Fujitsu's ERP, GLOVIA, Now Migratable to Azure or Newly Introduced on Azure. Connects to Cloud Services, Aims to Resolve 2025 Digital Cliff

“GLOVIA” Has Supported Japanese Companies for 50 Years

Fujitsu’s integrated business solution, “GLOVIA”, was developed in 1975 and has supported the accounting operations of Japanese companies for nearly 50 years. With its lineup of various series ranging from small and medium scale to large scale, as a domestically produced ERP, it has responded to the detailed needs of Japanese companies. Above all, “GLOVIA SUMMIT, Fujitsu Group’s Accounting Solution”, which is provided for enterprises, has evolved in various ways to meet the changing times, including large-scale high-speed processing, group management, and cloud services.

As of September 2022, GLOVIA SUMMIT has been introduced on as many as 5,323 sites. The companies that have introduced the solution are mainly major companies with annual sales ranging from hundreds of millions of yen to trillions of yen and tens of thousands of employees, and their industries are extremely diverse, including automobiles, steel, electrical equipment, chemicals, distribution and retail, telecommunications, and services. Mr. Takuro Ogane, head of the Accounting Solution Business Division, Global Business Application Business Unit, talks about the features of GLOVIA as follows.

”’GLOVIA SUMMIT’ is a product that packages the mechanism originally used by Fujitsu. Summing up Fujitsu's accounting know-how and following the Japanese tax system and business practices, it is an integrated solution of group management that can only be developed domestically. It allows companies to make more sound management decisions based on accurate, real-time group-wide data, ensuring that their business is on a growth track.”
(Mr. Ogane)

What GLOVIA SUMMIT is working on to further evolve is strengthening its collaboration with Microsoft Azure.

“The environment surrounding accounting operations is changing significantly. In this context, we aim to respond to new user needs by increasing collaboration with Azure.” (Mr. Ogane)

Environment Surrounding Accounting Operation Is Changing Significantly

According to Mr. Ogane, among major companies using GLOVIA SUMMIT, the trend of migrating core systems to the cloud is accelerating as well.

“Until a few years ago, the major premise was that the core system operated on-premises. While there are a certain number of customers who continue on-premises for stable systems, the number of customers who choose the cloud when replacing systems or migrating to a new system is increasing significantly. Personally, I feel that 70-80% of them premise the cloud.” (Mr. Ogane)

Under such circumstances, efforts toward “standardization” are also becoming more active. They say that, in the past, there were many cases where accounting operations were customized to suit the company, but in recent years, there has been a growing desire to use standard functions provided by packages as much as possible, which is spurring the migration to the cloud. On the other hand, however, there is also a growing need to maintain the company’s own unique functions that cannot be standardized.

”Operating processes that cannot be discarded and operations that are difficult to standardize will inevitably remain. Therefore, GLOVIA SUMMIT has in place a mechanism that allows for flexible customization while standardizing.” (Mr. Ogane)

In addition, they say that, in response to the so-called “2025 Digital Cliff” issue, some companies lack human resources or have legacy systems that are hindering efforts such as DX.

IaaS Is Highly Needed to Migrate from Existing Environment to The Cloud

Against such background, GLOVIA SUMMIT has implemented updates to meet customer needs. In 2019, not only being provided on-premises, it also started providing a SaaS version that can be used as a service from Fujitsu’s data center. In addition, it has also supported the format provided as IaaS in private cloud and public cloud environments according to customer requests.

Mr. Masato Sato, manager of the Accounting Solution Business Division, Global Business Application Business Unit, says as follows.

“SaaS has standardized functionality, so it may be difficult to migrate the existing environment. Especially in major companies, there are many cases where their own unique operations remain, and in such cases, IaaS is selected. SaaS is increasing little by little, but at present the majority is migrating to IaaS. Accounting is a common operation that occurs in every company, and as our mission to support it, we believe it is important to respond to customers’ various needs while aiming for standardization.” (Mr. Sato)

In addition, they say that accounting operations are the last part where corporate transaction information is collected, and collaboration with peripheral solutions is a key point.

