transfer to other companies, and accompanying system implementations.
——And then you founded your company in 2006. What thoughts led you to start a business?
In large corporate division/merger projects, in most cases consultants’ work ends on the integration day. However, simply integrating companies only results in “1+1=2″—integration synergy only emerges through subsequent efforts.
I wanted to be involved in that part too and help until customers truly achieved success, but at major consulting firms, the financial burden on customers becomes significant, making long-term running alongside difficult to realize. Wanting to commit to customer success and help with the journey to true success was the thought behind starting a business.
Another thing I was thinking was wanting to create services myself. As an employee of a consulting firm, freely investing the company’s budget to launch new businesses is difficult. But in my own company, I could handle projects as a consultant and invest the profits into businesses I envision. There were 5 founding members including me. Colleagues who worked with me at the firm saying they would do it together also pushed me toward independence.
——Could you tell us the origin of the company name?
Perspective means “outlook,” “view of things and ways of thinking,” “big-picture view,” etc. As a consulting company, we want to run alongside customers and look together in the direction they’re looking. To make appropriate recommendations to customers as an objective third party, we want to look through customers. And as a company providing in-house services, we want to look through markets and customers. We embedded such wishes.
Maximizing value provided by rotating a cycle that creates synergy with “Consulting Business” and “Real Business Business”
——Please tell us about your business.
Our business is broadly divided into two. The first is the Management Consulting Business. Based on a corporate management perspective, we provide consulting services for customers’ challenges related to management, operations, and systems. Each case progresses as a project with set purposes/goals, and we’re involved on average 3 to 6 months.
The second is the Real Business Business, which isn’t consulting but in-house services we invest in, develop, and provide. The main product is “tebra,” a data utilization platform for pharmaceutical companies, providing everything from data collection for sales and marketing to report/analysis dashboards in a cloud environment. We also help with customers’ data analysis/maintenance work and BPO design/operation.
——How did you come up with the Real Business Business?
Consulting services are effective for supporting customer challenge resolution and goal achievement, but our company isn’t a large organization, and the scope we can support is inevitably limited. However, many companies in the same pharmaceutical industry have similar challenges, and we want to help as many customers as possible. So we wanted to abstract and standardize the knowledge of pharmaceutical industry challenge resolution accumulated through years of consulting experience, and deliver it to many customers cheaply utilizing IT—the Real Business Business is what we realized.
Also, while the consulting business runs alongside customers toward success, projects are limited in duration. On the other hand, the Real Business Business becomes a foundation supporting customers’ operations, and as long as they use it, we can run alongside customers. So when customers have any concerns, it’s easier for us to receive consultations.
This not only allows us to support customers in a wide range of phases, but by feeding back insights from these exchanges and customer needs to the consultant business, we can develop more valuable consulting services. By rotating the cycle and creating synergy between the Management Consulting Business and Real Business Business, we maximize the value provided.
——Please tell us about your company’s characteristics and strengths.
We position ourselves as “running partners” who think deeper than anyone about what we can do for customers’ success, dialogue with customers, struggle together or encourage them, and run together hand in hand toward goals. We commit to directly contributing to customer success and fully support from planning to execution to closing, proposing and recommending what customers should do.
In addition, we emphasize growing together with customers as partners. To realize that, we don’t neglect the effort to remain professional, and while staying close to customers, we strive to move actively and proactively to lead and support customers.
Having a group company with engineers and being strong in technology is also our characteristic. To provide new value to customers, we actively work on new service development internally. We also tell internal members to actively discover and propose things like “if we had this service, it could contribute to challenge resolution” or “this service seems to have business opportunities” while supporting customer challenge resolution.
Flat organizational structure without hierarchy, mentor system, etc.—working enthusiastically on organizational reform and talent development
——Could you tell us about your team’s numbers and work style?
Currently about 40 people including group companies, plus external partners we commission as needed. For employees, there’s a rule to come to the office 6 times a month, and sometimes we visit customers, but most work remotely, with many cases of online meetings with customers.
——Your company has a very unique organizational structure. Specifically, what kind of structure is it?
Our company has a flat organization without hierarchy among employees. As consultants, there are skill-based positions like Director, Senior Manager, Manager, Senior Consultant, and Consultant, and as I’ll explain, there are members in Leader positions, but there are no so-called bosses or managers.
There are 6 Leaders including me, who handle the company’s performance responsibility, recruitment, and leading service development/promotion. “Practitioner” members other than Leaders can choose and volunteer for projects or service development they want to engage in. For consulting cases, we assign considering the company’s orders, but members can also propose service development and launch projects themselves.
——We heard you also have a mentor system.
For Senior Consultants, Consultants, and Staff, members at Manager level or higher become mentors and follow up on goal setting and skill development, supporting growth. For Managers, Senior Managers, and Directors, certain targets including the 6 Leaders become coaches and follow up on goal setting and skill development.
——Could you tell us the background of adopting this organizational structure?
