SMBC Group’s PlariTown and freee establish SaaS implementation service company Incloop

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group announces that its subsidiary, Plaritown, and freee have jointly established Incloop, a company that provides SaaS implementation support services and BPR consulting services. Incloop will commence operations in late September. Plaritown holds 85% of Incloop, while freee holds 15%.

1. Background of the New Company Establishment

Since its establishment in May 2020, Plaritown has been supporting the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as its mission. It has been providing digital services that contribute to solving customer challenges and enhancing corporate value through consultations with over 2,000 customers annually and information dissemination (seminars, events, content distribution, etc.) as a digital platform for corporations.

Through these activities, Plaritown recognized that many customers have challenges such as “lack of in-house personnel to implement digitalization and DX” and “uncertainty about where to start.” Plaritown has been exploring solutions to these challenges. As one of the solutions, Plaritown recognized the need to not only provide digital services, but also to support customers from reviewing their business processes to implementing and utilizing the services. This led to the establishment of the subsidiary.

Incloop was established through the participation of freee, which has extensive experience and know-how in both the corporate back-office domain (accounting, human resources, and labor management, etc.) for SMEs nationwide, as well as in digital services and implementation support. Incloop will provide not only digital services but also a framework to support customers in achieving digital transformation.

2. Business Activities of the New Company

Incloop will initially launch its business by providing freee implementation support services to both SMBC Group customers and freee customers.

In the future, Incloop will consider developing and providing services such as “implementation and stabilization support” for other SaaS services besides freee, “BPR consulting” to streamline and optimize corporate business processes, and “BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) services” to outsource corporate accounting and human resources/labor management operations.

In addition, Incloop will consider partnering with regional financial institutions nationwide that provide digital transformation support to corporate customers, as well as accepting human resources for training purposes. The SMBC Group’s vision is to be “a global solution provider that grows with customers and society through the highest level of trust.” The SMBC Group will continue to leverage its collective strengths to address increasingly complex social issues and the diversifying management challenges and needs of its customers, thereby contributing to the development of domestic industries and the creation of social value.

This is the first case of a subsidiary being established by a company like Plaritown, which was founded through the SMBC Group’s “President Manufacturing” initiative, a program that supports employees who challenge themselves by breaking free from precedents and fixed ideas in the financial industry.

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