Fujitsu Limited (6702) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

The time has come. So let us comment this briefing session on the strategy of Fujitsu's Consulting business. Thank you very much for joining us despite your busy schedule. Today's session will be held in a hybrid style. Let me explain today's agenda. First, from the Fujitsu, Onishi, a Corporate Executive Officer, Corporate Vice President and CRO, will greet you all. Then Global CEO and Senior Managing Partner, Shuda; Head of Japan, Managing Partner, Kudo; and Head of Global Technology Practice, Mihara, our 3 Wayfinders leaders will explain about the release. Then we will have a talk session to take a deep dive into the initiatives. And then we will move on to Q&A session. We will finish at around 11:30. My name is [indiscernible] and I belong to the IR office. Now we would like to invite Onishi-san for greetings.

Hello, Fujitsu last week turned 90 years old. I'm not 90 years old. I'm Onishi, Corporate Executive Officer and Corporate VP, Onishi. We have this session on site as well as online, and we have many participants, including your continued support on a daily basis. Thank you very much. FY '24, February 22, well, we don't have the Fujitsu office anymore, but at the 32nd floor of Fujitsu Shiodome Building, we explained about a Wayfinders. At the time, I believe many of you have joined that session as well. And since then about 4 months has passed, and various transformation efforts in Fujitsu, we have been working on the Wayfinders activities as well. What I would like to convey to you as an opening speech is that I myself is responsible for this. But there are several points that I have been always following from the start. The first is what I was thinking when we established this team is that, first of all, the 110,000 employees of Fujitsu, we're going to create this team as the consulting team of this company. Specifically speaking, it is not going to be in a way like a subsidiary company but this 110,000 employees of Fujitsu, this team is going to be created. In the long-term perspective, having -- all the employees have the consulting capabilities with the customer-centered view. And from the start, taking it into the organization, we tend to say that, oh, let's start from Japan, not just Fujitsu, but mainly in other companies as well. But we didn't say that from Japan -- start from Japan. But we said then let's do Europe, Americas, Asia. It's going to be a team for all those regions and have been also taken up by the media as well. And [indiscernible], who is the Chairperson of [indiscernible] right now, consulted in various opportunities and consulted on how we can [indiscernible]. And within those discussions, I believe, in my belief is as well as what we need to do. I myself -- there's another point that I always wanted to pursue is that in order to start this project and move it forward, we have to have the true leadership to be guiding us. There's a book titled Devil of Consulting. I believe some of you have read this book. [indiscernible] tend to come up or have and this is a job type that a lot of students aspire to become. I myself after I left NTT DATA, just from my job, I came into this consulting world as well as Imai and this world as well. And we have been dealt with many people, and amongst those people, there are people that are considered to be a true consultants and I will be [indiscernible]. But in the past year and 4 months, together with Imai, we have been working on this project. April of 2025, we made an announcement of the new leadership. And within the leadership, we have overseas members. Today, as announced at the start, Shuda, who will be the overall responsible person with the other members will be on stage today. And there will be an explanation provided of what kind of initiatives and work will follow from now onwards. We also have a talk session as well as a Q&A session planned for today. Therefore, we would like to provide you with various information. And we would like to share with you what Wayfinders is aiming for and how much of progress we have made. So we would like to exchange information and also have a Q&A session to answer your questions. With this, I would like to conclude my opening remarks. Thank you for participating.

Thank you very much. Now please enjoy the brand movie, [indiscernible] Uvance Wayfinders. [Presentation]

