Accelerate the growth of the entire search project by narrowing the conditions.Rumba's sub -school began with a unique market problem solving in Japan.

* This article was published in the regular magazine "Markezine" published on February 25, 2022.

Start a sub -skop service to dispel anxiety about robot vacuum cleaners

Irobot Japan GK Marketing Headquarters and New Business Development Office Mr. Takeshi Yamada (Takeshi Yamada)

Joined Matsushita Electric Industries (now Panasonic) in 2001.He is engaged in sales and marketing of the digital camera "LUMIX".He joined Softbank Mobile (currently Softbank) in 2014.He is in charge of marketing communication for the humanoid robot "Pepper" and iPhone.He joined IROBOT Corporation in 2015 and became the director of the Marketing Department in 2017 with the establishment of Irobot Japan.He has been responsible for the IROBOT marketing strategy in Japan, and has been engaged in new business areas since October 2020.

―― First, please tell us the service outline of the robot Smart Plan (hereinafter referred to as Robosma).

Robosma is a subscription -type service provided by us since 2019.The price varies depending on the model, but you can easily use the robot vacuum cleaner "Rumba" and the floor wiping robot "Brava" from 980 yen per month.If you sign up for a three -year service for three years, it will automatically become the customer's ownership, return goods, and usually have a one -year manufacturer warranty for three years.I am.

――What is the background of the development and provision of subscription services?

In 2000, the market for robot vacuum cleaners has grown globally and rapidly.In particular, in the United States, Europe and China, the penetration rate of robot vacuum cleaners has increased at a very fast speed.Meanwhile, in fact, Japan has been sluggish in Japan.Analyzing the reasons, the background unique to Japan has been seen.

One is that Japanese -specific mindset, such as "I want to clean with my own hands" and "I have to clean it myself", is strong.In addition, I found that the reliability of the robot vacuum cleaner was low, saying, "I can't clean my house with a robot vacuum cleaner."Because Japanese houses are smaller than in Europe and the United States, many customers have questions such as "Is it so small?" "Is it too small to clean your house with a robot vacuum cleaner?"is.

It's not a cheap shopping, so you can understand the psychology of customers that you don't want to waste your high initial investment costs.The first starting point was that we would be pleased if we had a service that could be tried casually and if there was a service that we could easily try.

This is a back story, but in fact, until just before the release, commercialization was progressing under the service name "Long -term rental program".However, at the time of 2019, the word "subscty" suddenly began to become popular.At that time, can our service be a sub -ski?So, as a subscription service, we decided to sell it according to the tide of the times.So, in our case, it was not the purpose of launching a subscription business itself, but as a result of thinking that we could manage to solve the customer's troubles, it became a form of such services.