Okayama City Launches New Project to Transform Corporate 'Intuition and Experience' into Data-Driven Decision Making (Accompanying Support)

Project Overview

Okayama City will launch the 'Data-Driven Management Practice Project' as a new initiative in fiscal 2026 to support the sustainable growth and improved profitability of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This project is an 8-month intensive accompanying support program aimed at transforming data accumulated within companies—such as sales, production, accounting, and customer service data—into a usable state for management decisions and on-site improvements, thereby advancing the transformation toward data-driven enterprises.

Eligible companies are SMEs headquartered in Okayama City (limited to two companies).

A team of expert consultants (Nippon Research Institute, Ltd.) will enter the companies to jointly overcome the 'Five Barriers to Data-Driven Management' (refer to the chart below) by identifying management challenges, visualizing operations and data, and repeatedly implementing improvement cycles based on data. *A case presentation event by the two supported companies is scheduled for March 2027.

Prior to the accompanying support, a 'Seminar and Project Briefing Session' will be held on Tuesday, July 7, 2026.

The session will explain issues such as gross profit leakage and missed opportunities arising from underutilized data, as well as success and failure cases of organizational transformation through data utilization. It will also include hypothesis-testing workshops to develop data-thinking skills and explanations of the support program.

Key Features of the Project

1. Support focused on changing decision-making, not just tool implementation

This project is not merely about introducing IT tools.

The goal is to transform companies into 'data-driven organizations' where management and frontline staff make decisions and improvements based on shared metrics.

The project emphasizes establishing a sustainable 'framework for data utilization' within the company so that businesses can continue their data-driven improvement cycles even after the support ends.

2. On-site, hands-on support engaging both management and frontline staff

Beyond interviews with management, the team will conduct on-site visits to factories, stores, and administrative departments, and engage in dialogues with employees to understand actual operations and data quality.

Based on this, they will identify factors pressuring profitability and hindering growth, and select project themes with expected outcomes within the support period.

3. Starting with familiar tools like Excel to establish improvement cycles

Without assuming the introduction of advanced systems, the project will first utilize familiar tools such as Excel and existing software to practice data inventory, organization, visualization, analysis, improvement, and evaluation cycles.

Rather than ending with 'building tools or systems,' the project will embed continuous improvement operations—monitoring KPIs and iterating improvements—into the company's routine.

Background of Implementation

Many SMEs accumulate large amounts of data through daily operations.

However, in practice, data is often fragmented across departments or managed based on individual staff members' experience and intuition, making it difficult to fully visualize information necessary for management decisions.

As a result, companies face challenges such as being unable to identify causes of gross profit leakage, underutilizing inventory and customer information, and having improvement activities that are person-dependent and unsustainable.

Even when data is visualized, without an organizational culture that engages with numbers and a system to involve frontline staff in implementing measures, sustained results cannot be achieved.

Okayama City believes that increasing the number of companies that use data as a starting point to identify management challenges and enable management and frontline staff to repeatedly make decisions and improvements based on shared metrics is essential for the sustainable growth of local industries, and has therefore launched this project.

Details of Accompanying Support

▪ Support Period: August 2026 – March 2027

▪ Eligible Companies: SMEs headquartered in Okayama City

▪ Number of Supported Companies: Limited to two

*Selection will include interviews with company executives.

*If more than five companies apply, an initial document screening may be conducted.

▪ Cost: Free (companies will bear actual expenses such as software license fees)

▪ Support Structure:

A team of expert consultants specializing in strategy formulation, data analysis/utilization, and operational improvement (Nippon Research Institute, Ltd.) will provide support with a dedicated team of two consultants per company, plus multiple support staff.

Main Activities

▪ Identification of Management Challenges Based on Internal and External Environment Analysis Conduct current situation analysis and issue identification, hypothesize factors pressuring profitability and hindering growth. Discuss findings with management to prioritize challenges from the perspective of strengthening profitability and revenue.

▪ Understanding Operations Related to Challenges and Selecting Project Themes Through phased assessments of the current situation, visualize the gap in understanding between management and frontline staff, objectively evaluate data quality, and select themes with expected outcomes during the support period.

▪ Implementation of Data Visualization, Analysis, and Improvement Cycles Support will be provided in four steps (see below) from data organization to PDCA cycle establishment. The goal is not just tool or system implementation, but to enable companies to independently operate data-driven management. *Data inventory and organization → Building visualization platforms → Data analysis and improvement → Integration into PDCA cycles

▪ Roadmap Development Develop a roadmap for companies to further expand data-driven management after the support ends. Translate it into actionable plans to ensure continued execution post-support.

Key Selection Criteria for Participating Companies

The following points will be emphasized in the selection process:

- Management's enthusiasm and commitment to transformation

- Presence of a cross-departmental promotion structure involving both management and frontline staff

- Typicality of challenges (e.g., person-dependency, inventory/customer management) and potential for ripple effects across local businesses

Application Method and Recruitment Flyer

Please apply via the dedicated web forms below.

◎ Seminar and Project Briefing (Deadline: July 3, Friday)

https://06fb9641.form.kintoneapp.com/public/f53fb9d192b86d7b3019ceba1f913c68546840fcd0688de1014e5f2e910601cd

◎ Accompanying Support (Deadline: July 15, Wednesday)

https://06fb9641.form.kintoneapp.com/public/8fe7559492b1314403a5b3a55a561a39164104ebcd06112c5ff59b25d9703c0d

<Reference: Okayama City Official Website>

https://www.city.okayama.jp/jigyosha/0000082990.html

★Download the recruitment flyer here:

d162207-128-8200bc34024981ba29785d27143307ac.pdf

Contact

Okayama City Industrial Promotion Division, Commerce and Industry Department, Industrial Tourism Bureau

Contact: Yamamoto, Muneta, Fujimoto

Address: 1-1 Okabe, Kita-ku, Okayama City, 700-8544

Phone: 086-803-1329

Email: kougyoushinkou@city.okayama.lg.jp

Organizer and Operator

Organizer: Okayama City

Operator: Nippon Research Institute, Ltd.

*This project 'Data-Driven Management Practice Project' is commissioned by Okayama City and operated by Nippon Research Institute, Ltd.