"IT" is a tool to utilize information. "The ability of the utilizing IT for management" becomes indispensable to the companies in the near future.
Q. You say the business of Arcadia Consulting (Arcadia) is "IT consultation", generally speaking, what does IT mean? There are some images by which we assumed vaguely "IT = a computer and the internet terms", but I feel some ambiguous differences in the definition depending on the people who use. Please tell me your definition of IT.
A. A word for IT is used in various meanings. We define that IT is "a tool to utilize information". For instance, even a fax and a cell phone are also IT.
Q. I see. To speak of extremes, even a black dial phone is also IT, isn't it? Then, next, could you tell me about what your IT consultation is in detail? What would you do in your consultation.
A. In Japan, a definition of "consultation" is incomprehensible because of a broad sense and ambiguousness, isn't it? Iﾕm not sure if this word would express the meaning of our service in Arcadia properly or not(giving a bitter smile)? Anyways when I put our consulting service in another word, it goes like "the assist for the clients to be independent and connect IT with management by themselves." So far, it has been said that three resources such as "person" "thing" "money" were extremely essential to the management . However, recently, "information" has added newly as the 4th resource. Management is, after all, to make those three resources circulate smoothly, and then, information would facilitate these three resources smoothly as the 4th resource.
In order to use information as "grease/ lubricating oil" of the management resources, it is necessary to utilize IT as a tool because information is intangible. And indeed our service is the assist and the direction to this part. As we could say the same thing about every kind of tools, we could not judge what tool to chose and how to treat without enoughl knowledge. It is our job to promote IT utilization from the view point of the clients , arrange the mechanism properly and coach the human resources for the next generation to control the CIO ability by themselves.
Q. When saying, it's an IT version of a legal adviser or a tax account advisor, isn't it? You would advise how to utilize IT in the position of the customers...
A. Exactly. Even though, however, most people think that they could manage IT by themselves without any external advisors such as lawyers and tax accountants as long as they have tools". In reality, there are lots of companies which can't judge whether the products which IT traders propose are appropriate to them or not, and also cannot manage IT traders, and donﾕt have any organizations and rules to utilize the tools . The mismatch of the IT investments like these often results in the case which they cannot obtain the expected result to satisfy themselves.
Q. Is "the mismatch of the IT investment" introducing too much high-specification, isn't it?
A. That's right. I means, in other sentence, there are the lacks of ﾒthe mind, the skill, the formationﾓto manage the high-specification IT systems and the management strategies from the beginning. When I say by golf, in order to become good at playing golf, we have to make up our minds to become good players, practice hard, do some physical trainings. Yet we cannot become good at all with only using expensive clubs.
Q. There may not be a person good at golf who boasting of expensive clubs, I guess...
A. The people who ended up failing to improve themselves in spite of replacing lots of good clubs time after time would come to misunderstand and distrust golf itself saying "Golf isn't a sport" or "Golf is just a place to meet people". Then, they would come to fail to obtain merits no more by the absence of the concept such as "the mind, the skill, the formation" ...
Though this is an extreme example, such case has occurred to IT utilization. For example, introducing an expensive accounting system without any compatibilities with the scale of the company and the objective would often cause the obstacle that would disturb the daily accountant duties rather inconvenient. Almost of everyone knows golf so well, to some extent, that their ability to play golf is much better performed than IT utilization. However IT utilization is much harder because of the complexities which various organizations and departments lay in the companies and the cooperation between different departments is needed. The reason why the mismatch of IT has occurred is the absence of the specialists who can propose the appropriate way to utilize IT inside the company.
We'd like to avoid miss matching of IT usage in customer.
In order to do so, we are always vendor free without selling anything particular solution, hardware and software.
Q. Aren't the specialists of the IT utilization different from the people familiar with IT engineering, are they?
A. I would say no to the question. Generally speaking, "the people familiar with IT"are often imagined the people familiar with IT engineering, and also they are seemed to be familiar with IT utilization. It is very important to hold the knowledge of IT engineering but also "the ability to create the effective IT investment with managing the IT on the management strategy".
