Ridgelinez, Contributing to the Commercialization of Fujitsu's Cutting-Edge Technology

An interview with CEO Imai on the company's mission and unique organizational structure

Ridgelinez was established in 2020 to enable the Fujitsu Group to engage in full-scale consulting business.Ridgelinez. Its mission is to 'create transformation' for Japanese companies that are caught in the dilemma of 'wanting to change but being unable to.' Recently, the speed of change has accelerated due to technological innovations such as generative AI. In this environment, Ridgelinez is quickly leveraging new technologies, such as by developing and deploying generative AI bots that act like autonomous AI across the entire company. Compared to other consulting firms, its compact size allows it to conduct trials of new technologies company-wide with a sense of speed, and it returns the knowledge gained there to its clients and Fujitsu.

We share the words of CEO Imai, who leads Ridgelinez.

What is the mission and role of Ridgelinez?

In Japan, there are many companies that are aware of problems but cannot take the step toward transformation because they are bound by various constraints. We provide transformation plans that help untangle those constraints and support the first step. Naturally, it takes resolve as a company to leap over constraints and cause transformation, so execution under top management is essential. Therefore, our clients are inevitably often CIOs or CFOs. The content of our consulting is also primarily decision-making support.
We play a major role as advisors who propose measures and policies that encourage behavioral change in response to the management team's 'Will' to 'change the company in this way.' Behavioral change is the key, and it is not about mindset; if behavior does not change, transformation will not be realized. Our role is to logically persuade clients to take that first step.

The strength of Ridgelinez is its ability to handle everything from strategy formulation to technology implementation in a single, integrated process. For example, a management dashboard that usually takes about half a year to create, Ridgelinez completes and presents to the management team in about two months. What the management team wants most is to make decisions quickly and take action quickly. In that case, it is more beneficial for the management team to quickly show realistic figures with 70% accuracy than to spend half a year obsessing over 100% accurate data. And if the entire organization gains a better sense of management indicators, they will be able to have flat discussions based on real-time data. We believe that leads to behavioral change toward transformation.

What are the characteristics of your organizational management?

Ridgelinez's organizational management is based on foreign-affiliated consulting firms. We believe it is important for individuals to become stronger by gaining professional experience, so we have designed our structure and evaluations accordingly. For example, the professional community system. There are no departments or divisions, and employees choose their own affiliation from 15 Practices with defined themes, and the gathered members enhance each other's expertise. The goal is for each individual to build up a track record while honing their skills in the Practice, and establish their personal brand.

For personnel evaluation, we have adopted a 360-degree evaluation called third-party evaluation. To eliminate arbitrariness, we intentionally do not make direct supervisors the evaluators, but rather have them play a role in providing important input. The evaluation plan drafted by the third-party evaluator is discussed and scrutinized in two stages: an evaluation meeting and an evaluation confirmation meeting, centered on partners and others, before being finalized as an evaluation. The flow is to thoroughly examine the reasons for the evaluation at the evaluation meeting and create an individual development plan based on that.

Furthermore, in consideration of the individual's growth, we have set certain limits on the period one can remain in the same position. However, in reality, 50-60% of people move up one level every year, and I feel that the speed of career advancement is twice as fast as at Fujitsu.

Because Ridgelinez is a late-coming consulting firm, 'people' are our lifeline. Unlike businesses where consulting is contracted by an organization, the face of each individual is clearly visible, so the key is how many excellent consultants we can assemble. That is why we have adopted a mechanism that can realize 'fair evaluation,' which is what young people want most. The fact that they can work on solving client problems with high motivation and be in a state where they can fully demonstrate their value directly affects Ridgelinez's performance.

Future prospects and collaboration with Fujitsu

The number of employees has now increased to about 400, and I feel that sales and the number of consultants have also reached their targets at a faster pace than expected. We expect a high growth rate to continue next year as well. This is because, unlike overseas,
the demand for consulting in Japan is still high. There are still not many agile organizations in Japan that can make quick decisions and respond flexibly to change. However, the management team also has a strong awareness that they must change. Therefore, I believe there will be demand for at least another 3-4 years, and we can grow steadily.

Ridgelinez is a unique organization unlike any Fujitsu has had before, but I think having a company with such an aggressive corporate culture provides good stimulation to the group. In fact, several people come to us from Fujitsu every year through the job posting system. To further accelerate the 'Fujitsu Uvance' initiative that Fujitsu is focusing on, I believe it is important for the entire group to apply consulting-like thinking and approaches more and more in the future. There are not necessarily many companies with clear issues from the start, so it is important to first discuss and structure the issues in an ambiguous state together with the client.

On top of that, it is required to logically present hypotheses for solutions and proceed with projects based on mutual agreement. To produce proper results, such a consulting approach is absolutely essential. If that is acquired, the Fujitsu Group will be able to face social issues head-on through 'Fujitsu Uvance' even more.

Note: This article was edited and published by Ridgelinez based on an article posted in the Fujitsu Group's internal newsletter.