By Chris Betros

Executive Impact Jan. 05, 2010 - 06:00AM JST ( 27 )

TOKYO —

About 3 1/2 years ago, Guillaume Hansali came to Japan from France armed with degrees in maths and computer science, a love for manga and a bit of Japanese. He had no idea what to expect. Today, he is the CEO of Wizcorp, an Internet services company using the latest technology in systems engineering, web development and cloud computing.

The company had a good year in 2009, defying the recession. Japan Today editor Chris Betros visits Guillaume at one of Wizcorp’s offices in Ginza to find out why

What was it like when you first came to Japan?

I really didn’t know what to expect. I started with a small company, just two people. It was a system engineering job and I was there for seven months. I worked for another small company for a few months, before joining another company where I developed and localized web applications.

Why did you decide to start your own company?

I wanted to have some freedom and do things for myself. I started as a freelancer, before establishing Wizcorp in July of 2008. For the first two months, I worked from home. Our first office was in Higashi-Kanda.

Was it tough getting clients?

My first client was the company where I worked for a year before. They didn’t have an IT development department. Then I went to a lot of networking events and little by little, more leads started coming in. Currently, about 70% of our clients are foreign and 30% Japanese who want to expand their business overseas. Most of our clients come through recommendations of past clients. We go to a lot of meetings and networking events at chambers of commerce for instance. Our business model tends to be partnership-based.

What are your main services?

We offer three different services to help our clients be more efficient and save money on their web businesses. One is localization of web applications for foreign companies. That is our main activity, specifically for French companies. It can be very complicated to start a website in Japan, so we help clients to have a good start without any bad surprises and within their budget. Our second service is social network marketing; that is creating a community of users for clients. The third is cloud-computing technology, which allows clients to basically cut costs on their infrastructure by using virtualization and on demand hosting services.

Is it a competitive industry?

We have a lot of competition but where we are different is that we are one of the few French-speaking web development companies in Tokyo. Also, we are not just a web design company. We, of course, make websites and provide design but we are more about helping clients use technology more efficiently.

Cloud computing is still a new concept for many to grasp. The idea of pulling out the server that is at the heart of a company’s information processing system and surrendering it to the “clouds” must be daunting to potential clients. Is education a big part of your job?

Yes, more than half of my time is spent on consulting, explaining about cloud computing and related issues. I think Japan lags behind other developed countries in use of cloud technology. One reason is that Japanese privacy policies are very strict and very complicated and many businesses want to have the hardware where they are. So for them, going cloud seems very risky. So far, we have had no trouble.

Was 2009 a good year for you?

Yes, our sales grew. In a way, the recession was a very good thing for us because while some clients did cut their IT budgets, they started to see the web as being cheaper and less risky. We had some big competitors and worked for them on a contract basis but many of them went bankrupt. Another positive factor for us is that Wizcorp is a small and flexible company; we don’t have big infrastructure costs and can easily adapt.

What is your revenue model?

The most common model is on a project basis with a one-time fee for development and then ongoing fees hosting, maintenance and support services, as well as consulting in some cases. 

What are your goals for 2010?

This year, we really want to strengthen our localization services and widen our network of partners. Our goal is to provide the best technology for each project and then build on it to make it even more efficient. 

Tell us about your team.

There are five of us at the two offices. The creative team is in Higashi-Kanda, while our second office is in Ginza which is more strategic and easy to access for customers from abroad. Our developers work flexibly, at any time. If everything goes well, we may need new staff this year, though we are small and it is best to build little by little. We use freelancers, too, on some projects.

What is a typical day for you?

I generally start at 9:30 a.m. However, I have some clients in France and sometimes I receive calls at 3 or 4 in the morning. That is useful because it means we can start work immediately on the project when the day begins here. During the day, I go to both offices to discuss the progress of the various projects and meet clients or partners. Some nights, I finish around 11 p.m. We are all very young, love IT and have much energy, so it is not too bad, although I’m sure it won’t be like that when I am in my 40s.

Do you spend much time on admin work?

Obviously, I have to manage cash flow, but it’s what I like doing least because I really love meeting with clients and managing our team. I still do some programming from time to time when we are short on resources, but our engineers are far better than me and I think it is a little counterproductive!

Until last summer, there were only three of us and I was the only developer. I was doing sales, consulting, administration and then development from midnight to 4 a.m. As you can imagine, that was not very efficient. Now I have dedicated developers who are very strong in what they are doing. So I can delegate to them and I know they will deliver on time.

Do you work on weekends?

I should answer no but the answer is yes. Sometimes, for a client, the speed at which they go to market can have a tremendous effect on their business results, so if that means we have to work weekends to finish a project, then we do it.

How do you like to relax?

I love music. I am a big fan of Bach, which I find stimulating. I also play guitar and a little piano.

For more information, visit www.wizcorp.jp