Sustainability

Digital Transformation/Business Co-Creation

Promoting Digital Transformation Across All Industries

Sun* Group will continue to apply the power of digital technology and creativity to promote digitalization in all industries and update society through value creation.

Initiatives to Promote Digital Transformation/Business Co-Creation

Digital Transformation and value co-creation are core to Sun* Group's business domain. Aided by the diverse professional team at our Digital Creative Studio and the value creation knowledge and know-how we have accumulated, we continue to tackle them as major issues for our company.
In addition to the direct contribution we provide to our clients, co-creation partners and end-users, we continue to enhance our track record of services and products development related to Digital Transformation and value co-creation, and proactively publish our achievements. We are hopeful that this will bring about an indirect positive impact, thereby contributing to the promotion of Digital Transformation and value co-creation in society as a whole.

Trend of Our Digital Transformation and Value Co-creation Performance Indicators

FY Ended December 2019 FY Ended December 2020 FY Ended December 2021 FY Ended December 2022
Digital Transformation and Value Co-creation Total Accomplished Product/Service Development Projects (1) 290 408 519 662
Total Number of Published New Projects(2) 7 11 13
Added Value Generated(Gross Profit)(3) 1,775 million yen 2,399 million yen 3,608 million yen 4,540 million yen
  • (1) Accumulated number of projects from our establishment in 2012 to end of the relevant FY(Includes projects continued from FY2022)
  • (2) Total published new projects in the relevant FY
  • (3) Gross profit booked for the Creative & Engineering segment in the relevant FY
Research and Development for Digital Transformation and Value Co-creation
In order to research the latest information technology, respond quickly to various client needs, improve existing products and services, and develop new services, Sun* Group organizes R&D project teams by themes, which conduct research and development activities in various fields.
DevOps Automation & Acceleration
AI Modules for Image Processing, Spoken Language Processing and Recommendations
Blockchain for Social Impact
Programming Education Content and System
Cyber Security
Livestreaming Systems
Sun* Group's research and development activities are carried out as part of routine assignments of group employees. As such, we do not maintain a separate account for R&D expenses. We calculate group R&D expenses based on costs incurred by project teams on R&D themes (personnel costs, outsourcing expenses and other expenses). We have an internal cycle where progress made on each R&D theme is reported quarterly within the group, referenced and made use of primarily in internal projects. The results are then fed back to the R&D teams. We are continuing our R&D efforts on the above 6 themes.

Trend of Our R&D Performance Indicators

FY Ended December 2019 FY Ended December 2020 FY Ended December 2021 FY Ended December 2022
Research & Development Total Expenses for R&D 8,890,000 yen 15,438,000 yen 164,957,000 yen 67,544,000 yen
Total Expenses for R&D (Consolidated) 6,117,000 yen 107,394,000 yen 245,622,000 yen 295,336,000 yen
Number of Patents Applied 1

Sun* operates a unique data platform as shown below developed in-house to accumulate data on the knowledge we have gained through supporting startups and new businesses, which is continuously fed to engineers and creators so as to ensure reproducibility of business successes.

Viblo, Rubato, Sun* CIの機能表

Vibloのロゴ
Viblo Knowledge Sharing Platform

Sun* Group provides Viblo, a free social media service for creators and engineers in Vietnam to exchange their knowledge (note 1). As of April 2020, we had approximately 330,000 monthly users (average for the last 6 months).

Viblo can speed up the learning process of engineers through an online community where engineers can self-study as well as share output from their own learning experiences. This service is also available to engineers outside the company. We are hopeful that we may contribute to the development of the capabilities of Vietnamese engineers by actively sharing our knowledge and experience. We also have the additional benefit of passing on and refining the implementation process for user-centered design projects through the provision of our knowledge and dialogue with outside creators and engineers.

Robatoのロゴ
Talent Management Platform for Optimal Staffing Planning — Rubato

Rubato is a talent management system that accumulates the skill sets, talent assessment and portfolios of the creators and engineers within our group and provides project operation management. With the data collected in Rubato, managers can evaluate which creators and engineers should be assigned to which project, or how best to structure a team for a certain project, and manage project operations accordingly. The system with its data accumulation enables us to further optimize staffing, increase productivity, and enhance reproducibility of successful projects.

Sun* CIのロゴ
Sun*CI a Unique, Agile and Stable Service for Implementing DevOps

User-centered design services require close communication after the service release, to quickly improve and upgrade the service according to needs that are identified. Accordingly, development of user-centered design services necessitates the adoption of a DevOps methodology under which operational design and development work closely in the same team. In successful digitalization projects involving advanced mega-services, development and releases take place at a speed unmanageable by human operations. We therefore developed our unique Sun*CI system to serve as a platform for implementing DevOps.

With this system, we can automate tasks such as source code reviews, security checks, feature tests and product builds, and increase productivity to allow engineers to concentrate on business growth. Additional tasks that became necessary during operation/development of services may be repeated in other projects. We continue to automate such additional tasks and add them to Sun*CI's function to ensure repeatability of agile and stable operation of the service.

DX・Value Co-Creation

Next Developing Value Chains with Various Partners