The Bank of the Ryukyus, Ltd.

Styleflow significantly reduces time spent on workflow creation
Smartphone support enables faster decision making

Since its establishment, Bank of the Ryukyus has continued to contribute to the economy of Okinawa Prefecture as a regional bank trusted by the community. The bank has started a project to migrate its information sharing infrastructure from Notes to Office 365. In conjunction with this, the bank decided to consider implementing a new workflow system for its Notes-based system. After comparing several products, the bank selected TDC SOFT’s cloud-based workflow system, Styleflow. This greatly reduced the time required to create workflows, made it easier to build new ones, and increased the use of the system in each department. Smartphone support has also speeded up decision-making.

Background of Introduction

Decided to implement a workflow product as a complement to the newly introduced Office 365

The Bank of the Ryukyus has been using Notes for more than 20 years as a platform for internal email and information sharing. The Bank of the Ryukyus introduced tablets, mainly for management-level employees, to enable them to make decisions even when away from the office. At the same time, however, although iPhones were distributed to all staff members, they were unable to use Notes functions other than email and calendar because smartphones were not yet supported. In addition, the creation of workflows essential for various approvals and decisions was time-consuming and labor-intensive. Mr. Ken Nakasone, a researcher in the System Planning Section of the Administrative Management Department, looks back on those days as follows.

In addition to these problems, the hardware maintenance deadline for Notes was approaching, so we started considering the introduction of a new system by 2021, and decided to migrate to Office 365 with a focus on SharePoint Online. We decided to migrate to Office 365 with a focus on SharePoint Online. Office 365 also provides some workflow functionality, but it was difficult to create complex workflows, so we decided to implement a separate workflow product.

Background of Introduction

Styleflow was selected based on its ease of use, cost advantages, mobile device compatibility, and proven track record.

The Bank of the Ryukyus collected information on more than 10 different products. From these, the Bank of the Ryukyus conducted trials of four products. After narrowing it down to two candidates, the Bank of the Ryukyus decided to adopt Styleflow in April 2020. In addition to ease of use, the deciding factors were cost advantages, support for mobile devices, and a track record of adoption by major companies.

Styleflow requires no initial cost and is inexpensive at 300 yen per user per month. Also, since we distribute iPhones to all of our employees, it was essential to support mobile devices in order to make use of them. The cost-effective and easy-to-understand pricing was very appealing. In addition, in addition to its proven track record, including case studies of major companies and service utilization rates, Styleflow also offered peace of mind in terms of security, such as IP address connection restrictions.” (Mr. Nakasone)

Regarding the deployment of Styleflow, the number of target users will be increased in stages from 1) 50 to 2) 150 to 3) 1900 in accordance with the timing of 1) construction, 2) testing and 3) trial runs, and the number of users will be increased from 20 to 20. The deployment of Styleflow was completed for the entire company (1,900 users) in April 2021.
The key point in implementing the system was to bring the office workflow into the system. Kazuhiro Miyazato, Senior Research Engineer, System Planning Section, Administrative Management Department, commented on this point, “With Notes, we were able to create complex flows, so we customized the system to fit our business. However, this approach required a considerable amount of time, effort, and cost. We decided that we could not keep up with the speed of business innovation that is now required, so we prioritized speed by adapting the business to the system,” said Mr. Kazuhiro Miyari, Senior Research Manager, Office Administration Division.

Effects of Introduction

Significantly reduces time spent on workflow creation and speeds up decision-making

The Bank of the Ryukyus has greatly reduced the time required to create workflows by implementing Styleflow.

The Bank of the Ryukyus has implemented Styleflow, which has significantly reduced the time required to create workflows. “If we create a workflow from scratch, it takes about 1/3 of the time, and if we use a workflow that has already been created, we can create a route in about 1/10 of the time. Also, subsequent maintenance is easier.

As a result, we were able to proactively build new workflows, and despite the transitional period immediately after the launch of Styleflow, we were able to increase the number of workflows by more than 10 in a short period of time. The largest number of these are” drafts (approval requests),“which are submitted mainly by the headquarters department, followed by documents related to consulting and real estate, etc., which are submitted mainly by sales branches. The system is being used company-wide, regardless of department. In the six months since the system went into production, approximately 25,000 documents have been created, and it has become an indispensable part of the business.

The iPhone allows us to approve documents smoothly even when we are out and about in our spare time, which I think contributes to speeding up the decision-making process,” said Miyazato.

Future Outlook

Looking forward to stronger integration with Office 365.

The Bank of the Ryukyus is working to integrate Styleflow with Office 365, its information sharing platform.

The Bank of the Ryukyus is working to integrate Styleflow with Office 365, the information sharing platform. “Utilizing the API provided in Styleflow, we have implemented a single sign-on from SharePoint Online to Styleflow, displaying the number of pending applications and approvals on SharePoint Online. In the future, we expect Styleflow to strengthen its integration with Office 365. In particular, if the integration with Microsoft Teams is provided, we believe that the use of smartphones will increase even more and further speed up the decision-making process,” said Miyazato.

Company Information

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