Business growth requires new platform to streamline supplychain management and accelerate management strategy roll-out

TOKYO, JAPAN - Media OutReach - July 19, 2018 - Infor, a leadingprovider of industry-specific cloud applications, today announced that WatamiCo., Ltd., a food services company operating over 1,000 restaurants and mealdelivery outlets throughout Japan and other Asian countries, has selected InforCloudSuite Food & Beverage as its global supply chain management platform.  Watami plans to use this platform to integrateits group operations and drive the implementation of its vertical integrationmodel for managing all processes from food production to logistics and sales.

Background

Watami Group, which holds Watami Co., Ltd. asits main business, is an integrated food business that mainly operates food andbeverage and meal delivery services basing on its mission "To become the groupthat collects the most thank yous (Arigato) on Earth". Watami Group has been putting itsfocus on safe and handmade quality foods since its establishment, and now is workingon implementing a unique industrial model for vertically integrating itsoperations through the primary industries of livestock, dairy, and organicfarming; the secondary industries of manufacturing and processing; and the tertiaryindustries of distribution and retailing.  To drive the implementation of this model,Watami is now focusing on enhancing its financial structure through merchandising(MD) Reform.

This MD Reform involves both optimizing short-termoperations, such as sharing same ingredients in different F&B concepts,revising specifications of raw materials and shipping standards, and integratingmenu planning process; as well as re-visiting medium-term production --logistics and retail outlet systems. The reconstruction of Watami's supplychain management (SCM) platform is the center of this MD Reform.  Watami had been customizing its existing SCMsystem in conjunction with its business expansion to such an extent that itlacked the necessary flexibility to support business strategy changes made for theMD Reform.

Watami sought a new SCM platform that wouldfulfill its MD Reform requirements, and after a thorough evaluation, selectedInfor CloudSuite Food & Beverage, Infor's cloud-based ERP solution for thefood and beverage industry.

Selection Rationale and Deployment Benefits

Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage is acloud ERP suite designed to help food and beverage industry companies using thehighly-reliable Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform through a subscription modelthat greatly reduces initial IT investment costs. It is equipped with all the functionsindispensable to global food and beverage businesses, including multi-sitecapabilities, product recipe management, process-type production management,warehouse management, traceability support, and quality compliance.

Watami's decision to deploy Infor CloudSuiteFood & Beverage was in large part due to the solution's industry-specificfunctions -- multi-site capabilities required for the management of overseasproduction sites, functions supporting precision production planning, itsV-shaped BoM (Bill of Materials), etc. -- without the need for customization,and the flexibility and scalability afforded by the cloud that will supportconstantly-changing business strategies. Watami also gave high marks to Infor'soutstanding user experience and deployment methodology with its knowledge ofglobal standards.

Watami will use Infor CloudSuite Food &Beverage together with Infor Factory Track - Infor's manufacturing executionsystem (MES) - to build an SCM platform to integrate the Group throughproduction management.  By leveraging theInfor SCM platform with its capabilities to support supply chain managementstreamlining and acceleration of management strategy, Watami will implement MD Reformsfor promoting its food-oriented vertical integration model.

The Key Reforms Watami is Implementing withInfor's SCM Platform

• Centralized management of productionmanagement information to boost operational efficiencies
• Material traceability and quality assurancethrough ordering, manufacturing, and shipping processes
• Advanced prediction of supply anddemand/order transaction volume
• Digitalization and labor savings forfactory operations
• Acceleration of management decisionsthrough the utilizing of business intelligence tools

"Rebuilding our SCM platform is an importantaspect of our MD reforms for centralizing the management of crucial businessdata based on our production management system and for building beneficial mechanismsfor making real-time management decisions," said Shigeru Wakabayashi, GeneralManager of Watami's Business Administration/IT Strategy Department.  "Also through embracing the advantage of InforCloudSuite Food & Beverage's flexibility and scalability in the cloud, weexpect our competitiveness to be elevated from Japanese to global standards."

Watami is currently in the process ofmigrating its existing systems to Infor Cloudsuite Food & Beverage, withfull-scale operations expected in the second half of 2019 and will promote thesystem integration of its factories and other sites.

About Watami

Established in Japanin 1984, the Watami Group operates about 1,000 restaurants, meal deliveryoutlets and other businesses in Japan and overseas.  In 2002, Watami started organic farming with agoal to provide safe foods to its customers, and dairy farming at 12 sites inJapan covering a total of 623 hectares.  With the aim of building a sustainable,recycling-oriented society, Watami is also implementing various initiatives toreduce its environmental footprint, including the development, construction,and management of wind power generation facilities as its renewable energybusiness.  For further details, pleasevisit https://www.watami.co.jp/ir/english/.

About Infor

Inforbuilds business software for specific industries in the cloud.  With 16,500 employees and over 90,000customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress.  Infor is a sponsor of the Crusaders, thewinningest team in Super Rugby history, since 2015.  To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com.