Uvance Wayfinders leaders will take over to give you explanation. First, positioning and purpose of Uvance Wayfinders will be explained to you from Shuda-san. Over to you.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much indeed for joining us despite your busy schedule and despite the bad weather. I am the Global CEO and Senior Managing Partner of the Uvance Wayfinders. My name is Shuda Shinichiro. I was in the U.S. for many years, and I came back to Japan 4 months ago. And as [indiscernible] I was assigned to this position. And many of you do not know about me, but I was serving as a consultant for many years. So I would like to utilize such experience. And I think as to the positioning of the Uvance Wayfinders, and that was what I have been doing in the last 3 months or so, well, I would like to talk about the future of the Uvance Wayfinders based on what we have been doing in the last few months. Well, not only myself, but with the members who will come over to the stage we have been discussing this and I will briefly give you the update on the current progress or the status on that. First and foremost, I would like to spare 10 minutes or so to provide you with overview and the purpose [indiscernible] that we would like to do. And then afterwards, the Head of Japan, Kudo is going to take over to talk about the capabilities that we would like to build. And then subsequently, Mihara is going to be more specific and provide you about the core of the jobs to be conducted as Wayfinders. First and foremost, let's talk about the Uvance Wayfinders. What is the positioning of Uvance Wayfinders? That can be positioned in the 4 keywords, one of which [indiscernible], well, we would like to utilize the comprehensive service and [indiscernible] of the Fujitsu. We are going to be the key in doing so to provide the budgets to the customers. With our involvement into the consulting business, I think many things will be changed. And one another [indiscernible] -- one point is that the end-to-end delivery is going to be possible. Management and also the operations transformation from that all the way down to the operations, which we are good at. We are going to provide end-to-end service and the pricing of the Fujitsu. What sort of values that we can provide? Well, we are going to do [indiscernible] things compared to the ordinary consultants. Another is the industry expertise. We are called the verticals in the U.S., but we would like to create an industrial expertise. Well, we are going to give you an information on the sort of members we have, and this is the point where we would like to focus most on to. We are gathering an expertise in working [indiscernible], and as was mentioned by Onishi just a minute ago, another one is going to be quite important. Well, we have created a global team from the scratch, including myself, the leaders who have joined us from the outside, the consulting. There are things that have worked well and things that improve the motivation of the employees. Well, we will try to organize all these things to be able to execute successfully. And there are things that didn't work well in other consultants I think, the challenges, and we will try to eliminate those as much as possible so that all of us will be able to face the customer. We're trying to create a culture that enables us to mobilize the whole company. The culture that we have in Japan is going to be [indiscernible] not only the operating model, but the human resources evaluation system. And also the methodologies of the consulting is going to be commonly is shared amongst the world, which is going to be led by Japan, which I think is going to begin. One Fujitsu, let's talk about the One Fujitsu that I referred to. Why is it that we believe that this actually is linked in. Of course, there is the customer to begin with, and we have to find out ourselves that includes the consultants and also the system engineers front end, the cells and Uvance will work together in order to have a conversation with the customers indeed and we are going to talk about the upstream matters as well. Many topics would be covered. Once we understand the challenges being faced by the customers, global delivery team [indiscernible]. And also not only that we have many technologies coming up from the R&D that would be adopted [indiscernible]. Fujitsu's transformation is something that we have been working on in the last 5 years. And [indiscernible] from that will be utilized for the customers, and we are basically going to utilize the whole capabilities, and we are going to be the key in doing so to deliver, achieve that -- all these to achieve that. Well, as for the actual delivery, of course, the Uvance Wayfinders team will work on the business operation or the management all the way down, we are going to have ourselves involved. Not only that, we'll [indiscernible] the Fujitsu's delivery will be managed and also improved, which is to be led by us. So let me summarize what I have been talking about. First, [indiscernible]. We have many insights from our own transformation. There are many challenges that we faced in the last year. We have some success, we have some failures. We have this comprehensive knowledge that we'll be able to become successful, we can provide such knowledge to the customers. As we would like to focus on to. And second point is the step into the operation. We have many capable system engineers. But when SEs take the lead in having accommodation, as they have difficulty trying -- to try to change the way. They are good at handling the homework being given. But with the involvement, we changed that quite a lot. And then as for the latest technology, the R&D has a variety of technologies available in the treasure box. And sometimes they are stopped at the POC level, but we will take these technologies. We are trying to create the internal organization that would enable us to do that in order to make the team and also R&D and global delivery team. All these 3 teams will be collaborating to each other so that the technologies and engineering capabilities will be delivered. And then this is quite important, which is about Fujitsu's culture. I have been in the overseas for many years. And I do believe that Fujitsu's culture is very good. We never try to put our faith, we stick to the end. We are trying to [indiscernible], which I think is the kind of culture that would have to be succeeded, not only in Japan, but in the U.S. or in Europe or elsewhere, we would like to make sure that we would expand or [indiscernible] culture, we would like to create the Wayfinders' culture. So as I had mentioned already, there are people who are well versed in the specific industries and well versed in the technologies, we are starting together these people. For example, in the U.S., we are mainly focusing