Future-proofing data-driven management for sustainable corporate value enhancement
Article｜2025-1-15
10 minute read
The tide of "digital Darwinism" is sweeping the global society and economy. If Charles Darwin, one of history’s most revered naturalist, applied his theory of evolution based on the survival of the fittest to today’s business landscape, he would see a world in which companies that lag behind in responding to irreversible technological evolution may lose their competitiveness at an accelerating rate. After all, survival isn’t guaranteed.
As a company that both creates and uses technology, Fujitsu is rapidly advancing digital transformation (DX) efforts that transcend national, regional and departmental boundaries. Linking DX to sustainable growth means that we are also working on company-wide reforms and pioneering new growth areas.
In this article, Takeshi Isobe, Executive Vice President and CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of Fujitsu, confronts the age of drastic change head-on, taking us on a journey into the data and technology that is driving opportunities for improvements in sustainable corporate value, the deployment and challenges of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that makes the most of data as a strategic asset, the goals of data-driven management, and the potential for using artificial intelligence (AI) to refine the true value of data-driven management.
In this era of unprecedented shifts, which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, companies are being asked to commit to sustained improvement in corporate value. For CFOs that means an expectation to implement key strategies to drive business growth and generate cashflow—while staying aligned with the times. In turn, the cashflow generated should be allocated to further improve corporate value. Bringing about this kind of virtuous cycle will lead to continued high praise from the market.
Let’s take a look at how Fujitsu and its customers are combining their practical knowledge to create integrated knowledge that will provide hints for creating new value from a technology-driven perspective. Fujitsu is ready to support your organization’s DX to optimize corporate value and ensure success well into the future.
*The affiliations and the content of this article are valid as of the date of its original publication.
1. Internal systems have reached their limits of individual optimization
The essence of data-driven management is to put data at the center of everything. Given the ever-changing world we live in, management decisions require comprehensive and standardized data collected in real time. Redesigning business processes around data and simultaneously pursuing operational excellence sets the stage for the true power of data-driven decision making.
For many years, each division in Fujitsu built systems to streamline their operations. Eventually, that number ballooned to nearly 4,000 systems! That was the catalyst for pursuing data-driven management; we had reached our limit with individualized optimization.
Facing the precursor to the 2025 digital cliff
Honestly, I feel like I started reaching my limit in the mid-2010s. We had managed to get by with aging systems, but maintaining a large number of systems at the same level is a lot of work. To put it bluntly, we had a precursor to the 2025 digital cliff occurring within Fujitsu.
The company had to make drastic changes to data-driven management led by headquarters. We started the One ERP+ project due to a growing sense of danger of being pushed to the edge of the cliff. After a period of preparation, a company-wide team, global project promotion office was established in January 2020 to drive the project.
2. “Building a data culture” is still a work in progress globally
I’d like to bring up an important point from the Horváth CFO-Study 2024 （*1）conducted by the international management consultancy Horváth Group (headquartered in Germany), which operates mainly in Europe and the United States. 150 CFOs from companies in 16 countries responded to the survey, with 18% answering “top priority” and 63% answering “increased priority” to the question, “What priority do you assign to the transformation into a data-driven company?” The total of both responses reached 81%.
On the other hand, in response to the question, “How do you assess the data culture maturity of your company?” only 2% answered “achieved an excellent data culture,” and only 20% said “developed a solid data culture” (Figure 1). This suggests that while many CFOs feel the importance of the transformation towards data-driven management, few companies have been able to implement it effectively.
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What can we suppose is hindering the practice of data-driven management? In response to the question, “What are your challenges or barriers that currently inhibit the adoption of a data-driven culture?” the most common answer was “lack of data quality,” accounting for 57%. This was followed by “lack of data infrastructure” (49%) and “silo mentality and lack of collaboration” (35%) (Figure 2).
CFOs from companies around the world emphasize that the data necessary for data-driven management and the infrastructure systems such as ERP required to collect data and the mindset to deepen understanding of data-driven management are indispensable pieces of the transformation puzzle. Additionally, 35% of respondents cited “resistance to change,” indicating a high level of concern.
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3. Real-time management driven by OneERP+
Full-scale operation of the transformation supporting Fujitsu's data-driven management, OneERP+, began in Japan in October 2024. OneERP+ is a core program of the OneFujitsu initiative, focusing on real-time management, datafication and visualization, and standardization of business operations (Figure 3).