The founding members were a group of experienced professionals, but they lacked organizational cohesion. So while growing the business, we structured as a typical company with divisional structure and hierarchy, and the company grew significantly. On the other hand, problems from organizational silos, waiting-for-instructions employees, and complicated internal procedures emerged.
As a result, inward and passive aspects became visible, and each member’s professionalism and proactive individual power weakened. Communication shortage due to COVID-19 added fuel. However, what I originally aimed for was an organization that could do more productive work while having individual autonomy and organizational cohesion—a professional group that could commit to customer success. Wanting to return to that, we adopted this structure from 2022.
Performance grew after changing to this structure, and I personally evaluate it positively. However, challenges to address are becoming visible, and I think it won’t sustain as numbers grow. Organizational structure, personnel systems, and internal rules aren’t “once created, always fine” but need to change with the times and environment. I can confidently say that our company is one that can make such changes and has good ventilation.
We require consultants to have “ownership,” “respect for self and others,” and “proactivity.” Want them to challenge proactively in a changing market
——You’re recruiting consulting talent. Is pharmaceutical industry or consulting firm work experience required?
For Managers and Senior Consultants, experienced people are the target, but for other consultants, we’d like to meet talented people even without experience. For all job openings, what we value is mindset and aptitude rather than work experience or skills. Specifically, we seek three things: “Accountable,” “Assertive,” and “Proactive.”
“Accountable” refers to proactivity, ownership, and initiative to take things as one’s own responsibility and act on one’s own. As a company operating with limited personnel, we need the ability to think and act on one’s own about what should be done to provide great value beyond customer expectations, not staying within one’s role.
“Assertive” means respecting both others and oneself, and being able to express one’s opinions sincerely and honestly. In our flat organization where members work as equals, awareness of respecting each other is essential. Since there are no so-called bosses’ instructions, we want you to convey your thoughts honestly and sincerely and do good work.
“Proactive” means taking opportunities to challenge as chances and actively and positively working toward growth and success of both yourself and others. We want you to commit to leading customer businesses to success, actively and positively propose and work on what’s needed until reaching success.
——Could you share points about “what’s interesting about working at your company”?
With Japan’s declining birthrate and aging population accelerating and social security costs increasing, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has shown the policy of “shifting healthcare from cure-centered to care-centered.” “Cure” refers to medical treatment aimed at treating illness and maintaining life, and “care” refers to medical care aimed at maintaining/improving QOL even with illness. Dividing medical stages into “prevention,” “diagnosis/treatment,” and “prognosis/monitoring,” traditional cure-centered healthcare emphasized “diagnosis/treatment,” but care-centered healthcare also emphasizes “prevention” and “prognosis/monitoring.”
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare also states that to transition to the care-centered era, information infrastructure and collection/coordination/utilization of various medical data are necessary, and the role IT and data play is expected to grow even larger. Companies in various industries beyond traditional pharmaceutical and life sciences/healthcare—including food, home appliances, and insurance—will be involved as players.
If that happens, the environment surrounding the industry will change significantly. While the pharmaceutical industry remaining our core customer won’t change, at the same time, we want to broaden our support to diverse players who will develop services in the “care” area, contributing to realizing a “care”-centered era.
Amid such changes, our company offers opportunities for various challenges, including pharmaceutical industry consulting and the aforementioned new service development. This is unique fun for our company. For those joining, please proactively work on it with curiosity and challenge spirit.
[Interview Postscript]
CEO Nishitani’s words “running partners running hand in hand with customers” overflow with pride from supporting the pharmaceutical industry’s transformation period. The hierarchy-free flat organization introduced from 2022 is a wise decision to maximally draw out individual proactivity. The free corporate culture where you can choose your own projects and sometimes challenge in-house service development is an unparalleled attractive environment for those who can act with ownership.
The company is expanding activities armed with IT and data at the social turning point “from cure to care.” In the well-ventilated environment that can flexibly change even organizational rules with the times, there’s the privilege of challenging unknown territories with excitement. As the company name suggests with “view of things, big-picture view,” I felt those who want to look together in the direction customers are looking and evolve themselves with the organization should knock on the door.
ConsulNext / Senior Consultant
Masahito Tsukada
Perspective Inc. Company Information
| Company Name | Perspective Inc. |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 2006 |
| Head Office | 102-0084, Hakuyo Bldg. 8F, 3-10 Nibancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo |
| Capital | 30 million yen |
| Representative Director | Hiroki Nishitani |
| Banks | Mizuho Bank Ebisu Branch Mitsubishi UFJ Bank Head Office |
| Fiscal Year End | December |
| Business | Management Consulting Business: Providing consulting services based on corporate management perspective Real Business Business: Design, implementation, and operation of system services and BPO utilizing ICT technology |
| Certification | ISMS JIS Q 27001:2014 (ISO/IEC 27001:2013) Acquired April 21, 2016 |
| Certification Scope | Data service business (tebra) operation/maintenance |
| Consulting Office | Tetsuro Suzuki Tax Accountant Office (accounting/tax) Intex Law and Patent Office (legal) |
| Group Companies | Perspective Innovate Cross Inc. |
