Tokyo, February 09, 2012
Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Marketing Limited (FJM) announced that they will provide GLOVIA SUMMIT GM to Oji Business Center Co., Ltd., which handles information-system development and operations for the Oji Paper Group (the group companies of Oji Paper Co., Ltd.). This next-generation accounting system will deliver enhanced support for group administration as Oji Paper's 38 group companies move to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Oji Business Center wanted to be sure that the process of moving to adopt IFRS would make effective use of management resources and that it would be able to hold down costs to a minimum. Based on these criteria, Oji Paper and the Oji Paper Group made the decision to switchover to IFRS using GLOVIA SUMMIT GM. Although the SAP ERP package that Oji Paper is currently using, SAP® ERP 6.0, does not support IFRS, GLOVIA SUMMIT GM links to its data to enable IFRS compliance.
Although the mandatory IFRS adoption period has been extended, Oji Business Center will maintain its plans to have the new system up and running at 38 group companies by April 2013, as it anticipates new group companies adopting IFRS in the future.
Background
Oji Business Center, which is the IT system company for the Oji Paper Group, operates and maintains the SAP system that Oji Paper uses and the Fujitsu accounting system used by 38 companies in the Oji Paper Group. Seeing the move to adopt IFRS as an opportunity to improve accounting processes in the Oji Paper Group and enhance the group's shared accounting platform, in 2009 the company began an analysis of the impact on their systems of adopting IFRS. After a year and a half of study, the company decided on a new accounting system. The company chose GLOVIA SUMMIT GM because of Fujitsu's clear presentation on how to adopt IFRS, the system's ability to automatically generate accounting statements using IFRS and Japanese accounting standards, the enhanced group administration it enables, the efficiencies that can be generated by converting the accounting function to a shared service, and the scalability of the system in case the number of group companies using it increases in the future.
System Overview
In building an accounting system for IFRS compliance, a common approach is to have the parent company's system extended to group subsidiaries and to achieve compliance through unification. In this instance, however, Oji Business Center determined through its analysis of costs and the scope of impact on its system that bringing IFRS compliance to SAP and unifying the group would impose significant costs and would impact accounting, peripheral systems, and add-on resources. Therefore, the decision was made that 38 companies in the Oji Paper Group would unify under GLOVIA SUMMIT GM for IFRS compliance, while Oji Paper would link the SAP system it is already using into GLOVIA SUMMIT GM and would achieve IFRS compliance through correlations to its data prepared using Japanese accounting standards.
To accommodate the rapid increase both in the volume of data brought by keeping multiple books in Japanese accounting standard and IFRS formats, and by the number of group companies using this system, while ensuring efficient system operations, Oji Business Center built the system on a private cloud, from which it will be provided to the Oji Paper Group.
In addition to enabling IFRS compliance, the system enhancements are designed to improve accounting processes, make accounting work more efficient, and speed the process of preparing consolidated financial statements.
Benefits of Deploying GLOVIA SUMMIT GM
1. Dependable but flexible IFRS compliance
Thanks to the framework-generating engine, an IFRS framework can be produced automatically based on a Japanese accounting standard framework, thus lightening the workload, accelerating the process of preparing consolidated accounting statements, and bringing efficiency to the management of multiple books.
2. Excellent scalability optimizes operations, cuts costs
As a platform in use by 38 group companies, the current three servers can be consolidated down to one, greatly lowering overall maintenance and operations costs, and reducing operations.
3. Increases accounting literacy for Oji Paper Group companies
This move increases the number of companies in the Oji Paper group using an automated accounting system, and by reinforcing management of receivables and payables, improves the level of accounting processes, promoting better group management.
Since its debut in July 2011, GLOVIA SUMMIT GM has been chosen by some twenty companies, including Oji Business Center. With GLOVIA SUMMIT GM, Fujitsu constantly strives to assist business groups that seek to improve the level of group accounting processes through data integration while continuing to employ existing business processes and systems.
