Ajinomoto and Accenture to establish joint venture

The new company will help Ajinomoto leverage digital technologies to enhance and streamline its operations

Ajinomoto Co., Inc. and Accenture have agreed to establish a joint venture in Japan to help the food and biotech company accelerate its operational transformation.

The new company, Ajinomoto Digital Business Partners Co., Inc., will run the operations of Ajinomoto’s corporate divisions, which include human resources, office management and procurement. Starting in April 2020, the new company will be 67% owned by Ajinomoto and 33% by Accenture.

Ajinomoto Digital Business Partners will leverage the power of robotic process automation, analytics and artificial intelligence — as well as other solutions for business process transformation — to deliver services that enhance the functionality and efficiency of Ajinomoto’s corporate functions, using the insights from these intelligent operations to help Ajinomoto drive tangible business value. As part of its work, Accenture will leverage its expertise in digital transformation in the consumer goods and services industry, as well as its business process services.

“Ajinomoto remains focused on priority product domains and improving employee productivity to realize sustainable growth and become a genuine global specialty company,” said Masaya Tochio, representative director, member of the board & corporate senior vice president, Ajinomoto. “The joint venture with Accenture will foster the next generation of talent that focuses on higher value-added work to provide competitive services and help Ajinomoto perform a pivot to the operating model that consistently delivers greater customer value.”

Atsushi Egawa, country managing director of Accenture, Japan, said, “For organizations to drive transformation by improving productivity and creating new value, they need to incorporate digital technologies into every process through cooperation with external partners. Using our global experience and expertise in digital transformation and our industrialized processes, we will serve as Ajinomoto’s partner throughout their transformation journey, helping Ajinomoto reinforce its foundation for further growth.”

Ajinomoto realized that transforming its corporate and other business functions would require using digital and other innovative technologies beyond its existing capabilities. The company has agreed to form the joint venture with Accenture because it realized that such an arrangement would enable Ajinomoto to enhance its corporate capabilities and drive its operational transformation to a greater degree than the company could do on its own. This, in turn, would enable Ajinomoto to achieve its vision of becoming a “genuine global specialty company” driven by cutting-edge bioscience and innovative chemical technologies.