on these regions, Europe and Oceania have started recruitment processes are taking place every day in Japan. For example, the finance, we have automotive and energy and heavy industry and the people with experience on this, not only from our competitors, but even from the operating companies or the sales company, we are recruiting people. Well, instead of the employee, the pure consultants, we are trying to recruit people who are well versed in because the here 1 or 2 industries. Those are the kind of members that we are trying to get the same goes for the U.S., the finance, the manufacturing, also the retail, of course, the automotive industry as well. So in the U.S., the members are being collected similar to that of Japan. As was mentioned earlier by Onishi-san. That this is something which -- there is something which we put a lot of attention to consultants are so-called sales reps, where we try to put that on someone. But I would like to make sure that we have the hypothesis in regards to the customer experience where we would be the kind of members that would be able to engage in conversation with the customer that can deliver and have a conversation about the future would be necessary. Of course, in the future, we are going to introduce or the employ rep type of people. But basically, the kind of people that I talked about are those who are trying to be creative. So I rushed a bit. But the reason why I am posting this on the slide is as follows. Our purpose, yes, this is something that we would try to work on as well. And on top of that, it is not that I'm not really talking about the culture of Japan, but Fujitsu is the main body of the consulting business. So we are different from the foreign consulting service, therefore, we have to make sure that we have the discipline and integrity and so on, which is unique to Fujitsu. And that is something that we will try to address to all. I've rushed a bit, about 10 minutes had past therefore, I will try to close my remarks but I will be joining for the Q&A session and talk session later. I look forward to receiving your [indiscernible], if any. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, regarding the capability of Uvance Wayfinders, Kudo will lead the explanation. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. My name is Kudo, who is the Head of Japan of Uvance Wayfinders. From my side, I would like to explain about the capability that we should aim for what we have right now and also the capabilities that we need to further reinforce and the capabilities, what values are we going to deliver to our customers. As Shuda mentioned, the customers' type of business and the consultants who have a deep understanding of that, the industry experts that have the industry expert will be leading this. However, moving forward, our society will experience a large transformation as data and AI, such as we experienced when the Internet came about. And AI will be at the center of this transformation. And data and AI capability of our research, and we add the consulting capability. So data is at the center and the consultants who have so well knowledge about the businesses and industries, the operation, supply chain, engineering chain finance, depending on which industry it differs. Is it process industry? Is it an industry that assembles things? Or is it industry that orders? So the industry expertise and consulting also together with the knowledge of the [indiscernible] operation, we will be moving this forward. And also this experience consulting part, the customers' transformation or the operations transformation to realize this, the people inside the company and the corporate culture transform as well or else a true transformation will not be realized. Therefore, the experience, we would [indiscernible] transformation of the people. And so we place importance on experience of the people and data AI industry experience operation to support all these transformations, we have the technologies team. In the AI era, there is a new architecture. What should it be [indiscernible] transformation? What is an IT technology that will support that? In a comprehensive way, we would like to support the transformation of our customers. So in reality, what kind of project [indiscernible] very, very brief. I would like to talk about just one example. First of all, for manufacturing digital twin, starting from the design, development, procurement, manufacturing, distribution and sales, the system of manufacturing industry is the buildup of each individual application, and for the transaction by the interface. However, when something happens, for example, political changes occurring around us, there are various challenges. For example, in the supply chain, the supplier will have to change the supply chain or the parts and components, there will be defects. And when that happen, from the development to all the way up to [indiscernible], all the data is available and that can be simulated. There are not many companies that have the capability or able to do such a thing. Therefore, digital twins, having it as a data, various challenges, natural disasters or changes of regulations and laws towards those and the impact can be analyzed and that can lead to the need for the next step. And the [indiscernible] at the middle, the Fujitsu's practical experience to know about it are the voices that we hear quite a lot from our customers, and we go to the customers. But this is the Fujitsu way of doing things, but Fujitsu has experience of implementing, practicing this. We add objectiveness of consultants, and by looking at this case, by each customer, how we should customize this? It's not going to be something that providing, for example, sales reforms, et cetera. And the third, trusted society. This is just for example, an infrastructure area, we have a local government customer. And with those customers, the world is changing through AI. And with the vision of technology, vision of Fujitsu, can you actually draw a picture 10 years from now? Are some of the requests that we are receiving and for those requests with the technology of Fujitsu and the consultants capability to create with the customers, we also go along with the customers and provide the value from Fujitsu. So within the various type of projects that we were handling, I just mentioned some representing cases to you right now. Japanese corporations, [indiscernible] Japan and to create a sustainable world, we would like to contribute to. So we are going to put our full efforts into to do so. This concludes my explanation. Later on, I will be back again for the Q&A session. So I'm looking forward to you again. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that. Next, we will have Mihara to talk on transforming business and IT by leveraging data and AI at its core.

