Sumitomo Chemical and Accenture establish SUMIKA DX ACCENT

Sumitomo Chemical has established SUMIKA DX ACCENT Co., Ltd., a joint venture with Accenture, with an aim to promote new digital projects and nurture digital talent. It started operation on April 1, 2021.

Sumitomo Chemical has made “exponential improvement of productivity with digital innovation” one of the basic principles of its fiscal 2019-2021 corporate business plan. As the next step to ongoing initiatives to achieve this principle in R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and sales/indirect operations, the company intends to bolster its competitive edge via digital innovation, with an intention to ultimately lead it to the creation of new business models. These efforts require its IT unit to cooperate with its business units in considering how the latest digital technologies can be applied to business, and in coming up with solutions suitable for such applications instead of the IT unit’s unilaterally developing a system as required by its business units.

To this end, Sumitomo Chemical has decided to fully absorb, on July 1, 2021, its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sumitomo Chemical Systems Service Co., Ltd., which has been implementing, developing and handling operational maintenance of the Sumitomo Chemical Group’s IT systems. Integrating the IT expertise and business of SCSS, the company will promote and fortify a structure to support digital innovation. Setting up SUMIKA DX ACCENT is yet another measure to further reinforce digital innovation since Accenture is known for its track record of supporting many businesses in digital transformations. Gaining access to Accenture’s diverse knowledge and experts in state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and automation will help Sumitomo Chemical make further progress in evaluating the latest digital technologies, validating tests of potential new business applicability, and building digital talent.

Sumitomo Chemical will continue to achieve exponential improvements with digital innovation, secure the competitiveness of its existing businesses, and focus on creating new business models so that sustainable growth and improved corporate values can be delivered.