Headquartered in Japan with international subsidiaries in three countries, Global Innovation Consulting Inc. (GIC) wanted a single accounting system for all overseas offices. Committed to help home-grown businesses to expand successfully overseas and providing support for their international partners, GIC decided to deploy GLASIAOUS for its bookkeeping needs for clients and to align its own global practices.
〇 Cloud-based solution for global adoption
〇 End-to-end outsourced bookkeeping services
Since its inception in 2011, GIC has been serving strategic business solutions from the offices in Japan, the Philippines, Myanmar and the United States. The business consultancy is dedicated to helping companies grow internationally with collaborative solutions, provision of bilingual IT engineering staffing services, and offshore developer support in Myanmar.
The company is powered by a strong workforce with 90% Burmese and the rest being Japanese and Filipinos. “Developing an international expansion strategy for local companies has been our mission,” said Mr. Iwanaga Tomoyuki, President of GIC. “We have launched the Burmese staffing services programme in view of the manpower shortage issues faced by some of our Japanese clients.”
The Burmese employees are tasked with different functions including accounting, general affairs, sales and marketing, and have been the key business driver of GIC. “Our Burmese colleagues do not just work in Myanmar as most would have assumed. They are in fact taking on assignments as required at all of our international offices,” added Mr. Iwanaga.
The issue with the accounting business process at GIC was that each office had its own system due to differences in language, currency and tax rules. “It required a lot of time and efforts to track financial information in the subsidiaries,” said Okabe Kiyoto, Management Director of GIC. “We had little choice but to communicate with each office separately to obtain the data we were looking for. We would have to leave the month-end close be handled by individual office and could only review the global performance at the end of the year.”
Without a comprehensive, unified accounting system, GIC was operating its business in the financial dark. The company realized it was imperative to overhaul the global accounting system and process.
GIC chose to go with GLASIAOUS back in September 2017 as their preferred single accounting platform. Upon a satisfactory review of the system’s usability and functions in the U.S., GIC officially launched the GLASIAOUS system in all offices in April 2018.
Software as a Service (SaaS) was the deal breaker in GIC’s decision to go with GLASIAOUS. SaaS is the ideal cost-effective solution for branch offices that are located miles away from the headquarters.
It requires no effort from the user to install and maintain the server and network. It also eliminates the cost of implementation and operation as the system can be accessed anywhere, anytime as simple as having an internet connection.
“No other systems fit our requirements as well as GLASIAOUS,” said Mr. Iwanaga. “The bookkeeping outsourcing services enabled by its cloud accounting application are essential for our clients. Currently, we are providing such services for 20 or so Japanese companies in the Philippines with five CPAs on site. We will be applying the GLASIAOUS solutions for our new clients in the country, and to launch the same services in Japan in the near future.”
GLASIAOUS enables inter-office accounting system integration at GIC.
“Thanks to GLASIAOUS, we can now effectively track the finances in our subsidiaries in an accurate and timely manner,” said Mr. Okabe. The single system also enables flexibility in manpower allocation. “Let’s say a Burmese accountant in the Japanese office who has to go back home, he or she can still continue to work on the same project utilizing GLASIAOUS in the Myanmar office,” added Mr. Okabe.
As head of accounting and administration at GIC’s headquarters, Ms. Zin Hnin Pwint finds AR settlement could not be simpler and easier with GLASIAOUS. “A job that usually takes two days to finish can now be done in half a day,” said she. Business Manager Ms. Htwe Htwe Hlaing in the same department has also been impressed with the new platform. “The process of generating invoices used to be so much more complicated with multiple accounting softwares. The GLASIAOUS system has made the exercise a breeze by comparison.”
Mr. Iwanaga believes the advantage of GLASIAOUS is more than just accounting excellence. “We can now gather necessary information for reporting to the board of directors in just a few days. Integrating scattered data is made easier. GLASIAOUS has enabled us to make quicker, smarter and more accurate decisions and responses to business issues.”
GLASIAOUS will perform the key role in global business management success as GIC goes public in the future.