Hello, everyone. My name is Mihara, I belong to Fujitsu. Within the Wayfinders, I work on global practice or should I call it the global technology practice, I serve as a leader for that. From my side, I would like to give you the talk as to what sort of services will be provided from the Wayfinders by leveraging AI at its core. Up until now, [indiscernible] and ourselves have been working on the variety of transformation, including on the IT and business operation. But what about now? A variety of technological initiatives being tackled by customers and for our company as well. But having said so, now that the AI [indiscernible] are enhanced so much, AI and also its fuel namely data, meaning the data and AI would have to be utilized for the sake of transformation that I believe is going to be at the core of the future transformation. So the initiatives in relation to the data and AI have been worked on in a variety of companies in the last few years. This is really an old and new theme. Utilization of the data and the utilization of the AI up until now is an operation of data by people and the judgment and analysis by [indiscernible]. And then the people needed to take the action, that was what it was. But on the other hand, in the coming few years, there is this world that will come where the AI would be the one to utilize the data in order to understand the status of operation. And at the same time, the necessary information would be prepared for the judgment to be done by people and we want to make the judgment. And the system operation will be taken over by the AI in the world, which we will see. So if that's the case, there are things would be tackled by us, which is clear. The reason is that well things such as existing operation and IT are created for the sake of people. And if we maintain that AI against it, I do believe and we do believe that, that would not be successful. Therefore, well agent AI would have to be enabled so that it would be enabled to transform the operation and the business. So that kind of an environment where the AI can be utilized autonomously is something that we call as Agentic AI, and against that backdrop, we need to work on the IP and the business transformation and that is to be done. And they're the fighters, need to take a certain approach against that. First and foremost, our mission is it's not really about providing consulting the business to our customers. Our customers themselves utilize data and AI themselves so that their own IT and operation of the business and the ITs are being used. They have to be enabled on the transformation on their own continuously, and that's the kind of system that we would have to create. And that is indeed our final mission. And at the same time, for example, the kind of data [indiscernible] before is where the consultants need to have it. And then the engineers would take over for the implementation. So there was such as [indiscernible] because when it comes to the Agentic AI, we're the autonomous AI [indiscernible], the sort of conventional system would not be applicable. Operation and IT will be integrated or unified. And they have to have a deep understanding about the business and operation. And at the same time, in agile and continuously all the things would have to be tackled. And there are 3 important points to be noted. One, is transformation to agent-oriented operations or we have the business into the system or the style where the AI would be able to understand or else the agent-oriented AI cannot be and not only that. Well, AI agent, it would not be applicable for the conventional IT architecture. Therefore, to make sure that the AI agent can be utilized, we have to transform not only the business but IT-related perspective. From both perspectives, we have to think about the security. It would have to be implemented everywhere. In order to realize that, the Wayfinders themselves will utilize AI actively. For example, let's talk about the consulting. [indiscernible] effort to analyze the business, and then after the business changes, they would have to do the same thing once again. But in the world of the data and AI style is obsolete. Therefore, while utilizing the data and AI, we will work on analysis of the business, analysis of the IT environment, and we are going to build the environment where all these would be visualized at the same time. Therefore automation of the IT environment basically is something that which we are working on within the Fujitsu. We are changing our own business model inside the Fujitsu and [indiscernible] for the customers as well. We work on a variety of activities by leveraging the AI and that is not to be provided as a service by people, the AI will be providing such services, that's the kind of vision that we have or that are the strength of the Wayfinders. And I think there are several of them. One, we have a work and operation of the system of a variety of customers. And through our experience that diverse industrial knowledge and the process and the data required by the AI is something that we have a deep knowledge on and we would like to utilize that. And as was mentioned earlier by people, including not only the Fujitsu transformation, but we have sort of company-wide transformation. And we know the good aspects and bad aspects of what we have worked on. And all these are reflected on to the service that we are providing to the customers and AI is part of that. At this moment, there are mass initiatives related to the AI going on within the company, which we leverage. And in the world, AI come into play. It's not that the Python written code, that's not all. When the other agent AI starts the operation is going to be stopped, so it's really the mission-critical and we have to make sure that we create a system where it's going to be unstoppable. And Fujitsu is very good at doing that. Furthermore, not only that we utilize a third-party solution by customizing it. We and our R&D team has the capability to create technologies, which would be used as well. For example, we have a technology that cannot be conducted by the [indiscernible]. The kind of unique technologies that cannot be made by competitors are available in relation to inference as well. We are going to utilize those approaches, enterprise agentic foundation is what we would like to create. The customers themselves would be able to autonomously and continuously transform the kind of environment that we are talking about. With that, I would like to conclude my explanation. Thank you very much.

