Initiatives toward data-driven management.
NEC is a technology company that supports critical systems for society and businesses through its IT services and social infrastructure operations. Operating in Japan and globally, the company draws on core technologies in telecommunications, networking, security, and AI.
After a prolonged period of declining business performance, NEC pursued a series of management reforms. The shift toward data-driven management became a key part of these efforts.
Connecting shared data to business execution.
At NEC, business conditions were reported through a hierarchy of departments, business divisions, business units, and corporate functions. But as reports moved up the organization, presentation materials became increasingly polished while the realities on the ground became harder to see. Underperforming units sometimes offered little beyond assurances that they would try harder, while high-performing teams could be reluctant to reveal additional capacity out of concern that their targets would be raised. This structure made it difficult to share management challenges companywide, increasing the risk of delayed action.
NEC envisioned a management approach in which everyone, from executives to frontline employees, could examine the same data and confront the facts together. But visibility alone does not lead to action. The company has worked to build a culture in which continuous, data-informed improvement becomes the norm and data serves as a common language connecting insight with future action.
Masahiko Amano, executive professional, Corporate IT & AI Innovation Division, explains: “Everyone, from executive leadership to frontline staff, looks at the same data and thinks together about how to make improvements. Using data as a starting point to maximize business speed is the fundamental goal of data-driven management.”
The reality on the ground was not reaching executive leadership in a timely manner. Sharing the same data, from executives to frontline employees, is the starting point of NEC’s data-driven management.
Executive professional, Corporate IT & AI Innovation Division
Addressing the planning data gap.
NEC’s One Data Platform supports the company’s approach to data-driven management by aggregating information from internal business systems. Actual performance data from sales force automation, accounting, and supply chain management systems is centralized on the platform and used for executive dashboards, forecasting, and analysis.
However, information that did not reside in these core business systems remained a challenge. Planned figures, including budgets, were primarily managed in spreadsheets, creating significant data-standardization and management work. To advance plan-to-actual comparisons and the use of AI, NEC needed a more efficient way to centralize, manage, and use planning data.
Centralizing planning data with Workday.
To address this challenge, NEC selected Adaptive from Workday. The solution will serve as a planning data platform for NEC’s data-driven management by centralizing business planning data, including budgets.
Traditionally, NEC compiled budgets by aggregating spreadsheets created across multiple departments and organizational levels. In addition to requiring considerable data-collection and processing work, this approach made it difficult to track underlying assumptions and revision histories over time.
With Adaptive from Workday, NEC is establishing a framework for managing business planning data on a unified platform. This approach will allow budgets and plans to be managed as a continuous data stream, making relevant information easier to access for decision-making.
Centralizing business planning data will also help leaders and departments align around common baseline assumptions. By connecting previously dispersed plans with actual performance data, executive dashboards, and AI analytics, NEC intends to make decision-relevant information more consistent and accessible. The initiative is not simply about replacing spreadsheets. It is about managing business plans as structured data and embedding them more directly in corporate management processes.
NEC is also exploring how AI can use information from management cockpits and executive dashboards to support situational assessments and improvement recommendations. Adaptive from Workday will centralize and standardize planned data, including budgets and target values, for analysis. Connecting business planning data with actual performance data and AI analytics represents an important step in advancing NEC’s approach to data-driven management.
By centrally managing and using budgets and target values, we aim to take our data-driven management to the next level through the power of data and AI.
Executive professional, Corporate IT & AI Innovation Division
Building a foundation for data and AI-driven management.
Adaptive from Workday will provide a central foundation for managing NEC’s corporate planning data. By using planning information such as budgets and target values more efficiently, NEC aims to advance its approach to data-driven management.
The company’s initiatives are progressing toward AI-native management built on a foundation of data and AI. A planning data platform that provides properly structured information will be central to supporting that direction.