Change Inc. (Change) and Konica Minolta Publitech, Inc. (Konica Minolta Publitech) announced that the companies have concluded a basic agreement on the establishment of a joint venture for promoting digital transformation (DX) in local governments.
They have entered the final phase of negotiations to establish the joint venture early next year.
The joint venture will further deepen collaboration between Change and Konica Minolta Publitech in developing a local government DX support platform. It will harness Change’s AI analysis technology, consulting know-how, and platform administration expertise, as well as the operational datasets of local governments across Japan (about 200,000 officials who work for 120 local governments), which were collected by Konica Minolta Publitech, to strengthen the ability to make proposals for business process re-engineering (BPR).
The joint venture will thereby accelerate the standardisation and online accessibility of systems, which are being promoted by the Japanese government, by supporting the introduction of “local government services to ensure that no one is left behind” to eliminate disparities among local governments in terms of IT literacy and services for residents depending on the location and scale.
Purpose of the joint venture
- Change, which is one of the largest platform holders in Japan, has contracts with more than 90% of local governments across Japan, while Konica Minolta Publitech has collected 1.9 million operational datasets from local governments across the country. The two companies will strengthen collaboration to enhance their ability to make BPR proposals and maintain a competitive advantage into the future in the rapidly expanding local government DX market.
- The local government DX support platform will be introduced to the business platform in the LGWAN environment, which is operated by Change, at an early stage to establish a de facto standard for operational standardization and deploy this to local governments across Japan.
- The joint venture will offer more effective and powerful solutions by expanding opportunities for collaboration with various vendors and will help local governments across Japan to realise smart cities and thereby improve citizens’ lives.
New values brought by the joint venture
- Elimination of disparities among local governments in IT literacy and services for residents depending on the location and scale
- Achievement of a workstyle which enables local government officials to work from anywhere and at any time
- Improvement of the level of services for residents by local governments and enhancing the job satisfaction of local government officials
