Yoichi Shirono of Infocom

Yoichi Shirono of Infocom

IT Solutions That Innovate and Transform

By Michaela Villaroman 

Every business requires efficient information and data handling to ensure that operations from all aspects are monitored and managed well. For whatever sector and size of the business, IT solutions are crucial to maintaining the functions of an organization. With that, the IT industry is seen one of the most necessary sectors of today.

In Japan, the IT industry is considered to be a leading influence in the Japanese economy as it is predicted to grow at around US $130 billion by 2019. Regarded as one of the countries with the most advanced Information and Communications fields in the world, Japan is home to numerous IT giants that have already made an impact not only in their country but around the world.

Among the outstanding IT companies in Japan is Infocom. The company has been around for over 30 years providing a variety of IT solutions particularly to organizations in the mobile, medical, government, education, and research industries. Consisting of ten companies based both in Japan and abroad, Infocom has been providing quality service to clients worldwide.

We met with Yoichi Shirono, Head of Open Innovation Center for Infocom, to talk about what Infocom offers as a leading IT service provider and how the company is able to make an impact in the many industries they involve themselves with.

Bringing quality information and communication service to Japan

As mentioned, Infocom is considered to be a prominent player in the Information and Communication industry in Japan. In fact, they were considered a pioneer of the field when it was in its infancy back in the day. They provided IT solutions, produced digital content, and offered system services all the way back from 1983. And they have only continued to grow and improve on their services since.

Catering directly to both consumers and corporations, they provide a variety of products and services to match their respective demands. For the consumer side, they produce digital content and provide a mobile ecommerce service. And as for the enterprises, they focus on providing excellent IT systems and solutions adhering to the specificities of each organization.

Among their main specialties includes IT services for the health industry. Infocom is a chief provider of healthcare IT solutions in Japan with their products and services targeted to help medical professionals manage not only administrative operations but also provide research and development tools to advance medical studies.

“I think healthcare is an industry where IT solutions are most needed. We understand that medical services are a top priority in this field, but in order to provide sustainable health practices, there needs to be an organized system maintaining the operations,” Yoichi explained, “Through the power of IT, we can ensure that health services can be sustainably provided.

Aside from the health industry, Infocom also caters to general enterprises’ needs through their Enterprise Service Management division, which covers the IT needs of large businesses. They provide these offerings to improve and secure both internal and external enterprise communications.

Lastly, their other branch of operations involve digital entertainment products. They produce content such as ebooks, games, e-commerce platforms, and other media for the mobile users in Japan. In fact, Infocom had become one of the largest ebook distributors in the country with current plans to expand their productions worldwide.

“We started in the content business because we had worked very closely with telecommunication carriers. Through our involvement, we found that there is a growing demand for content. We thought it would be a great business opportunity,” Yoichi said.

While Infocom is doing well in their current line of work, Yoichi shared that they are also looking into possibilities of developing services that involve Artificial Intelligence. He said, “We think AI is going to be huge everywhere, so we are excited to add to the developments in that field.”

Expanding global presence

Their efforts to grow their international presence have already began as they set out to form strategic partnerships with companies in Asia and in the United States. As one of the leaders of the IT industry in Japan, Infocom believes that their next step is to take their services and expand globally.

Infocom has already planned to get involved and invest in the Philippines. “We have already made our first investment in a Philippine startup named Stash PH, a health tech company that provides a platform for health insurance companies and doctors in the country. We took our time to understand the Philippine startup market and nature before making the decision. In the end, we think Stash PH is a very talented company and we are very excited to work with them while expanding our business in their local market,” Yoichi said.

Yoichi told us that their interest in the country is brought by many factors, “We’re always looking for opportunities and the Philippines was just very attractive for us for a number of reasons like their economic growth as well as the surplus talented people in the country.”

Collaboration through an integrated system

Infocom’s IT solutions are always anchored at providing organizations the opportunity to collaborate well not only in their internal operations but also with other businesses. “I think collaboration is the key to success. We know that we alone can't do anything, and that being said, it’s very important to build relationships and enable collaborations with people and other companies. I think we can achieve that with quality IT solutions,” Yoichi shared.

With that, it is clear that the information and communication technologies available today can further enable the exponential growth and development of enterprises. For Infocom, we can only expect that they continue providing expert solutions to get those organizations there.

For more information, you may visit Infocom’s website here.