Watami Co Technographics

Discover the latest software purchases and digital transformation initiatives being undertaken by Watami Co and its business and technology executives. Each quarter our research team identifies on-prem and cloud applications that are being used by the 1902 Watami Co employees from the public (Press Releases, Customer References, Testimonials, Case Studies and Success Stories) and proprietary sources.

During our research, we have identified that Watami Co has purchased the following applications: Infor CloudSuite Food and Beverage for Food and Beverage ERP in 2018 and the related IT decision-makers and key stakeholders.

Our database provides customer insight and contextual information on which enterprise applications and software systems Watami Co is running and its propensity to invest more and deepen its relationship with Infor or identify new suppliers as part of their overall Digital and IT transformation projects to stay competitive, fend off threats from disruptive forces, or comply with internal mandates to improve overall enterprise efficiency.

We have been analyzing Watami Co revenues, which have grown to $530.2 million in 2023, plus its IT budget and roadmap, cloud software purchases, aggregating massive amounts of data points that form the basis of our forecast assumptions for Watami Co intention to invest in emerging technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, IoT, Blockchain, Autonomous Database or in cloud-based ERP, HCM, CRM, EPM, Procurement or Treasury applications.

About the Customer

Watami Co., Ltd., a food services company operating over 1,000 restaurants and meal delivery outlets throughout Japan and other Asian countries. Watami Group, which holds Watami Co., Ltd. as its main business, is an integrated food business that mainly operates food and beverage and meal delivery services based on its mission "To become the group that collects the most thank yous (Arigato) on Earth"

Scope and Challenges

Watami has selected Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage as its global supply chain management platform. Watami plans to use this platform to integrate its group operations and drive the implementation of its vertical integration model for managing all processes from food production to logistics and sales.

To drive the implementation of this model, Watami is now focusing on enhancing its financial structure through merchandising (MD) Reform.

This MD Reform involves both optimizing short-term operations, such as sharing same ingredients in different F&B concepts, revising specifications of raw materials and shipping standards, and integrating menu planning process; as well as re-visiting medium-term production -- logistics and retail outlet systems. The reconstruction of Watami's supply chain management (SCM) platform is the center of this MD Reform. Watami had been customizing its existing SCM system in conjunction with its business expansion to such an extent that it lacked the necessary flexibility to support business strategy changes made for the MD Reform.

Watami sought a new SCM platform that would fulfill its MD Reform requirements, and after a thorough evaluation, selected Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage, Infor's cloud-based ERP solution for the food and beverage industry. 

The Key Reforms Watami is Implementing with Infor's SCM Platform

• Centralized management of production management information to boost operational efficiencies
• Material traceability and quality assurance through ordering, manufacturing, and shipping processes
• Advanced prediction of supply and demand/order transaction volume
• Digitalization and labor savings for factory operations
• Acceleration of management decisions through the utilizing of business intelligence tools

Outcome and Implications

Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage is a cloud ERP suite designed to help food and beverage industry companies using the highly-reliable Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform through a subscription model that greatly reduces initial IT investment costs. It is equipped with all the functions indispensable to global food and beverage businesses, including multi-site capabilities, product recipe management, process-type production management, warehouse management, traceability support, and quality compliance.

Watami's decision to deploy Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage was in large part due to the solution's industry-specific functions - multi-site capabilities required for the management of overseas production sites, functions supporting precision production planning, its V-shaped BoM (Bill of Materials), etc. - without the need for customization, and the flexibility and scalability afforded by the cloud that will support constantly-changing business strategies. Watami also gave high marks to Infor's outstanding user experience and deployment methodology with its knowledge of global standards.

Watami will use Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage together with Infor Factory Track, Infor's manufacturing execution system (MES), to build an SCM platform to integrate the Group through production management. By leveraging the Infor SCM platform with its capabilities to support supply chain management streamlining and acceleration of management strategy, Watami will implement MD Reforms for promoting its food-oriented vertical integration model.

Quotes

"Rebuilding our SCM platform is an important aspect of our MD reforms for centralizing the management of crucial business data based on our production management system and for building beneficial mechanisms for making real-time management decisions. Also through embracing the advantage of Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage's flexibility and scalability in the cloud, we expect our competitiveness to be elevated from Japanese to global standards." - said Shigeru Wakabayashi, General Manager at Watami's Business Administration/IT Strategy Department.