Beyond 'Building' to 'Growing Businesses': Glucose Centers 'Sustainable Software Development' in its Mid-Term Management Plan

The core of our Mid-Term Management Plan for the next five years is the realization of 'Sustainable Software Development.'

We aim to establish 'sustainable software development,' which we have embodied for many years, as the standard for the AI era. The mid-term management plan we have formulated is a commitment for the next five years to establish a development model that deeply accompanies client business growth in a reproducible manner.

Glucose Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Makoto Adachi) has announced its five-year mid-term management plan for the fiscal periods from February 2027 to February 2031. The core of this plan is the provision system for 'sustainable software development,' which handles everything from the verification of client business hypotheses to post-operational improvements. At our company, we believe that 'sustainable software development' is not simply developing what the customer requests, but development as a means to continuously nurture their business. Furthermore, we view the development and release of a service not as a goal, but as a starting point, and we aim to accompany the client's business growth using development as a tool, looking far beyond the immediate future into the mid-to-long term. In this era of advancing AI, we will accurately grasp the changing role required of development partners and deliver value that contributes to the business growth of client companies in a clearer form than ever before.

As for the achievement targets for this plan, we aim to achieve sales of 2 billion yen and an operating profit margin of 25% or higher in the fiscal period ending February 2031. While this represents a growth target more than 3.3 times the current level, it is not about expanding scale for its own sake; rather, we view it as a commitment to continuously deliver the value that our company provides, based on the premise of 'sustainable software development.'

To coincide with the announcement of our mid-term management plan looking ahead to the next five years, I, Makoto Adachi, our representative, will share the changes that have occurred over the past three years since joining the PR TIMES Group and the future we are heading towards.

A photo from when we first joined the PR TIMES Group

Makoto Adachi, Representative Director, Glucose Inc.

Graduated from the Department of Information Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University.

While a university student, I was selected for the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA)'s 'Unmet Software Creation Project,' and after being certified as a Super Creator in FY2004, I founded Glucose Inc. in the same year. Having won the programming contest hosted by the Tokyo Institute of Technology during high school, I have consistently engaged with software development since my student days.

For over 20 years since founding Glucose, I have been involved in the development of numerous web services and software, engaging with cutting-edge technologies of each era, from RSS readers, SNS-related services, and video distribution systems to SaaS and AI application domains.

Furthermore, since 2017, I served as CTO and Head of Technology at a listed corporate group, gaining experience in building development organizations and promoting technical strategies for large-scale services, before joining the PR TIMES Group in 2023. Since then, through continuous involvement in large-scale SaaS development and projects assuming long-term operation within the PR TIMES Group, I have more strongly realized the importance of 'software development that assumes business growth,' which goes beyond mere development capabilities. Based on over 20 years of expertise in the technology domain and experience cultivated in both large-scale service operation and organizational growth, I am currently working towards the realization of 'sustainable software development' as the new form of development company required in the AI era.

Why can we promise this value to our clients now with this plan?

This plan is built upon the 'changes in our relationships with clients' over the past three years. Since joining the PR TIMES Group in 2023, our company has achieved growth of more than three times in sales and more than double in personnel compared to before joining the group. However, we believe the more important aspect is the structural changes that supported this growth. Specifically, we have brought about the following three changes that are meaningful to our clients.

Our Journey Over 3 Years (Reference Indicators)

Sales

Number of Employees

FY March 2023

200 million yen

20 people

FY February 2026

*Fiscal year changed from FY2024

610 million yen

42 people

Change ① | Transition to a Collaborative Service Model Focused on Client Business Goals

Over the past three years, we have shifted our primary contract type from fixed-price contracts to non-exclusive service agreements. As a result, each member of our team, while respecting the initially agreed-upon specifications, now proactively thinks and proposes based on what will best contribute to the client's business objectives. This shift has enabled us to establish a relationship where we truly work alongside our clients, allowing for flexible adjustments during development if premises change, and enabling discussions from a business perspective right from the requirements definition stage. We are proud that this has become commonplace. Beyond development, as trust in our business understanding has grown, we have seen a positive cycle of receiving additional orders and referrals from other clients, leading to our growth.

Change ② | Cultivating Developers Capable of Thinking from a 'Business' Perspective

Our company originally focused on hiring experienced mid-career professionals. However, we revised this hiring policy, boldly strengthening our recruitment of promising new graduates and establishing and operating an internal training system with a mid-to-long-term perspective. By joining the PR TIMES Group, the fresh perspective of PR TIMES was incorporated into our company, and each individual began to pursue 'sincerity,' as stated in our MVV (Mission, Vision, Values), at a higher level.

This led to a shift towards an organizational structure that assumes individual growth, creating an environment where knowledge and know-how are shared among members. Consequently, more developers are able to ask themselves, 'Will this feature truly reach users?' or 'Is this aligned with the client's business direction?' As a result, we are gradually moving towards a system where we can provide value as an organization, offering consistent quality and business perspective support, rather than relying on the individual skills of a担当者 (person in charge).

Change ③ | Accumulation of Experience in Large-Scale SaaS Development in a Short Period

Leveraging the opportunity to be involved in large-scale SaaS development within the PR TIMES Group following our participation, we have accumulated implementation know-how and development knowledge in areas such as long-term operation, large-scale traffic, and complex business requirements to an unprecedented extent within our organization. This experience can now be shared with clients outside the PR TIMES Group. For example, in our daily projects, we apply this knowledge to proposals that take a long-term view of clients' business expansion and challenges, such as 'designing for future scalability' and 'making selections and decisions with operations in mind from the PoC stage.'

What We Promise Our Clients Over the Next Five Years

In this mid-term management plan, we are making the strengthening of the three changes described above and their systematization into a reproducible model the axis of our growth strategy. Over the next five years, we will introduce our company's new commitments to our clients from the following three perspectives.

Promise ① | Business Hypothesis

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