SB Payment Service orchestrates work in Smartsheet to enable new payment services

SB Payment Service Corp. offers innovative payment solutions that help Japanese businesses boost revenue and reach. A member of the international SoftBank Group, the company builds financial products for the internet, particularly e-commerce and online stores. It also provides payment services for brick-and-mortar stores, allowing customers to use modern payment methods such as credit cards, near-field communication (NFCs), or QR codes. The company processes 40.54 million sales, and 114.83 million online transactions each month (as of Sept. 2022).

For the consumer, digital payments can be as simple as a single tap of a phone on a terminal. However, the processes enabling these transactions are extremely complex. “Our team must continually bring new payments to merchants as an easy-to-understand and easy-to-use payment service,”  explains Kazuo Manabe, Promotion Section Manager, Internet Business Promotion Department Service, Planning and Promotion Division at SB Payment.
Mr. Manabe’s team initially tried various project management tools. “We had used Excel and other platforms to manage our projects across customers,” starts Mr. Manabe. “But it was time consuming to add information to Excel sheets, to the point where many people were discouraged from keeping key data updated.”

“In the ever-evolving field of payment services, clients’ needs vary,” says Mr. Manabe. “Let’s say that a global e-commerce company wants to introduce our carrier payment system to its site. We would need to consider the end-user experience, decide how to handle billing and invoicing, and ensure a robust infrastructure that would withhold traffic spikes, among other tasks. Our team has to consider many things throughout the entire workflow.” 

Handling complex tasks simply

“We have to quickly implement new platforms and services at customers’ requests. To do that, we needed an efficient project management tool to ensure we’re on track.” SB Payment was searching for the ideal tool and in 2019, Mr. Manabe came across Smartsheet. He decided to try it with a private account before pitching the platform to stakeholders to get them on board. After seeing the benefits, management at SB Payment agreed to adopt Smartsheet. 

Mr. Manabe’s team now uses Smartsheet to visualise project due dates and timelines and keep track of ongoing changes. The Gantt chart function is especially useful—it displays task names, duration, and dependencies all in one place, and colour-codes items for clarity. 

By relying on the Gantt chart, the teams at SB Payment are able to follow what’s happening at all times. “Because our team has to handle and complete multiple projects within a limited time frame, it is important that we can share information effectively to coordinate our activities,” says Mr. Manabe. Managers are also able to see how much time their teams have spent on a given task by using the time tracking feature.
Employees can now easily make changes without having to manually update related tasks. “All tasks in a project are interconnected on the platform, so when someone updates a task, the rest will automatically change in tandem,” Mr. Manabe says. “Smartsheet also updates all charts regularly, which keeps our team members up to speed and aligned, regardless of the visualisation method they use.”

Since switching to Smartsheet, SB Payment has gained more accountability in its work processes. Since all user updates and logins are saved to history, managers can get at-a-glance information about projects—all related activities, duration of work, participants, and other details. 

“Our projects involve many contributors, so it is vital from a security and auditing perspective to know who edited or viewed a particular kind of information,” Mr. Manabe explains. “Smartsheet retains all history of edits, views, and submissions, ensuring the high level of security required for corporate project management.”

Laser-focus on high-value work

By using Smartsheet’s templates and automation, SB Payment Service cuts down manual effort, which increases efficiency of its project members. “Smartsheet has freed our teams from time-consuming, tedious, and labor-intensive work,” says Mr. Manabe. Instead of having to do manual data entry, staff at SB Payment Service can now apply their skills to more important work. “Since we’ve made it easier to update tasks, project team members can more conveniently input progress status or share information,” Mr. Manabe adds. Since the implementation of Smartsheet, project types in the group have also become more structured.

“By having standardized project management in Smartsheet, we can sometimes use existing project structure as a template to create new ones,” shares Mr. Manabe. “We will continue to work towards more advanced project management by exploring how we can fully utilize the functions we already have in place.”