A Case Study of Progressive Formation of Accounting Cloud Service in Japan

The purpose of this study is to clarify the best practice of marketing strategy in Japanese accounting cloud services. The authors examine platform development and ecosystem formation of an accounting cloud service in the second stage. As the results, the authors obtain three findings. First, the best accounting cloud service has been driving a spiral model of marketing strategy consistently. Second, customer groups of the cloud service, which are connected by chain composition with path dependence, constitute multiplex markets structure. Associated service groups, which are also connected chain composition, constitute multi-dimensions service structure. Third, the service provider has started new Open & Close strategy that involves formulating closure of network structure of associated services. These strategies realized its sustainable growth. Therefore, cloud service providers not only adopt Open & Close strategy, but also build up a spiral model of marketing strategy to formulate two chain compositions with path dependence for customer groups and associated service groups.