Otsuka Pharmaceutical is engaged in two businesses: a medical business that provides support from diagnosis to treatment of diseases, and a nutraceutical business that supports the maintenance and promotion of good health. In 1998, the company began selling Pocari Sweat, a health drink, in Thailand through local distributors and affiliated companies. In May 2017, Otsuka Nutraceutical (Thailand) Co., Ltd / Otsuka Nutraceutical (Thailand) Co., Ltd ("ONTC") was established to expand the health drink and food business.

Since there were many documents that needed to be signed in the approval workflow of daily operations at ONTC, a major challenge was how to reduce the number of such documents and establish a system that allows approval whenever and wherever the company's top management is located. Therefore, the company initially established an approval workflow mechanism by utilizing cloud-based business application development tools and Excel to streamline the signing of documents.

Although the approval flow was partially systematized, the remaining issue was inventory management. Inventory was managed using an Excel-based system, and when data was linked to the accounting system, it had to be manually entered, and there were also checks and approvals to be performed. Under such a management system, in addition to the errors associated with manual input, another concern was that the data could be lost if the Excel files were corrupted.
We needed a drastic measure to manage everything from inventory control to accounting in one system," said Takao Kushida, Managing Director of ONTC.

Against this background, Otsuka Pharmaceutical began selecting a system to be introduced to ONTC. The study was based on the premise that the system should be cloud-based and easy to check from the Japanese side, and that it should be able to manage inventory, calculate costs for products manufactured on an OEM basis, and provide support locally. The GLASIAOUS was selected based on a comprehensive evaluation of its realistic cost and intuitive operability.

Mr. Ohnwipa Boonanantabut, Finance & Accounting Manager of ONTC, commented on the implementation of GLASIAOUS: "At first, it took some time to understand the workflow, exporting reports and converting them to Thai, but our local partner company (BBS (Thailand) Co. Ltd., a member of the GLASIAOUS Consortium, provided on-site support, so the implementation went smoothly and we are now using the system without any problems.

Regarding the effectiveness of the GLASIAOUS implementation, ONTC's Accounting Officer Inthuon Noipa said,
"It's truly convenient to be able to immediately check data from various departments within one system. For instance, if one wanted to verify the numbers on an invoice, previously inventory and production management were managed on separate Excel sheets, so one had to ask the respective in-charge persons to understand the figures. With GLASIAOUS, you can check the necessary information with just one click."
In addition, previously, information on invoices was not easily communicated to the accounting staff, but with the introduction of GLASIAOUS, the information can now be processed quickly and accurately.

Mr. Boonanantabut said, "Accounting work has become easier because we can automate everything from entering invoices to accounting and uploading data to the banking system. Before, I used to work overtime until 10 or 11 pm for the closing process, but after introducing GLASIAOUS, I no longer have to work overtime and can go home on time," he says.
Mr. Kushida said, "We used to print out invoices and other documents on paper for storage, but with the introduction of GLASIAOUS, we were able to go paperless and eliminate the need for storage space. I thought GLASIAOUS was a very flexible system, and it has helped our field personnel more than I could have imagined," he said.