INITIAL CCO on Enterprise SaaS Renewal Management at Uzabase

Ryohei Osawa, CCO of INITIAL at Uzabase, explains how an 8-person CS team retains and expands enterprise accounts by prioritizing customer understanding over renewal tactics.

• INITIAL has 500+ paying customers; roughly 30-40% qualify as enterprise (listed companies, several thousand employees or more).
• The CS team is 8 people total, all generalists — each owns specific OKRs but handles the full lifecycle from onboarding through renewal.
• Renewal management uses the BANTC framework (Budget, Authority, Needs, Timeline, Competitor) to assess risk; a changed authority or lost need triggers immediate remediation.
• Health scores combine login frequency, feature usage, and usage-change rate, but every score is cross-checked against Salesforce call logs before any action is taken.
• CS and product teams meet roughly four times per week; product members co-attend onboarding and second consultations to hear customer needs directly.
• New-feature penetration rate is INITIAL’s proprietary KPI — shipping a feature counts for nothing until CS actively drives adoption and feeds feedback back to product.
• Osawa’s three tips for enterprise renewal leaders: build deep customer understanding before the renewal window opens; CS must hold the clearest vision of customer success; and design an excellent churn experience, because a respectful exit often leads to re-subscription.

2025-06-26 · Watch on YouTube