Article Series: How to Take the First Step Toward Business Growth
1 - Think about Lumada for the next 10 years of growth

Is there anyone who murmurs "I want to start something new, such as digital transformation (DX), but I don’t know how" or "I don’t think my work has anything to do with Lumada"?

Hitachi Group has set a goal of "Support people's happiness by contributing to a sustainable society through data and technology" in its Mid-term Management Plan 2024. There are, however, some colleagues who are still not sure about the effect of taking action or don’t know what action each of us needs to take. In this article, we would like to introduce a colleague who has considerable experience in supporting customers’ DX and knows what other colleagues are struggling with: Toshiyuki Edamatsu, Digital Business Producer at Lumada Business Studio, Digital Engineering Business Unit (DEBU).

Please tell us about yourself.

I have been working for more than 15 years as a consultant at Digital Systems & Services (DSS) sector mostly for operational reforms in various DX projects of Hitachi Group. Based on this experience, I’m now working as a digital business producer to plan and carry out DX projects with customers in cooperation with BUs and Hitachi Group companies, transcending the boundaries of sectors. During discussions with colleagues, I have learned many have their own challenges. Today, I want to talk about my thoughts on what Lumada is all about. I hope my view helps readers to take the first step.

When we look at the diagram of the four stages of Lumada, we are tempted to think we should go through all the four-quadrant cycle. Could you tell us about what these stages are?

Lumada is a collection of solutions, services, and technologies that speed up DX. It is a customers co-creation framework, consisting of the four-quadrant cycle: #1 PLAN - Digital engineering, #2 BUILD - System integration, #3 OPERATE - Connected products, and #4 MAINTAIN - Managed services. I hope it doesn’t sound too complicated.

First of all, each of Hitachi’s businesses belongs to any of the four stages. For example, creation of IT system belongs to #2 BUILD: System integration. If you work for the maintenance of products/systems, then your team belongs to #4 MAINTAIN: Managed services. Let’s start with finding out which stage your team belongs to.

What we need to do next is to go beyond the current boundaries of your business, in other words, to expand into different stages. That is the core of Lumada business model. Maybe many of you think your team alone has to complete the cycle, but that is not the case. Think about taking the first step into a different stage.

Why do we have to go beyond the boundaries?

Honestly, for the Hitachi Group to create a new line of business to be around in 10 years, we must transcend the boundaries of businesses. If we keep on doing what we are doing right now, our sales are likely to drop because of the impact of new technologies or lower-priced solutions of competitors. That is why we need to change ourselves, to go beyond the boundaries.

To transcend boundaries, data, which is a common business term for all the teams in four stages, is very useful. For example, if you are working for the manufacturing or maintenance in railway business, you know how your customers operate and can store the information as data. You can identify problems they have, think of what can be improved, and make a proposal for developing solutions, like consultants do. When a customer sees value in your proposal, you have an opportunity to expand Hitachi’s business by going beyond the boundaries of stages.
If you can keep doing this, you will be regarded by customers as someone who can provide a solution when they turn to you and able to discuss further details with them to make the next proposal. This is what the Lumada is all about.

In the next article, he will talk about how to go beyond the boundaries. (The article is published in December.)