Thank you very. With this, we would like to conclude the presentation. Next, we would like to move on to the talk session. We will be preparing the [indiscernible] so we kindly ask you to wait for a moment please. During the talk session, in addition to Onishi and Shuda, Yoshinami Takahashi, who is the Executive Officer, Corporate VP; and Yoshiko Furuhama, the Corporate Executive Officer, Executive VP, will join and conduct the talk session under the theme of [indiscernible], the last piece of the business transformation of Fujitsu. The facilitator of this session will be Onishi, who is the Head officer. So please go ahead.

From here, we will start the talk session. And before the Q&A, beforehand, internally amongst the members, we have discussions -- we would like to have a discussion on the points that maybe you would like to ask about. My name is Onishi. I'm the company-wide strategy of Fujitsu. Before I ask you, as the flow of the Fujitsu's transformation, Tokita became the CEO. He started the DX initiatives. What we did there is modernization, the infrastructure layer of companies to do the DX of that and Uvance to transform the DX layer is what we have started. The point that Fujitsu has to change is that up to now, from the content that was focused, we needed to discuss about the transformation of our company. So the person we speak to and the content we speak to will change. And we needed to build up a capability that can actually speak on that. That is the background of our initiatives. And that is why 1.5 years ago, we conducted a press release regarding Wayfinders. Today, we had to gather so that we can share the activities up to now. Think and the [indiscernible] is being taken up quite often. And probably you're wondering about this. In the past 1.5 years, how do we build up this organization focusing on what is [indiscernible], Onishi-san first. And also today, [indiscernible] is within this book, the way of a CRO. And Onishi has been working on the transformation initiatives is also mentioned in here a bit later.

Well, thank you very much for mentioning my book. Well, I like to do this casually. I have 3 points that I focus on. World of creating a subsidiary company, but wanted to work as a company what Fujitsu embed the capability of consultation on a global basis. And we want it to do so, we needed the true leadership. And I did not want to skip that, [indiscernible] so 1 target number, there is this 10,000 number. But in the 3, what needs to be done is what I have been thinking. And within the last 1.5 years, the members are here, [ Takashi-san ], [indiscernible] as well. That for us to -- what does the consulting business mean to us? And what is the consulting business to be [indiscernible], not the people that have a consulting background, but the internally bread directors had a discussion on this and everybody is saying that, well, consultants differ within each person. There are people who think about strategic things, other people looking for [indiscernible] type of consultation. My image of a consultant is to balance and scale. And by having these type of discussions, I thought that for leaders, we wanted to find authentic leaders, and so I met Shuda. So we've indentified [indiscernible]. And when we made the press release last year that one of the themes that we'll be working on is reskilling, and that has not changed. And to have a certain scale, we cannot just hire from the outside. If you had up to now, the strength of the Fujitsu, if we just did that, it is not going to be effectively used. So the industry knowledge, business operation, technology, in order to utilize that fully, reskilling is sensible. However, the insight and experience that the people who are going to be repackaged, rewrapped and that to be delivered to be a leader that has an experience or else that will not be fully conveyed. Maybe the information of department may understand it, but not the C-suite people. So when I thought about this, it's not just it's having the number ready, the necessary number of people does not suffice. But I also focus on the points that I just mentioned for the 1.5 years. As I have already mentioned, internally, the capabilities and know-hows are being accumulated, but the people who are unable to convey the management was not sufficient. We internally, we didn't have the people. We utilized the people from the outside and to supplement, and at one point is to accelerate this.

