Press Release 2022/04/08

■Purpose of the Capital and Business Alliance
In recent years, many Japanese companies have been actively promoting digital transformation (DX) to improve management efficiency and productivity in the face of a shrinking workforce and for future growth. This, combined with moves to promote remote working as a Covid-19 measure, has increased demand for IT investment.

On the other hand, the information services industry, to which both companies belong, continues to face a shortage of technical personnel, and the adoption of low-code technology and agile methods is rapidly increasing as a means of meeting the growing demand.

In these circumstances, BlueMeme Group has been providing DX support services using its own development methodology, ‘AGILE-DX’, which enables customers to improve their business agility through in-house IT system development, under the mission of “realize the development of next-generation information systems using the latest technologies and to improve the international competitiveness of Japanese companies”.

However, in view of the rapidly growing demand, it was deemed essential to formulate a collaboration strategy, and the capital and business alliance agreement was concluded with MKI, which has been cooperating with BlueMeme in low-code development and low-code engineer training since 2018.

■Details of the Capital and Business Alliances
(1) Details of the business alliance
Through this alliance, the two companies will work on the following

• MKI will utilize BlueMeme’s ‘AGILE-DX’, an agile development method for low-code, to expand the provision of modernization business to the Mitsui & Co. group and other companies in Japan.
• In DX across the Mitsui & Co. group, for which MKI will provide support, BlueMeme’s expertise in low-code development will be utilized to achieve system development in a short period of time and with a small number with a small team.
• BlueMeme will train and provide business architects who integrate business and IT as DX business personnel to realize business transformation through DX.
• BlueMeme will train and provide low-code engineers who can develop systems in a short period of time and with a small team.

MKI is a core company supporting the DX of the Mitsui & Co. group, known as one of leading corporate groups in Japan, and provides consulting services that support DX by utilizing its technological and organizational capabilities, and core application development and migration services using SaaS. By combining MKI’s business structure with BlueMeme Group’s next-generation system development methods, we believe we can accelerate the growth of BlueMeme Group.

Through this alliance, MKI’s DX human resources will be integrated into the BlueMeme Group’s initiatives, increasing the speed of expansion of business architects and engineering resources to meet the expected expansion of customer needs. In addition, we aim to become a leading company in the low-code development business sector by expanding our business performance at the same or faster growth speed than before.

(2) Details of the capital alliance
Please also refer to the “Notice of share offerings, changes in major shareholders, largest shareholder and other related companies”, published on 8 April.

■Future prospects
The impact of the Capital and Business Alliance on the full-year performance forecast for the year ending 31 March 2022 is expected to be negligible. The consolidated performance forecast for the year ending 31 March 2023, including the impact of the alliance, will be notified in the announcement of the financial results for the year ending 31 March 2022, which is scheduled for May this year. Any changes to the Group’s management structure as a result of the Alliance will also be announced promptly.