Standardizing systems across regions and subsidiaries
IT companies need to keep up with rapidly changing technologies. They also need to invest in reviewing and improving their products and services, alongside optimizing how the business is managed and operated. One such company, Fujitsu Limited, aspires to respond to trends in the sector quickly while accelerating its own digital transformation.
In 2020, the company launched a digital transformation project called ‘Fujitra’, which stands for ‘Fujitsu Transformation’. To execute at speed, the company needed to align regional offices and subsidiaries so they were all working towards the same goals. The ‘One Fujitsu’ project was established as part of this initiative to standardize end-to-end operations and systems across the Group, including domestic companies in Japan and international subsidiaries.
“If every region and subsidiary is operating independently, the company can’t respond quickly to changing needs and customer expectations. As part of One Fujitsu, we’re centralizing all Group data on one platform and creating an environment where we can share insights to make smarter business decisions,” says Katsunori Aoki, Senior Manager of Fujitsu’s Global Head Office, Digital Systems Platform Unit.
Centralizing planning and approvals at global headquarters
Fujitsu created a new role to support the transition to a standard Group-wide system. The Chief Data and Process Officer (CDPO) was assigned to take ownership of the project and is responsible for in-house business processes and data.
Previously, every subsidiary and region was responsible for its own development plan and budget, but the company decided to take a more standard approach and eliminate any systems that were optimized for just one area. Fujitsu headquarters defined one approvals process and budget to support the centralization initiative.
“One Fujitsu has changed the way we operate. We compared system development request processes across each subsidiary and region to decide how things should be done in the future,” explains Koichi Abe, Senior Director of Fujitsu’s Cloud Services Division, Digital Systems Platform Unit.
This required complete visibility of which systems each subsidiary was using. Fujitsu implemented ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture to create a comprehensive IT portfolio.
Visibility of Group-wide systems in one tool
ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management enables groups and enterprises to manage their IT portfolio from one platform. It tracks system development projects and approvals and helps to accurately manage budgets. Enterprise Architecture, meanwhile, aligns the company’s applications with its business strategy. Together, the solutions provide a holistic view of all systems and are used by each region and subsidiary at Fujitsu.
“Our IT assets were previously managed by region or subsidiary, which was disjointed. When we decided to pursue a standard approach, consolidating IT management across the Group was the first step towards becoming One Fujitsu,” says Takamasa Saito from Fujitsu’s Global Head Office, Digital Systems Platform Unit.
Launching the Group-wide standardization initiative
With data collected in Enterprise Architecture, Fujitsu discovered there were over 4,000 different systems being used across the Group.
“Once we had full visibility of applications and systems, we could officially launch our standardization initiative. We have a dedicated Service Domain Owner (SDO) at our headquarters who’s responsible for optimizing the portfolio of digital services for each business area,” Abe explains.
When deciding whether to implement a new system, the SDO conducts reviews to assess how much it would improve the operations and services provided to each business unit across the group company, and how it would help to reduce costs. With ServiceNow, the SDO reduces time needed to put together budgets and reports.
Faster budgeting and reporting
Strategic Portfolio Management captures system development and budget requests from all areas of the business. These are then consolidated to simplify reviews and approvals, which are managed directly in the platform. The process is also smoother for the applicant. Instead of creating and emailing Excel documents, managers can choose from a drop-down list of applications without having to re-type the request. This has eliminated transcription errors and drastically improved operational efficiency.
Previously, Fujitsu processed system budget requests from each office in Japan using an in-house system. However, some information still needed to be managed in Excel. International budgets were also managed in a separate system, which means the company had to manually consolidate reports to get Group-wide visibility.
By centralizing on Strategic Portfolio Management, Abe explains: “It takes around 30% less time to aggregate applications, consolidate budgets, and prepare management reports.”
Supporting future development projects management
Since implementing ServiceNow, the company is also benefiting from greater consistency. As Saito comments, “Before request processes were consolidated on Strategic Portfolio Management, the granularity of the requests varied by subsidiary, region, project, and financial year. Now, we can submit comprehensive reports on budgets or project outcomes to management so we can make smarter business decisions.”
Like the One Fujitsu project, to standardize operations effectively, the company needed to align stakeholders and agree on each region and subsidiary’s role and responsibility in the initiative. After the ServiceNow rollout, over 10 workshops were held to onboard users to the systems, gather user feedback, and make sure they were comfortable using the solution.
“It’s important to maintain that alignment and connection with employees. We receive queries from across the organization every day, so we leveraged our ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) system to empower employees with fast responses to common queries,” Abe explains.
Concerning the next phases of the project, Aoki reveals: “We’re working on defining our overall business structure so we can adapt and optimize our enterprise architecture across the Group.” Strategic Portfolio Management will continue to support project management as Fujitsu replaces its incumbent system.
A major issue for the company was how to shift from a traditional system integration business model to a service-oriented digital-first business model, but the company predicts it will be worth the investment.
“When the One Fujitsu project achieves our goal of making Group systems simpler and more transparent, we can reduce operating costs significantly and invest that money accordingly. Currently, those costs amount to 70-80% of our IT expenses,” Aoki explains. “As the implementation matures, we’re accumulating more in-house knowledge and expertise that will help accelerate our transition to a service-oriented digital-first business model and enable us to advise customers on how to use these digital solutions themselves.”