Actually, we define the specialist of IT utilization as "CIO (chief information officer)" by this meaning, and are call its ability "the CIO ability". There still few enterprises which has CIO and the awareness of CIO is still quite low. But we need CIO's (chief information officer) existence for the enterprises to utilize management resources as "information" maximally like CEO (chief executive) and CFO (Chief Financial Officer). However, here, I strongly insist that it's important to introduce CIO ability by adjusting their own conditions, not only its existence.
Q. Summing up your story so far, Arcadia will play the role of CIO for the clients, right?
A. Yes, you have a point there. We think it important to assist the client to be self-controlled. We would like the clients to manage the IT, which is the core of the management, without the external supporters like us after all. Though we would directly manage the clients at the early stage, our policy is to assist the clients to be self-controlled in the end.
Q. What kind of things do you do to assist them to be self-controlled?
A. Well generally speaking, a word for "the consultation" sounds something haughty for their coercive direction with the technical knowledge and the method, doesn't it? Our attitude of the consultation and the facilitation is to solve the problems with standing the same point of the clients. In other word, our consultation style is not " one-side direction" but "a guide for the clients to the goal" Of course, we would advise the client as experts with some technical knowledge and the method to make them understood with thorough communications with each other.
Q. Let me give you a slightly mean question to you here. Considering the business as the president of the company, isn't it better to make the clients feel that they cannot keep the business go well without the assist from Arcadia than they could go well by themselves?
A. (Laugh). Exactly, we would say that idea is proper from the viewpoint of the business. However, if we would do so, we could not build up substantial relationships between the clients and us, could we? So they would end in depending on us forever, though I say that IT is the 4th resource in managing the company (Laugh).
Q. Aren't there other consulting companies which offer the similar services like Arcadia?
A. There are lots of companies which give consultations and advice the clients officially... But the most of those companies are in an attempt to guide the clients to their own profit through the planning of the IT system introductions and the proposals of their own products. Considering the position of those IT vendor companies, it can't be helped, though, beause it's necessary for them to give priority to the profit of their own companies. That's why we keep to be neutral not to fail in our duties against the clients.
We'd like to improve the "CIO ability (= the ability to create the IT investment effect with managing the IT that is a tool conformed to a management strategy)" of the enterprise and contribute to the growth and the development of the enterprises
Q. Are there the reasons around there that you have started Arcadia I have tried to ask you a little while ago, though.?
A. Yes. As I have just told, sometimes we would come across the cases that we could not suggest a inexpensive club even though I had known "This customer doesn't need such a expensive club actually..." After all the customer had failed to improve the performance of playing golf even with a expensive one, and also I didn’t feel comfortable. That’s why I have come to think that "I'd like to support the management of the clients with IT form the viewpoint of the clients.
There are only few companies which try to utilize IT as a tool in Japan. In the United States, on the contrary, their attitude for IT is not like Japanese that they would regard IT as only a tool, and think like "how to utilize this tool?" and "What can we do more with this tool?". On the other hand, Japanese would only replace IT with their office work without any considerations. IT has unlimited possibilities to expand the business much more better if we could use it perfectly. We'd like to assist the enterprises which cannot use IT perfectly to utilize IT on their management. That’s why I have established this company, Arcadia.
Q. I see. You put strong emphasis on the assistance for the clients to be self-controlled. At last, would you tell me the vision or the goal of Arcadia?
A. Yes. We'd like to improve the CIO ability of the enterprises. As I have mentioned already, "the CIO ability" is to utilize information as the 4th resource for management the companies. Even though the prevalence of the concept of CIO is still behind in Japan, we'd like CIO(Chief Information Officer) to gain a lot of popularity among every enterprise in Japan in near future.
Besides that, I hope that the staff in Arcadia will be spotted and recruited as CIO by other companies.
Interviewer / 3way Ltd.
