We will continue to provide the new value that will accelerate Digital Transformation.
～2021 Initiative
― EXcorporation. Hidetsugu Inaba
Managing Director
Last year was a year when the novel coronavirus played very cruelly with us. After the announcement of the state of emergency in April 2020, to ensure an effective telework environment, we were endeavoring to improve the network environment, abolished seals to go paperless, etc. Besides, we transitioned to online sales and online support and worked on work style reforms in order to get prepared for the new normal with coronavirus.
Each of our departments implemented coronavirus countermeasures to minimize the impacts on business performance. We also released two new services that we believe would promote customers' telework strategies and DX (Digital Transformation):
1. Service library "EXfeel" that promotes DX in the manufacturing industry.
2. Launch of the pilot operation of "Dashboard Service" for Factory-ONE MF / SC.
In June 2020, under the direct control of the president, we launched an in-house DX project, drew a vision for ten years from now on, set the theme name "Shido" (mean. Aspiration and Action) for Phase zero, and started working on information gathering and changing our awareness. Looking back to 2020, it was a year when we all faced the threat of the novel coronavirus. To turn a tough time into an opportunity, we significantly accelerated our work style reform efforts and further promoted DX. 2021 is the first year of our three-year in-house DX project plan, and we are committed to accelerating digitalization under the theme of "establishment."
Our in-house DX project has mainly two purposes:
The first purpose is to make full use of digitalization to change employees' consciousness so that everyone could quickly adapt to changes without being bound by stereotypes and create new value while changing the corporate culture to become a company needed by society. The second purpose is to incorporate the expertise acquired from our DX efforts into the DX promotion framework and lead DX in the small and medium-sized manufacturing industry to success.
I think that many customers might be concerned about what to do when promoting DX. In our company's case, to effectively step up to digitization and digitalization, we are first working on visualization of the current business processes. We decided to introduce a BPM (Business Process Management) tool at the end of last year, and started creating rules for flow creation from the beginning of this year. We plan to finish visualization of the current situation In June and then discuss where there is a need for improvement and improve and digitize business processes.
Also, this year each department, in turn, will be working on measures towards DX. In the Sales Department, we will strengthen digital marketing, including digital content such as videos, etc., and renew our products' websites. We have also implemented marketing automation software. As part of sales process remodeling, our conventional sales organization structure has been divided into three specialized groups of inside sales, field sales, and customer success. Each team has its own roles that aim to communicate with customers at the most suitable and right time, improving customer understanding and setting up the system to address customers’ needs and help solve their business tasks.
In the Support Department, we do our best to replace the traditional waterfall model while supporting the implementation of Factory-ONE MF&SC with an agile model where the user takes the initiative in the implementation process.
When it comes to products, we have started the "Cloud Native Next Generation Manufacturing Strategy Service Development Project" and we aim to release it in 2025. In response to the increasing demand for cloud-based systems, we will be providing Factory-ONE SC as a cloud service. We are also working on optional voice recognition, motion analysis, and AI implementation, which we expect to release this year. We set to further expand Factory-ONE GL to ASEAN countries, Eastern Europe, and other areas, as part of our global expansion approach. Moreover, we are working on a system that would allow us to thoroughly discover and research outstanding services and software products developed overseas and offer them to our customers located in Japan.
Finally, as mentioned in the "DX Report 2 Interim guidelines" (Source: Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry website) published at the end of last year, about 95% of companies are not working on promoting DX at all or doing it sporadically. Moreover, it is expected that this trend will widen the gap between the winners and losers of DX promotion in the small and medium-sized manufacturing industry. However, the small and medium-sized manufacturing industry has quite a high agility. If the top management comprehends the essence of DX correctly, DX could advance much faster than in large companies. In order to support Japan’s small and medium-sized manufacturing industry, we believe that it is our mission to ensure that our customers understand the essence of DX correctly and continue to provide new value that would further advance DX.