“Customers’ system consist of various systems ranging from sales management to manufacturing/production, expense settlement, etc. The information obtained from those systems is ultimately collected in the accounting system. Accounting is a place where various operational data is aggregated, and conversely, the major premise is that accounting systems are connected to various systems. Therefore, if systems for sales management, expense settlement, etc. are migrated to the cloud, accounting systems also need to be interconnected on the cloud. Meanwhile, they need to be connected to systems on-premises.” (Mr. Sato)

In order to respond to those cloud and individual operational needs, GLOVIA SUMMIT provides various functions. Specifically, it matches financial accounting and management accounting, utilizes large amount of statement data, speeds up processing of large amount of statements, etc.

“We offer a mechanism to unify the management of financial accounting and management accounting. Without having respective databases for financial accounting and management accounting, it manages them using the same data. IFRS segment information and other management accounting data can also be extracted using the same data.” (Mr. Ogane)

What Is The Aim of Increasing Collaboration with Microsoft Azure? Adoption by Companies Is Quickly Progressing

The background for GLOVIA SUMMIT’s increasing collaboration with Microsoft Azure is that there is an increasing demand from customers to use those distinctive functions on the Azure platform.

“The need for the cloud is increasing more and more, and what we are paying particular attention is the need for Azure. Customers who select Azure as their company-wide system platform often tell us that they want to use GLOVIA SUMMIT within the same system environment. For example, on shipbuilding company took the opportunity of updating the hardware of its on-premises virtual platform that had been operating GLOVIA and the end of support for Windows Servers to decide to migrate to Azure, which offered Extended Security Updates for free and the benefit of bringing its own licenses. They say that there were some parts where the load distribution function of the add-on part could not be solved with a single service, but in the future, they will be able to consider Azure data services for applications, data linkage, and data utilization associated with the migration of core systems to the cloud. There is also a case of a major retail company. They are migrating not only GLOVIA SUMMIT but also its merchandising system to Azure. I believe that by using the data platform system, Azure Databricks, they will be able to achieve closer integration.” (Mr. Ogane)

However, the method of linking with peripheral systems, using Azure, linking with GLOVIA SUMMIT, etc. varies from customer to customer. Therefore, they say that each company had to respond to different needs. What is important here is a strategic partnership and shared vision with Microsoft.

“Our partnership was supported by the fact that Microsoft and Fujitsu had many things in common in future vision and values. We expect our business to further expand in the world of GLOVIA on Azure which interconnects with the cloud services provided by Microsoft.” (Mr. Sato)

Increasing The Value Provided to Customers by Cooperating with Microsoft

There are three main directions GLOVIA is aiming for through strengthening collaboration with Microsoft Cloud including Azure and cooperating with Microsoft.

The first direction is to further increase the collaboration of services, such as the data analysis area, based on Azure.

“While our customers’ operations are diverse, accounting-related operations are becoming increasingly computerized due to the Electronic Books Maintenance Act, the invoice system, etc. Against such background, there is a need to connect various operations using the cloud. Information analysis based on data collected by linking with many systems can now be provided in the cloud, enabling smooth operations for our customers. We also have high expectations for data analysis using Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Factory, Power BI, etc.” (Mr. Sato) 

The second direction is to deliver a wider range of services by turning solution operation, etc. into a service.

”In the future, by using Azure’s various technologies and services, we will be able to provide even more value to customers. For example, we are considering using AI services such as Azure Machine Learning and Azure Cognitive Services to enhance operational support such as auditing and data analysis, and installing chatbots, etc. to create a mechanism that allows customers to resolve QAs during their operations.” (Mr. Ogane)

The third direction is to realize a world connected to cloud services around the world and contribute to solving customers’ issues.

“Amid the ’2025 Digital Cliff’ issue, customers’ issues, such as lack of human resources and legacy systems, will become more apparent in the future. We will cooperate with Microsoft to resolve those customers’ issues.” (Mr. Ogane)

Specific efforts have already begun in collaboration between GLOVIA and Azure, with a focus on jointly supporting the efforts of customer companies. In the future, we will develop services that go beyond supporting existing customers, such as expanding registration on Azure Marketplace, introducing products on various websites, and publishing explanatory articles. As of April 2023, two products, the group business management solution "GLOVIA SUMMIT GM" and the consolidated accounting solution "GLOVIA SUMMIT GC”, are registered on Azure Marketplace.

GLOVIA has evolved as a domestically produced ERP while listening to customers’ voices. It will increase the value provided to customers by further strengthening the collaboration with Azure.