There is one thing that I would like to ask you, Onishi-san. Well, within the Fujitsu, we have the consulting company called Ridgelinez. At this time, the Uvance Wayfinders that function for the consulting established. So well, I'm sure that everyone is interested as to these things have been positioned. The Ridgelinez had been established in 2020, we are -- that is a consulting company. We say that neutrality is core principle. Well, principle that would have to be embraced by the consulting firm as an outcome of the contribution of the IT or the transformation of the business that would have to be there. But when we realize it's not that the Fujitsu will come together as a default. Well, what about Wayfinders...

Well, originally, as I had mentioned earlier, 10,000 employees within the Fujitsu, and we have tried to build in this function into that. So ultimately, we are going to do this in a way where we utilize the whole capabilities of the Fujitsu. So the Uvance Wayfinders team, as was mentioned by Shuda [indiscernible] global delivery team and the Uvance team and R&D team members. Together with all these members, and the Uvance Wayfinders team will utilize the whole capabilities of the Fujitsu. And so it has been established as one business, there is a big difference between the two. The Ridgelinez does not necessarily have to link the business to the Fujitsu in the end. Of course, sometimes they do. But if they believe that solutions other than the ones from Fujitsu is the best, then they wouldn't utilize Fujitsu. But Wayfinders have been established as a function of the Fujitsu that I hope is to be understood by everyone.

So I'm sure that you have already heard of it upon joining the organization, but what sort of impression did you have?

You can share your frank opinion, I have a long time of experience overseas. So the image of Fujitsu is totally different than the current Fujitsu. At the start, I was surprised. However, I thought that this Fujitsu has been working on for the last 5 years. I was in the U.S., however, I think that was more advanced than what [indiscernible] will do. M&A and HR matters, all of that. And the company Fujitsu can do such a transformation and that company doing the consultation, I thought high potential. Having said that, well, there's Ridgelinez, creating a totally separate team, but it's to have the consulting capability for the overall Fujitsu is the mission we have. Of course, we will be hiring from the outside because we need consulting. However, those members, the SEs or [indiscernible] in Fujitsu do exist. And these people that we hire as consultants will embed the capability of consultants to the SEs or the other salespeople in Fujitsu. And I think this has a potential. Thank you very much.

How the organization is created? you said that you are going to [indiscernible] because we have this size as a company. Several options have been considered up to now, and we've been considering M&A as well. And also other companies will add a consulting company to an IT company, there are consulting capabilities. I think there were cases as such for the company to, at this time, we're creating the organization that is different from that. So I would like to hear a comment from [indiscernible] and Shuda-san. What do you think Onishi-san?

Well, the customers that Fujitsu has until now and the history that they have created together with them is something that can be competed against easily. So when we look at the next 10 years, how are we going to link this relationship to the future? Of course, we have a person who [indiscernible] an automotive finance manufacturer, we have the experience. And to it's not that simply conducting M&A [indiscernible]. We need to utilize what we have, including a maximum level.

Shuda-san, so you used to belong to Accenture and you have went through the transformation of the consulting business. You may have been involved with it, including integration with IT. And what we are doing and what you so before, how do you -- how can you evaluate what's going on?

As you may know, originally, [indiscernible] at a phase where everything being connected at the stage or the [indiscernible] important because the gap -- the initial gap may lead to a huge gap. First and foremost, solution, the delivery and R&D centers. In the consulting foundation is to be built in from the beginning. We have this thing that if you want to go fast and you have to -- you shouldn't go straightforward. In that sense, the building of the foundation is quite important, and there is a room for improvement there. We have a variety of customers. We have a massive relationship with the customers. And we have done so many mentioned earlier, the creation of the foundation that would enable us to capabilities of those have to be prepared at the real world or else it's going to be very difficult for us to fix that. And we have to put lots of effort on the platform in the beginning is quite important, that was such a high-level explanation. So the speed was mentioned, if there is a gap in the beginning, then later on, we would have to spend a lot of effort. Therefore, the prioritization would be quite important, and currently that is taking the lead in working with recruitment at this moment.

With the people outside, what sort of impression do you people have? What sort of feeling? I'm sure that some are quite harsh.

