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Nissho Iwai Will Employ a New Basic System as a Part of its Effort to Promote Corporate Management Reforms

May 24, 2001

TOKYO(May 24, 2001) --In its effort to promote corporate management reforms, such as the reform of its headquarters' systems and organizations and the reform of its business operations, Nissho IwaiCorporation has decided to introduce the basic business operation processing system, "Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP)," agreeing with SAP Japan Co., ltd. (of Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, headed by the president FUJII Kiyotaka) as the provider of the packaged software "SAP/R3" that Nissho Iwai has selected, to conclude the related agreement in June.

What is generally called ERP is a package of software integrating basic business operation processing systems for purchases, sales, financial accounting, administrative accounting, and personnel management. With Nissho Iwai shifting its business management from individual business accounting to consolidated business accounting and with its corporate management changing as a result of spinning out some of its business divisions and transferring some of its business operations, what is behind the forthcoming employment of the ERP is that the existing basic business operation processing system meant for a large individual business entity has limitations in coping individually with the business operation processing of each of the many group companies and that it has become necessary to level up the way the group business management is conducted.

Aggressively spinning off or transferring some of its business operations before other Japanese trading companies started to do so, Nissho Iwai finds it necessary to re-build its basic business operating processing system, and has decided to employ the ERP to minimize the time, costs, manpower and maintenance work that are required to develop a new basic system. The ERP is a template for implementing business operation reforms, not being one to provide the entire basic business operating functions which are required for a trading company to conduct its business operations. To operate this basic system as the main system, it is necessary to come up with systems changes and improvements designed to fill up the gaps between the template and the actual business practicalities. Nissho Iwaihas already started to work on the specifics of this development effort together with other trading companies with the precondition that such suitable systems with necessary changes and improvements be jointly developed.

The scope to be covered by the ERP will be the whole basic business operating and managerial & administrative systems, which include sales operating systems, payment systems, accounting systems, information & communications systems, and personnel management systems. The ERP is expected to be implemented in part as models toward October 2002 and to be in place in whole toward April 2003. Then, it will be also extended in steps to major group companies in Japan.

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