90
core data systems unified
Higher
IT development efficiency
Daily
business growth insights
For companies conducting business in diverse fields, the integration of systems optimized for each location is a significant challenge. Fujifilm Group addressed this issue by building a management information analysis system. With Informatica MDM and Data Quality solutions, the company gains a unified master data strategy that consolidates domains across product, sales and inventory, enabling faster business decisions.
"Informatica MDM has enabled us to visualize data generated daily from our global operations through a unified, cross-functional view. This adoption has contributed immensely to our group management’s ability to use trusted data to operate more efficiently and make data-driven decisions to unlock valuable insights."
Finding focus in fragmented data landscapes
On January 20, 2024, FUJIFILM Group celebrated its 90th anniversary. Since 2000, when demand for its core business in photographic film drastically declined, the company has been actively transforming its business structure to adapt to digitalization, resulting in significant changes to its revenue structure through strategic investments, M&A and R&D financing. At that time, more than half of sales came from the imaging business, but now over 80% of sales come from areas outside imaging such as healthcare.
"Not only in imaging but also through strengthening the medical systems business and expanding the semiconductor materials business, we have incorporated many companies into the group, especially through M&A," says Takaharu Furusho, Senior Manager of ICT Strategy Division at FUJIFILM Holdings. “However, there are about 90 different core systems operating within the group, making it difficult to collect and analyze the necessary data for management and make data-driven business decisions.”
To resolve these issues, FUJIFILM moved from component-based development, which involved vertical integration of specifically developed functions, to platform-based development, which enables flexible combinations of common functions across group companies for various applications.
"Thanks to the educational programs and meticulous support provided by Informatica, we could catch up with necessary knowledge and skills, enabling rapid development."
Developing a unified view of critical information
Even with platform-based development, the approach of sequentially renewing and integrating multiple core systems into a platform would require enormous costs and time. Thus, the company promoted a method of collecting data accumulated within each core system, converting it to a master, and standardizing it into a common language for cross-cutting data utilization.
This approach took shape in May 2022 with the new operational launch of the management information analysis system. This aims to share critical performance indicators (KPIs) and data from each company's core systems across the group to support business decisions.
Informatica solutions play a significant role in this new system. Master Data Management integrates and manages master data without altering the data held by existing systems, while Data Quality provides data profiling and cleansing functions to understand and improve data quality.
Golden records” boost operational efficiency
During the construction of this system, FUJIFILM sought to generate a “golden record” based on master data collected from group companies, executing maintenance activities such as deduplication and redistributing it to group companies for further utilization. The company chose Informatica MDM as its master data management tool because it not only allows collecting scattered data from various systems and processing it into master data but also enables managing permissions for data access and use, as well as tracking data processing histories.
"Even if the product is the same, part numbers used at domestic sites may differ from codes used in overseas subsidiaries,” says Furusho. “Unless these are standardized and turned into a golden record, it's hard to accurately comprehend the global sales or current inventory of a certain product. Moreover, to check how much trading occurs with a single corporation across the group, you need to standardize variable representation like addresses or names from different systems for deduplication. Informatica solutions play a wide array of roles.”
FUJIFILM employed an in-house approach for constructing the management information analysis system, with an exception for setting up the framework. Kazuya Hasegawa, ICT Strategy Division, who was involved in the project, recalls, "Thanks to the educational programs and meticulous support provided by Informatica, we could catch up with necessary knowledge and skills, enabling rapid development."
The company committed to an in-house approach to ensure the speed of the project they expected, and Informatica's efficiency in development became a significant asset. "With Informatica products, even small adjustments could be easily made with no-code, saving both time and effort in testing," highlights Hasegawa.
A solid foundation for intelligent disruption
Currently, Informatica MDM and Data Quality support the sharing of data collected from different core systems as integrated business management information. "Informatica MDM has enabled us to visualize data generated daily from our global operations through a unified, cross-functional view,” says Furusho. “This adoption has contributed immensely to our group management’s ability to use trusted data to operate more efficiently and make data-driven decisions to unlock valuable insights."
The next phase will focus on further data utilization to support self-service business intelligence (BI) created by employees, further AI-powered decision-making and operational support. "We’ve built a trusted data foundation with Informatica. Moving forward, we are now driving to advance utilization while maintaining high data accuracy, and further reduce burden on users,” says Furusho.
Commemorating its 90th anniversary, FUJIFILM affirmed its purpose to: "Increase the number of smiles on Earth." This shared vision will guide the company’s many business lines to innovate by offering new value, solving issues across healthcare, electronics and imaging, and building towards a happy future for more people worldwide – supported by Informatica data management solutions.
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