Cloud/Server Basic Training Program｜IPPO

IPPO Inc. is a real estate tech company whose main business is office brokerage. They offer office proposals specifically for startups and venture companies, and they develop and operate Hitte

This time, we spoke with Nakagawa, Beyond's COO and Director, about the behind-the-scenes use and utilization of Beyond's "Cloud/Server Basic Training Program."

"The basic system training was given by a current server engineer, so I was able to review my system knowledge in line with the practical level of my company."

● Mr. Nakagawa, COO, IPPO Co., Ltd

Please tell us about your company, IPPO

● Mr. Nakagawa, IPPO:
IPPO Co., Ltd. is engaged in the real estate business, primarily brokering office relocations, and also plans and operates a web service called Hitte

"Hitte" allows users to freely search and register offices that are available for rent as is, and IPPO's cash points come from the brokerage fees that arise when a tenant is confirmed for a vacant property

Furthermore, there are surprisingly few services on the market that are based on the concepts of "for startups and ventures," "specializing in vacant properties," and "office brokerage platform," so in that sense, I think Hitte has been able to differentiate itself well from its competitors' real estate services. Recently, the trend in society has been favoring vacant properties, and thanks to this, the number of Hitte users has been increasing, attracting customers mainly through word of mouth without spending on advertising

Please tell us about the challenges/background you faced before using the service at IPPO

● IPPO Nakagawa:
This ties in with what I said earlier, but Haitte's web service itself has been receiving an increasing number of new inquiries thanks to word of mouth from people who are already using and aware of Haitte. As we are considering launching a major promotion in the future, we have become more conscious of the system aspect, wondering, "Is this server environment and configuration correct?"

I originally worked for a men's apparel e-commerce site operator, where I was in charge of managing internet advertising that generated hundreds of millions of yen per year. When we ran large-scale promotions, if the number of accesses suddenly increased, we would be aware that "since the site display is likely to slow down, at that time we would temporarily increase the server specifications or install a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to consider ways to reduce the access load on the origin server."

However, as we expand our business and hire new members to handle these internet advertising operations, it cannot be said that many of them are familiar with the logical aspects of the system itself, so I have come to think that if not only I, but the members themselves, do not have a certain level of knowledge about the system when using internet advertising in the future, it will cause problems in running "Hitte."

Please tell us what made you choose Beyond's services

● IPPO Nakagawa:
I knew that other companies' training services did offer training menus for servers (such as Linux) and programming languages, but there were no services that offered training menus that were in line with our company's practical level.

What we wanted was to learn systematically what we could use in our work, such as "What kind of system processing is carried out and how the system behaves in this way with the servers and source code that run our websites? Also, if the server stops, what kind of problems occur, what steps must be taken to restore the system, and if the website loads slowly, this must be resolved or service opportunities will be lost." Beyond was also considerate enough to provide us with easy-to-understand lecture materials so that we could provide the same training to our new members in-house as our team grows in the future

In addition, we regularly outsource the operation, maintenance, and monitoring of the cloud/servers for Haitte's web services to Beyond's engineers, and ask them to support us with system maintenance and updates.We thought it would be quicker to have the infrastructure experts who currently provide support give us a lecture, so we asked Beyond to provide a system training course that was custom designed for our company

The majority of our frontline staff are account planners and salespeople, so-called non-engineers. Even these staff members only had vaguely heard of mechanisms like "IP addresses are converted, responses are returned from the server, etc...", so it seemed like it would take a lot of time to learn using a regular training service from another company. I remember immediately coming to the conclusion that "it would be quicker to just ask Beyond directly!" (laughs)

What effects did you experience after using Beyond's services?

● IPPO Nakagawa:
After taking Beyond's basic cloud/server training course, I realized two effects and benefits.

First of all, I think the biggest point is that the training content was truly applicable in practical work. The training content, which was tailored to our company's situation and challenges and aimed at non-engineers, was extremely beneficial for us. For this basic cloud/server training, we had Mr. Teraoka, who normally works on cloud/server construction and operation projects and issues at Beyond , teach the training for around four hours, and five to six members from our company took the course.

They also provide solid materials and documentation after the training, which was helpful in allowing us to review the system knowledge with our company members later. Without materials and documentation after the training, it would be nearly impossible for our company members to digest the information on their own and incorporate it as internal knowledge

The second thing was that we realized that there are methods and means for running a website when it comes to servers. We didn't have a deep understanding of how servers and infrastructure work, but it's true that in the world of systems and the internet, there are many cases where you don't know what's going to happen, even if you're careful

Even among our own company members, the only keywords related to servers/infrastructure are the number of page views, number of sessions, and access rights. However, until now, we have never had the opportunity to receive in-depth lectures and advice on how to do things like, "With this type of system configuration, there are concerns and things to be careful about, and in the worst case scenario, the site display may not be updated at all, and you may experience system trouble or mechanical damage." This training allowed us to clear up some of the things that had previously seemed vaguely unclear to us

I also became clearer about what to ask someone for and how to ask them about the system, so I felt that once I had a certain level of knowledge about the underlying system, system problems would really decrease

Please tell us about IPPO's company PR and future prospects

● Mr. Nakagawa, IPPO:
In our business development so far, I feel that IPPO has been able to brand itself to a certain extent as a company that is "strong in office relocations with existing space available," but there are "three" developments we have in mind for the future.

First, we have found that there are many benefits and needs in the field of "office relocation with existing space," so rather than limiting our service to the Tokyo metropolitan area, once the culture of relocating to existing space has taken hold in the Kansai area centered around Osaka and Fukuoka, we are considering expanding into areas outside of Tokyo, albeit in the long term

Secondly, IPPO is a company that places great importance on its "IPPO identity," so as IPPO and HAITT's services expand in the future, we would like to aim to strengthen our inside sales, customer support, and marketing departments in order to solidify our service operations while firmly ensuring IPPO's vision and values

Regarding the last point, although it is a more distant prospect, we would like to expand this beyond office relocations to include a matching service for regular office properties and other workplaces

●Thank you for your valuable feedback!
*The content published is from the time of the interview in June 2022.