Well, actually, I am having the feedback, which I'm very much surprised, not only in Japan, but outside as well, which is to be engaged in the consulting business in a way that I've just talked about. Many people hear that, many people would not be interested at all in it. Well, in the beginning, what we work on as a part of the interview and in none of the case, the project, same in the overseas. Actually, the branding capability of the Fujitsu Japan is not that strong, but many people do know about Fujitsu. And they are positive Fujitsu because we are trying to do the consulting business. And we are quite similar to [indiscernible]. What we have the strength that would enable us to create and many people are interested in joining. And so I have to -- I'm quite busy with the interview.

As I said at the start, Fujitsu itself has been working on transformation for a long time, reviewing the business portfolio from hardware to system integration is a transformation that we've been working on [indiscernible] it, the share price has increased by 4.5x since [indiscernible] became, so various things have been changing. So I always call you Yoshinami-san, but [ Taka-san ] from your side or leading the transformation, you have been leading the project Uvance leading transformation. What was lacking?

Well, I wasn't expecting that question. [indiscernible] way out of my expectation as a question. So how should I answer this? From 2021 together with Onishi-san, Onishi, we've been working on to start the Uvance, and the executives have various discussions on how we should carry this on. And now it's 4.5 years, and last year, we made JPY 480 billion, which is a 31% increase of revenue year-on-year. And we've been working [indiscernible] JPY 1 billion. But of course, the road was not smooth, it was bumpy. So the business, we thought it's going to increase a bit more. However, the adoption, it was more mainly PC cloud migration. So after a year, for example, in Uvance, the simulation tool to reduce CO2 or the electricity consumption to optimize it, the simulation [indiscernible] solving the societal issues at the same time as resolving the company's challenges. We have these complication of Uvance that did not penetrate that well, but now we have the Uvance Wayfinders. The business models, the last one piece is now all set. So moving together with Wayfinder, I believe this is not so easy is going to be a very exciting one moving forward. So Fujitsu has been developing that technology in cooperation with the Fujitsu Lab. But Mihara-san, as explained, they're working on AI and they have a certain level of capabilities to the customer is difficult is what Takahashi-san hardships.

May I say something? The analogy of Fujitsu is really cutting. And there are many things that we have created together with customers. [indiscernible] LLM that specifies for Japan and it does not just secure the attributes, but it's conforming most masking or they have the masking and [indiscernible] capabilities. And it's not just delivering such a technology, but also the social issues and company issues. And all that needs to be matched together and make the proposal. So it's going to be quite advanced. And so those parts in a way, not just globally need to convey such a capability. So an organization will be to do that is going to be created.

So what kind of expectations do you have?

Not to speak by [indiscernible] to speak about it. Originally, the business brand have been discussed with and Onishi-san and Tokita-san. When we announced it, [indiscernible] IP and the technologies of Fujitsu were supposed to be leveraged. We wanted with the customers IP. And the latest technologies were something that we really wanted to do, that was the ambition that we've had, not only in Japan, but as you see in the concept of the Wayfinders, the global solution and the services have been deployed throughout the world and that is quite important, not only in Japan, Europe and America. And we have the R&D data sites available the latest technologies would be from all the locations transformation.

I do have a question to you, Onishi-san as well. You mentioned that in the process of [indiscernible] in order to support customers transformation, you also have [indiscernible] paid effort on to that to make sure that the customers understand that you as well. What sort of [indiscernible] in conveying that in the world? Were there any where you were able to do that successfully?

Well, portfolio of the Fujitsu will sometimes [indiscernible] Europe, but as you may know. About the services being provided there, well, I would say that in case of Japan, we are rather focused on the business or operational application, whereas in case of the overseas, excluding the U.S. infrastructure-related services or the cloud services or the [indiscernible] related services were abundant. But globally, when we try to work together with Takahashi, it needed to be different. For example, together with the [indiscernible] creating economy system, [indiscernible] department that would have to have a conversation with the customers in Japan and overseas, such capabilities would have to be available. And we would like to do this sort of business with the scale, the big company with a huge impact to the economy, that we are going to work on. And of course, there are -- the business is not aromatic to Japan going beyond [indiscernible]. And therefore, in the end, we would have to be enabled to do this multi-nationally. Therefore, we needed to create this in a global way, even though we are halfway through business.

