FSCreation: Capitalizing on feasibility study techniques to enhance experience and function

Data is an important part of any business or industry, whether the data consists of trade secrets, employee information, company information, or security details. Every company needs its data to be highly protected and secured. The process of cloudification simply implements a secure way of accessing one's data; it makes it easy and secure to allow authorized users alone to be able to access the company’s data and applications. 

FSCreation Co. Ltd. is a company that helps other businesses secure their cloudification process through feasibility study techniques. 

CIO Bulletin had the opportunity to talk to the Representative Director of FSCreation, Chieko Tsujimura, about the company’s growth and impact in the industry. 

Q. Why was FSCreation Co. Ltd. founded? What are the key areas of the market that the company serves?

FSCreation was founded in 2014 to help companies benefit from utilizing feasibility study techniques. The idea to start FSCreation came about when I noticed that the systems in our industry that should have been developed or implemented according to the customer's requests and requirements were not up to standard; this resulted in the customer's dissatisfaction with the services available. This led me to believe that there was something between us and our customers; there was a gap in the industry that we could fill by creating FSCreation, a company that leveraged feasibility study techniques in IT planning and securing cloud processes. It was through the process of starting the company that I became convinced that if we applied the feasibility study method to the SI business, we would be able to obtain a better experience for ourselves and our customers.

Our services are not limited to any market. In fact, we serve a wide range of markets, including education, manufacturing, mass media, services, education, and the public sector. 

Q. What is a “feasibility study"? How does FSCreation Co. Ltd. use feasibility studies to ascertain their clients’ problems?

We define “feasibility study" as implementative advisability verification, and to simplify it further, a feasibility study essentially means examining the critical impact of the features required before the initial development stage to get the best idea for the project's usage and production. 

The ideas obtained through the feasibility study are not only explicit but also implicit. These preliminary explorations can be understood only after running the study. 

With the advent of the cloud era, the benefit of running a feasibility study before any cloudification process or IT planning is that both SI vendors and customers can recognize potential issues with what it will be like when the services they require are actually installed without having to make a huge advance investment in hardware, software, networks, etc.

Q. How does FSCreation Co. Ltd. incorporate its solutions to deliver results to its clients? How unique is this process in the market?

The main techniques our company uses to incorporate solutions that deliver the best result are discussed before we start incorporating solutions. Ideally, we use a feasibility study at the initial stage before the project is developed; this helps us notice potential issues that might occur after the introduction of the solution. However, we also tend to use the feasibility study in the requirements definition phase to improve the operation and continuity of the project. 

Essentially, we use the feasibility study method to identify potential issues, process issues, and UX issues. This process has helped us deliver the best results for our clients. 

In the industry that we are in, this is an extremely rare method and totally different from the old-fashioned development method. While there may be some recent, similar agile development methods, FSCreation’s method is unique to itself. 

Q. What are the various services offered by FSCreation Co. Ltd.?

Some of the main services offered by FSCreation are the following:

• Pre-installation consultation (using a feasibility study)
• Overall system structure design (a wide range from the overall structure of the company's system to the structure of a single unit)
• General requirements definition, design, development (construction), implementation, and post-implementation support

As a characteristic service of FSCreation, it is possible to switch support for the customer to choose self-system development and building, which allows the customer to operate independently after the requirements definition, design, development (construction), and post-installation support.

There is a strong trend in Japan to shift from outsourcing to in-house production. They themselves are aware that there are issues within the system's operation, leading them to work on the actual design, development, and construction so that they can maintain the system themselves. 

Q. Why do you support the independence of customers at FSCreation’s? 

It is because we believe that the independence that customers want is the right path for the world to take from now on. We feel that unless customers become independent and choose, combine, and build systems just to fit their specifications, they will not be able to keep up with the speed of change in the world as IT democratization progresses. We also believe that technological advances such as cloud systems and IT democratization make it easier for customers to become more independent. Then, as an IT vendor, we think we need to evolve and improve our ability to respond to our customers. 

Q. What is the benefit of using the feasibility study method in the work culture at FSCreation Co. Ltd.? 

By using the feasibility study method, trainees learn the importance of recognizing potential issues at an early stage, broadening the range of technologies that can be covered by a single engineer, and reviewing the whole project from a bird's-eye view. By doing so, they grow into a team of staff that notices the gap between systems and services, leading to extensive value at FS Creation.

Q. What are FSCreation’s plans for the future?

FSCreation plans to become a company that can propose safe and "correct" (ethical correctness, not just operations and functions) utilization methods in the business industry against the democratization of IT, which is progressing rapidly.

As a team, we also want to become a company that can propose and implement ways to solve real corporate problems with IT, such as "not giving in to the harmful effects of silos within companies.”

A brief biography of the Representative Director

Chieko Tsujimura is the Representative Director of FSCreation; she was born in Aichi, Japan. After graduating from a women's university in Aichi Prefecture, she got a job at a travel agency. She switched careers and moved to the IT industry after being involved in system introduction work at the travel agency.

In 2014, she founded FS Creation with the current CTO, Toyoda, who belonged to the same company at the time, with the aim of becoming a system integrator in the cloud era.

“We provide technical support for the optimal use of the customer's IT system after understanding the customer itself."