Digital Transformation (DX)
Driving Business Model and Portfolio Transformation
Goals and Achievements of Major Initiatives
Promote DX.
| Goals for fiscal year 2022 | Establish a framework that balances the need for speed with that for the management of risks. |
|---|---|
| Achievements in fiscal year 2022 | A dedicated framework was established to oversee important DX measures, including digital marketing and the building of a standard SCM model, on a Companywide basis. A system was created to lead these initiatives that involves cooperation among business units, administrative departments and production facilities. |
| Evaluation | ★★★ |
| Goals for fiscal year 2023 | Steadily advance DX initiatives across an increasing number of business units/functional departments. |
| Goals for fiscal year 2022 | Advance DX measures across multiple business units/functional departments. |
|---|---|
| Achievements in fiscal year 2022 | As important DX projects currently being promoted involve multiple departments, steps were taken to encourage cross-departmental cooperation and ensure smooth implementation. |
| Evaluation | ★★ |
| Goals for fiscal year 2023 | Introduce digital initiatives that support the exploration of business model transformation. |
| Goals for fiscal year 2022 | Begin exploring business model transformation. |
|---|---|
| Achievements in fiscal year 2022 | Efforts were launched to explore the effective use of digital technologies in business model transformation initiatives being undertaken by business units. |
| Evaluation | ★★★ |
| Goals for fiscal year 2023 | Further strengthen the framework for promoting DX in terms of human resources, skills and expertise. |
Basic Policy
The DIC Group promotes DX with the objective of providing new value and reinforcing its corporate structure and competitive advantages through the use of digital technologies and data. The Group is advancing initiatives in three key areas: Market,* production and technology, and supply chain management (SCM). The Group is also working to realize a next-generation digital integrated platform and securing and training human resources to establish the infrastructure necessary to advance DX.
- “Market” is used here in the sense of sales and marketing functions.
Framework for Promotion
The IT Strategy Unit’s Information Systems Department and the DX Promotion Department capitalize on data and digital technologies, eliminating boundaries between IT and DX, to promote process optimization, work style reforms and the innovation of business models over the short term, as well as the medium to long term. Looking ahead, the DIC Group expects to see an increase in the promotion of independent DX initiatives by individual business units and functional departments. Accordingly, the Work Style Revolution (WSR) 2020 Committee traces, provides effective support for and conducts post-implementation monitoring of such initiatives to ensure optimization from a Groupwide perspective.
Market
Through DX, the DIC Group seeks to enhance brand strength by creating high-level customer experiences, as well as to achieve business model transformation. With the accelerating digitalization of its operations and the increasing use of telework, the importance of digital media as a channel for contact with customers is growing. The Group is working to encourage continued patronage by extending proposals that incorporate the customer’s perspective, thereby creating business opportunities, as well as by improving customers’ experiences with the goal of encouraging continued patronage. In fiscal year 2023, the Group will further leverage digital marketing in the creation of new customer experiences. Through DX, the Group will also seek to stimulate collaboration within the DIC Group to drive business model transformation.
Production and Technology
On the production side, DIC is deploying digital technologies widely at production sites with the aim of realizing smart factories that reduce workloads and ensure safe, stable operations. The DIC Group developed a testing machine in fiscal year 2022 that utilizes reaction simulation, an AI technology, to optimize small-lot, high-mix production of resins using digital twins. Efforts to verify the machine’s effectiveness are currently underway. The Group is also accelerating the development of a database infrastructure and reinforcing its cyber security management, which is essential to the realization of smart factories.
On the technology side, the DIC Group sought to expedite the transformation of its business portfolio, as outlined in DIC Vision 2030, by shifting the focus of its efforts to computational science, which uses AI and MI.* In fiscal year 2021, the Group established the Data Science Center, a specialized AI organization, through which it is working to halve the development stage for new products and double the number of development themes in play.
- MI applies statistical analysis and other informatics techniques to search large amounts of data for new materials.
SCM
In addition to improving the visibility of the fl ow of goods and information through its supply chains, the DIC Group is promoting related reforms designed to ensure supply chain–wide optimization. To this end, the Group is leveraging digital technologies to realize real-time platform linkage between sales and production data, as well as statistical demand forecasting, which it began rolling out gradually in Japan, the PRC and the Asia–Pacific region in fiscal year 2022.
Updating Core Business Systems and Establishing a Global Digital Integration Platform
The DIC Group plans to update its core business systems in fiscal year 2024. Seeing this as an opportunity, the Group will respond to changes in its operating environment, business structural reforms and advances in digital technologies to build a global digital platform that will be capable of evolving even 10 years down the road. The Group will also establish a next-generation comprehensive digital integration platform that will enable the use of digital technologies and data, as well as facilitate fl exible and rapid system linkage with internal and external parties.
Securing and Fostering Human Resources
DIC is also focusing on taking advantage of digital technologies and data to creating a human resources management foundation for promoting business reforms, problem solving and decision making that encompasses both executives and employees. In fiscal year 2020, the DIC Group began offering training for future data scientists and other individuals whose jobs require the use of data. In fiscal year 2022, the Group created a framework and team for driving digitalization in business units and introduced practical education and training of staff for this purpose. The Group is also fostering in-house human resources, as well as actively recruiting new graduates and mid-career hires, to expand on-site data utilization using agile and other practices.
TOPICS
Digital Marketing Initiatives Are Advancing
Four years have passed since DIC introduced Salesforce cloud-based services and marketing automation, during which digital marketing has become firmly cemented in all pertinent departments. Beginning with point-of-sales digital marketing, individual departments have stepped up efforts to include conducting quantitative analyses of outcomes before determining subsequent actions. The entrenchment of digital marketing has also spurred individual departments to build a framework for these activities. Owing to the greater prevalence of offl ine marketing initiatives compared with fiscal year 2021, the Company promoted “hybrid” activities, which incorporate digital marketing into participation in trade shows, in fiscal year 2022. One example was the use of email marketing in conjunction with its trade show participation with the purpose of gaining promising leads, which succeeded in increasing the number of business cards received and creating a new point of contact with customers.
Digital marketing is not something that can be completed on a computer. Maintaining a Companywide perspective, DIC will continue striving to communicate the appeal of its products by capitalizing on the expertise and experience accumulated by sales and technical teams, thereby further enhancing customer value.
Trade show participation incorporating digital marketing
TOPICS
Efforts to Promote Digital Marketing Are Progressing.
Three years have passed since DIC introduced Salesforce cloud-based services and marketing automation. In fiscal year 2021, the Company held a website content creation support workshop, an initiative that has accelerated the use of these services Companywide. Workshop participants are asked to envision what sorts of solutions DIC can offer its customers and beyond that to its customers’ customers, and to create websites from two perspectives: Products and customer value. Using digital means, the Company then conducted surveys via these websites. Participating departments have succeeded in making contact with a steady stream of customers they would not otherwise have access to in the course of normal sales activities. One advantage of digital technology is that results are quantifiable and timely. Increased visibility means that the individuals in charge in any given business unit will be able to see and understand the numbers, encouraging them to think spontaneously about what can be done next or how can this be followed-up effectively. DIC will continue working to communicate the appeal of its products by encouraging market-driven thinking across the Company
- Marketing innovation uses tools and software to support marketing efforts, including the securing of new customers and cultivation of prospective customers.
Content creation support workshop