So I have another question to you. [indiscernible] who is working on the lead of the enterprise field in Japan, especially in regards to distribution and retail, she has been putting the focus on to. Well, especially in the IT field, you made the contribution to the customer but now we have to engaging in conversation for the transformation of the company as a whole. What some of the challenges you are facing?

Well, honestly speaking, all Fujitsu's sales reps actually do have huge capabilities against the needs of the customers. They are able to respond appropriately. I believe that such the stance is very great, but it's not -- it's not good if we just directly try to respond or face the customer's challenges straightforward because there are unspoken challenges that customers may face. Sometimes customers are short, sometimes we have to have a longer perspective. For example, when the customer [indiscernible] belong to the IT department, they do have the IT-related perspective. When we think about this -- what we need to do, we have to make sure that we do things we need to provide the services from the person and reskilling was necessary on our end as well. We have this target of 10,000 people and the fund and the people were serious on it because they knew that need to fill themselves. So in that sense, well, I think the way the target happens was quite unique about that. So the massive target had been set by him and everyone at the front end were not so sure whether he was serious or not, but everyone needed to work very hard [indiscernible] in 12 months that we went through. But now that we have the new leaders, and we had established the Wayfinders brand. But because we went through we are able to proceed forward. As was mentioned by Shuda, as a basis, the people at the front knows about [indiscernible]. That's the reason why they are able to massive transformation going on, and we are facing a lot of challenges right now, but the kind of the things that I recognize.

Another thing I want to ask about is that the front sales have a deep understanding of the customers and they have the capability and culture, everything what the customer is asking for. But we're working on [indiscernible] so not hearing from the customer and boring, but if we try to lead the transformation, there are many things that the front sales need to change. But of course, the front will have to change, meaning that the salespeople, the business partners that we call them up till now, what is the expectations of how they will transform?

We've already started, but the department of the customers for the line of business sales business and approach the C-suite members of the company. So towards the management agenda of the company, how can we support them is how we would like to proceed. When we meet the executives of the customers, we look at their medium-term plan. And then based on that hypothesis and discuss it with the customers. So we need to accelerate that process. And we need to be a person or the front people need a person that can actually discuss these discussions regarding the company's midterm plan. So within the process of transformation, there's a high [indiscernible] for the Wayfinders. But how are you going to have the connection with the front sales and have a connection with Uvance team and work on the transformation of the company, meaning and leading the transformation of the customers. It's going to close my remarks [indiscernible] minutes. So if you can summarize, well, client first is something that I would like to place the most importance on because what kind of transformation the want to do, we need to have a thorough understanding of that at the start. And with the front sales, we have had many communications, and they understand many things. The sort of sales teams are very well talented, system engineering, knowledge and also their people can do consulting as well. But when the question, many things change, meaning that asking the question is one of the skills. So when you ask the questions, many things come out and say, oh, are you trying to do this? The conversation will naturally flow to that point. And I think it's easy to create that flow now is how I feel. So the delivery side has been working on many things up to now, and they have the buildup of the knowledge. For example, the business operation knowledge, they have quite a lot of knowledge. So we need to systematically [indiscernible] that and utilize it. And if you're able to do that, execution and implementation and the systems that you have to work on many times and also has a capability of resolving the IT problem. The other consulting firms don't have that capability to let the other companies do so. And I think as Mihara-san was saying, Fujitsu is such a company. So when for realizing the transformation of the customers, that way is in the minds of the consultant. So it's not a pie in the sky, but it's a [indiscernible] transformation and how it's going to be executed and how the process is going to be -- we are in a way that's easy to compile.

It's not about inside or outside the company, the people inside will experience and are going to attend the Wayfinder. And by doing so, at the front end, the people would be able to change as well. So that's the kind of transformation that we illustrate in our mind. Now would you please what we have been talking about today? If you could also share with us the future as well, that's appreciated. In this year, we are in the final year of the current [indiscernible] management plan. Well, since the appointment of Tokita as the President, we have been working on business transformation and portfolio transformation have been tackled as well. And the critical agenda was, of course, Uvance, [indiscernible] Wayfinders team, together with Takahashi's team have been working on delivering the Wayfinders. Why this is not about the magnitude. We needed to secure the quality as well, the kind of things which we would like to contribute on to, specifically in the vertical, we would like to increase the volume so that people perceive us as a cool [indiscernible] vertical.

Now perhaps we can move on to the Q&A.

Yes, with this, we would like to close the talk session. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]