Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd., a leading financial and leasing company jointly owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Sumitomo Corporation, leverages the strengths of both financial and trading companies to develop a wide range of businesses in the finance and leasing fields. In recent years, the company has focused on developing services that go beyond traditional financial services, such as the "Comprehensive Asset Management Service ASPNeo3.0," aiming to become a "digital leader." Since its release in 2004, the "Comprehensive Asset Management Service ASPNeo3.0," which allows for the centralized management of fixed assets, leased assets, and other assets online, has attracted many customers and is currently used by approximately 1,600 companies. However, the labor, time, and internal resources required to data integration into client companies' accounting systems have been bottlenecks, resulting in missed business opportunities. In 2019, the company began using DataMagic, a non-programming solution for data processing and conversion, to bridge these gaps. We spoke to the company's IT Business Promotion Department Director, Yasuyuki Hirai, and Deputy Director, Chiako Daimon, about the hiring process and its results.
Customer Issues
When introducing their own ASP service to client companies, they were unable to meet their needs due to a lack of accounting system development personnel, which resulted in lost opportunities.
solution
- data integration using DataMagic enables low-cost and speedy implementation
- Automating and accelerating data conversion processes reduces the burden on customers
Benefits of implementation
Asset data
At low cost
Fast conversion
For more needs
Respond quickly
Eliminate lost opportunities
Eliminate bottlenecks
Customer
Focus on promoting DX
Background: Although ASP services have attracted many customers, data integration remains an issue
Yasuyuki Hirai, Director of IT Business Promotion Department
The company's comprehensive asset management service, ASPNeo3.0, is characterized by its ability to quickly implement a high-quality ASP service that allows for centralized online management of all assets, including fixed assets, without the burden of purchasing and building a system. It also boasts an extensive sales network that allows it to directly reach the management of numerous client companies. Since its release in 2004, the number of companies using the service has steadily increased at a rate of approximately 100 companies per year, reaching approximately 1,600 as of February 2020. However, while the company's specialized ASP service for fixed asset and lease asset management, unusual for a financial company, highlights its strengths, it also highlights its challenges. Yasuyuki Hirai, Director of IT Business Promotion, explains:
"In order to manage fixed assets with ASPNeo3.0, we had to separate only the fixed assets from the customer's accounting system, data integration with ASPNeo3.0, and then reconnect it to the original accounting system in the same way as before. Naturally, accounting systems vary greatly from customer to customer, so additional development and data processing were necessary. Of course, we had a fair number of system engineers in-house, but we couldn't meet all of these needs. At the time, we often missed out on great business opportunities due to a lack of sufficient resources and general know-how for "connecting" to accounting systems," says Hirai.
The company wanted to speed up the "connection" process and create a system that would allow for easy operation and maintenance thereafter, so that it could focus on its core business of providing ASPNeo 3.0. Meanwhile, the client wanted a system that would reduce the cost of system integration without making changes to their existing accounting systems, and that could flexibly accommodate changes in specifications due to tax reforms and other factors, as well as internal formats. While searching for a solution to these challenges, Hirai's eye was drawn to HULFT 's "connection" solution, offered by Saison Information Systems (now Saison Technology).
Adopting DataMagic for fast connection at low implementation cost
Chiako Daimon, Deputy Director of the IT Business Promotion Department
Hirai initially conducted his own research and learned about HULFT 's data integration solution, DataSpider International. He felt that if they introduced this data integration platform as a package to the ASP server and converted and processed data such as fixed assets all at once, they could simultaneously solve many of the issues their customers and their company face. However, this approach would have imposed the additional burden of purchasing a server on customers, negating the advantage of ASPNeo3.0, which is that no system purchase is required. After further consideration, they arrived at the optimal solution: HULFT 's data processing and conversion tool, DataMagic, also provided by Saison Information Systems (now Saison Technology). Daimon Chiako, Deputy General Manager of the IT Business Promotion Department, who worked on the project with Hirai, said:
"We compared it with other companies' products, but if our goal was to connect things in a lightweight way without incurring any costs, we thought DataMagic was the best choice. Simply installing it as a package on the customer's PC would allow us to convert and process fixed asset data individually. Also, the accounting staff who actually use the accounting system on-site are not necessarily all familiar with these IT tools. Therefore, if the system becomes too complicated, it can create an unnecessary burden on the operational side, which can sometimes prevent us from signing a contract. In this regard, we felt that DataMagic 's specifications, which allow us to quickly perform data integration tasks such as character code conversion, layout conversion, and cleansing at the touch of a button, would match our customers' needs," says Daimon.
In addition, Hirai says that Saison Information Systems' (now Saison Technology) track record in the field of "connecting" data and systems was also one of the deciding factors in the selection.
Saison Information Systems (now Saison Technology) has held the top share of the file data integration HULFT market in Japan for 16 consecutive years, and is particularly good at "connecting". We decided to use DataMagic because we thought that working with a company that has relationships with many system vendors that excel in this field would be a great advantage not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of further enhancing the brand power of A.S.P.Neo 3.0," said Mr. Hirai.
System operation diagram using DataMagic
Strengthening not only the linking of effective data integration but also "connections with customers"
DataMagic 's simple specifications, speedy implementation without programming, reduced development burden, and high cost performance have resolved the company's challenge of connecting with the customer accounting system, highlighting the advantages of ASPNeo 3.0 more than ever before.
"Even in cases where the person in charge on the client's side is not familiar with the system, the system engineers at Saison Information Systems (now Saison Technology), who have accounting knowledge, are able to share the final image through prototype development and use the specifications to smoothly proceed with implementation. We hope that in the future we will be able to take on more and more projects that we would have missed out on in the past.
"Our sales team originally proposed ASPNeo3.0 as one of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group's products while conducting sales activities for leasing and finance, and in many cases, customers trusted our company as part of the SMBC Group and signed contracts with us. For this reason, having Saison Information Systems (now Saison Technology), a trusted and proven partner company, fill in the gaps in our weak linking capabilities with tools has been a great help in gaining our customers' trust," said Daimon.
Similarly, Hirai has high hopes for the future prospects of using DataMagic.
"As the number of implementation cases increases, in the future we will be able to create templates for connecting with all accounting systems, enabling even faster implementation. We will also see new business developments, not just in ASPNeo3.0, but also in our company's waste compliance management service, PBasis. By realizing these, we will be able to contribute even more to the digital transformation of a new era, creating new value such as work style reform. DataMagic will be essential in realizing our company's management philosophy of 'contributing to society by staying ahead of the times and providing high-value-added services,' and in ensuring win-win relationships between our customers and our company," says Hirai.
Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd.
Founded in 1963, the company operates a wide range of businesses in the fields of finance and leasing. It is a leading company in the industry that has played a key role in driving social and economic transformation for over half a century. In 2019, it became an equity-method affiliate of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Sumitomo Corporation (each holding a 50% stake).
- The content of this case study is current as of the time of the interview. The content of this case study may change without notice.