Fujitsu leverages WalkMe's DAP for global standardization and enhanced user experience

As Fujitsu, a world-leading global IT company, works to standardize core systems in their company-wide Digital Transformation (DX) project, they use WalkMe to achieve both ease-of-use and standardization, which is often a bottleneck in adoption. The company has formed a DAP Center of Excellence (CoE) and uses WalkMe analytics capabilities to measure “ease of use,” which previously relied on individual perception, and to identify areas for improvement – with the aim of creating a system that anyone can use. In just over a year, WalkMe has been implemented on 10 systems and is currently being deployed globally. In some cases, the number of support inquiries has reduced by more than 60%, and WalkMe is expected to continue to aid in accelerating DX efforts.

In pursuit of a sustainable world, Fujitsu Limited, which globally develops various businesses based on solving societal challenges, declared its transformation from an IT company to a DX (Digital Transformation) company in September 2019. As a leading DX partner globally, Fujitsu aims to support customers in achieving DX by transforming the Fujitsu Group across departments, groups, and regions.

In July 2020, the company officially launched the company-wide DX project “Fujitra (Fujitsu Transformation).” To realize this, the “One Fujitsu Program” aims for data-driven management and positions the standardization of global business operations as a key strategy. The goal is to thoroughly standardize all major global operations as “one operation, one system” globally, and the mission of the company’s Digital Systems Platform division, which oversees internal systems, has made “global standardization” a significant theme.

However, Syojirou Shiratori, Digital Systems Division, Enabling Technologies General Manager, points out that as standardization progresses, the benefits of improved ease-of-use become limited. “The more we standardize under the grand policy of ‘Fit to Standard,’ the more ease-of-use is compromised. When operations are adjusted to fit the system, user feedback, such as difficulty of use or unclear instructions, becomes unavoidable. Balancing standardization and user experience becomes crucial. We’ve seen countless cases where, despite standardization, systems become more individualized and complex over time due to pressure from users. It’s a historical cycle that ultimately leads back to efforts for re-standardization.”

As a solution to stop this cycle, the company focused on implementing a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP).

With DAP, user experience (UX) improvements can be made freely without altering the system. Shiratori, who became aware of DAP while exploring solutions to the aforementioned challenges, saw big potential in this approach. “In terms of serving as the gateway to UX and raising usability to a certain level, I believe DAP is not just an option but rather an essential infrastructure,” Shiratori said.

The decision to implement WalkMe was largely influenced by expectations for global support. Under the One Fujitsu philosophy, the company places a strong emphasis on global-first, rather than domestic-first. As the company deploys DAP solutions in core systems, timely support that transcends time zones was essential for each region.

Additionally, WalkMe met all of the company’s functional requirements. Kokado commented on the maturity of WalkMe’s offering, saying, “WalkMe has robust guidance, navigation, and analytics capabilities, making it the ultimate solution for running improvement cycles. The fact that it could be used immediately upon installation was also a big selling point.”

After implementing WalkMe for Salesforce and gaining some traction, the company accelerated its deployment to other systems like SAP Concur, SAP S/4HANA, and ServiceNow. In just over a year, the company implemented WalkMe across 10 systems, reaching about 80,000 users, including nearly all employees in Japan. Behind this rapid pace was internal promotional activities in conjunction with management and the establishment of a DAP Center of Excellence.

“The systems targeted for WalkMe implementation are those used universally by all global employees. To quickly and extensively disseminate the value of this new solution and push for company-wide implementation, developing cross-organizational CoE was essential. By showing real-life examples of usage within the company, we could alleviate concerns about adopting it for the first time,” Shiratori explained.

As the internal rollout of WalkMe progressed, the company saw tangible effects, and the fact that Fit to Standard was being practiced underscored WalkMe’s contribution. “WalkMe can equally contribute to improving UX across various web systems without being limited to specific SaaS products. WalkMe appears as just another function of a web system and users are unaware of its presence,” Kokado remarked.

The company also cites WalkMe analytics capabilities as a key benefit. Shiratori said : “System usability tends to be judged based on personal perceptions. Until now, even when someone said, ‘Ease-of-use’ or ‘Difficult to use,’ there was no objective way to evaluate how much. To aim for a situation where everyone can use it smoothly, visualizing and digitizing usability is necessary. With WalkMe, it’s possible to understand usage status and obtain process logs. Although we are still midway, we’re establishing an environment where we can visualize the variation in usage frequency between individuals and the average process time, and quantitatively evaluate usability.”

By identifying issues based on WalkMe analytics, the company is able to quickly and continuously make improvements to enhance employees’ experience and ability to use each system.

Not only has the efficiency of problem-solving improved – with WalkMe, the company no longer needs to create and maintain training manuals: a time-intensive task.

Being freed from manual creation and the time and cost required for system customization results in substantial cost-saving effects.

“These benefits are greatly supported by WalkMe’s extensive assistance. We have regular conversations, and overseas members are brought in as needed. It’s truly like they’re by our side, advancing our initiatives together,” Kokado noted. Shiratori added, “In other words, we couldn’t be happier.”

With the introduction of WalkMe, the company aims to achieve a training manual-less environment. Shiratori advises that WalkMe content creation should be handled by business departments, not the IT department. In this approach, business departments can swiftly design and implement solutions themselves, rather than relying on assistance from the IT department. WalkMe enables low-code content creation, aligning with the recent trend of promoting citizen development. By having business departments take the lead in digitalization, the transition from traditional manual-based enablement to WalkMe-enabled systems accelerates, as a result, the overall DX (Digital Transformation) efforts accelerate too.

“Going forward, the company will continue to partner with WalkMe to measure and understand the impact of its digital adoption solutions”, says Kokado.

With approximately 80,000 employees now using systems where WalkMe has been implemented, WalkMe has already established itself as an essential internal technology. Shiratori notes, “There are still many targets for standardization within the company.” As the implementation of new systems targeted by the One Fujitsu program progresses and expands overseas, the number of users is expected to reach 124,000 globally. The company increasingly collaborates with external companies within the workspaces prepared internally, suggesting further potential growth.

Additionally, the company has yet to address existing legacy systems. Shiratori states, “Legacy systems are often highly functional and complex to operate, and we must avoid situations where no one can use them without specific personnel, resulting in a black box effect. I actually believe WalkMe could be particularly effective in such areas.” WalkMe, which supports the company’s global DX promotion, is expected to grow even more prominent in the future.