Project Management Software for Marketing Agencies in Tokyo

Where agency hours disappear

Agency work rarely runs in a straight line. A concept goes to the client, comes back with comments from two or three reviewers, is revised, and goes back again. Each round takes real time from a designer, a copywriter or an account lead, and the time spent on a review call or a revision that wasn't in the original scope is the time most likely to go unlogged.

Over a quarter those hours add up. The account looks profitable on the proposal, and only when someone reconciles timesheets against invoices does it turn out that one client's review cycles absorbed far more of the studio than anyone planned.

ShipSprint makes the hour easy to record at the moment it's spent. On Team and up, logging takes about five seconds, right beside the task just finished, and each task already belongs to a client's project. Reminders for a missing day go to the person, not to their manager.

Launch dates and the Japanese calendar

A launch date agreed with a client has to survive the holidays between now and then. In Japan the stretches that most affect capacity are Golden Week in late April and early May, Obon in mid-August and the New Year holidays, when many people on both sides of the relationship take time off.

Capacity planning on Team and up counts approved leave and out-of-office, so the week before Golden Week isn't planned as if the whole team were in. Campaign calendars live on their own board, alongside the production work, which makes it easier to see when a review round scheduled for late April is going to collide with the break.

For agency principals, Business adds the owner command center across every client and a Monday digest that arrives assembled, plus scorecards that are adjusted for leave and visible to the person they describe. There are no screenshots, keystroke logging or activity tracking: what shows up is delivered work and the hours people logged.

Before a Tokyo agency signs up

Who you're buying from. The vendor is Quantuva Technologies Pvt. Ltd. of Hyderabad, India. There's no office or local entity in Japan, and support is handled by email and in-app chat.

Time zones. IST is 3 hours 30 minutes behind Tokyo throughout the year, so a Tokyo morning starts before the Indian working day does. Send setup questions by early afternoon and expect a reply the same working day, Indian time.

Billing. Each seat is charged in Indian rupees through Razorpay; your bank converts it to yen. Whether consumption tax applies to a service bought from overseas, and how, is for your accountant to confirm.

Data protection. Campaign work often involves customer lists, survey responses or contact details, and in Japan those fall under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI). Your client contracts may restrict which vendors can see that data. Check the sub-processor list and the security overview against both before uploading anything personal.