With tools eligible for the “Digitalization/AI Introduction Subsidy 2026” being announced one after another, “DX Promotion Exhibitions” are being held nationwide. Meanwhile, reports reveal the “profit mechanism” of IT consultants pushing “just go digital.” These two news items reflect two sides of the same coin. It is the precarious reality of IT investment where the “means” take precedence, leaving the “purpose” behind. Executives, CTOs, and IT managers must be aware of this structure, or they risk watching precious funds and time vanish into “repeatedly purchased tools.”
The Subsidy and Exhibition-Fueled “Proliferation of Means”
The “Digitalization/AI Introduction Subsidy 2026” is an attractive support measure offering up to 4.5 million yen. Many SaaS vendors, starting with Ingage’s Re:lation, are touting their “eligible tool certification.” Simultaneously, exhibitions like the “Digitalization/DX Promotion Exhibition (ODEX)” featuring participants like Kobe City gather the latest tools and services under one roof.
This scene may initially appear as a tailwind for digitalization. However, viewed calmly from a management perspective, a critical “vacuum of purpose” exists here. The subsidy focuses on “what to introduce,” and the exhibition revolves around “what can be sold.” The crucial management judgment—”why, what, and in what order should we act to solve our company’s business challenges?”—often gets drowned out in this clamor.
Chigasaki City’s formulated “Digital Transformation Promotion Policy 2030” is an important step in establishing a long-term vision at the municipal level. But among private companies, especially SMEs, how many organizations have clearly defined their own “DX promotion policy” *before* tool selection?
The IT Consultant’s “Structure of Dependence” for Repeated Earnings
The “profit mechanism” of IT consultants pushing “just go digital” is, in short, a business model of continuously selling unintegrated point solutions.
They propose “point” solutions that quickly address the “pain points” of individual departments (e.g., sales list management, accounting invoicing, HR attendance tallying). Salesforce customization, RPA implementation, migration to cloud accounting software… Each might indeed bring short-term efficiency gains. However, these solutions lack the “line” or “plane” perspective of designing data flow and process reproducibility for the company as a whole.
What happens as a result? The tool introduced in Department A cannot integrate with Department B’s tool. Data becomes siloed, and management cannot see integrated numbers in real-time. When the “next pain point” inevitably arises, yet another point solution is needed. Consultants can turn the very result of “integration failure” into their next business opportunity. They can remain involved repeatedly with a single client through customization, integration work, and proposals for successor systems. This is not malice but an inevitable consequence when the objective function is set to “solving individual problems” rather than “optimizing the entire business.”
What Management Should “Buy” is Not a Tool, but a “State”
What we must fundamentally re-examine here is what management is actually purchasing through IT investment. Often, it is the “means” itself, like “n licenses of Salesforce” or “implementation man-hours for RPA.” However, what should truly be purchased is the “state” where customer information is centrally managed, sales activities are visualized, and budget-actual management is automated.
If a specific tool is one means to achieve this “state,” then that tool is fine. But purchasing only the tool without the blueprint for this “state” (= the overall picture of workflow and data integration) is like buying the finest building materials without a house plan. The material suppliers (IT vendors/consultants) may be pleased, but there’s no guarantee a livable house will be built.
This blueprint is precisely the “purpose” that management must define for themselves before “delegating” to IT experts. “Implement a CRM to increase customer satisfaction” is too vague. It needs to be specified to the level of: “Shorten the lead time from order to delivery from the current 20 days to 14 days through full data visualization, thereby reducing related inquiry handling labor by 50 hours per month. To achieve this, integrate sales management tool X, core system Y, and support tool Z via data item A.”
“Design of Reproducibility” as a Core Management Task
Excellent management is nothing other than the excellent design of reproducibility. Reproducibility of quality, service delivery, profit generation. IT is the most powerful apparatus for mapping, reinforcing, and automating this “reproducibility” into the digital space.
Therefore, the essence of IT investment can be reframed as an investment in the “blueprint for reproducibility”. If this blueprint is clear, tool selection naturally narrows down. For instance, if you want to design the reproducibility of “unifying sales pipeline stages across the company and automatically generating probability-weighted sales forecasts,” then pipeline management functionality becomes essential, eliminating options like simple business card management tools.
Re-examine the subsidy and exhibition from the introduction through this lens. Can you clearly document the “design of reproducibility”—”which business processes will be redesigned and which metrics will be improved to what extent by introducing this tool”—in the subsidy application? When walking the exhibition floor, can you view tools with the filter: “Which of these are components that can realize the reproducibility my company wants to design?”
Practical Steps: Three Questions to Break Free from Dependence
To escape the cycle of “selling means” and start “purchasing the design of reproducibility,” pose the following three questions to yourself and vendors the next time you consider an IT investment.
1. What successful pattern do we want to “solidify” with this investment?
“Want to streamline operations” is insufficient. Identify a specific “pattern,” such as: “Automate the monthly departmental expense report compilation task on the 25th, reducing it from the traditional 3 person-days to 0.5 person-days.” This is the concrete image of reproducibility.
2. Which data flow within the company should that pattern connect to?
Expense report data doesn’t end once payment is complete. It is data that should connect to departmental budget management, project costing, and financial statement materials. Ask whether this tool implementation will merely reinforce existing data silos or bridge them.
3. How will we measure, and who will judge, that this “state” has been achieved?
Define the goal not as “the day the tool was implemented” but as “the day reproducibility was designed.” The criterion is whether the pattern defined in question 1 is actually functioning. Consider changing the contractual deliverable with vendors or consultants from an “Implementation Report” to a “Reproducibility Operation Report.”
Conclusion: The Executive’s Role is to Become an “IT Architect”
The wave of digitalization and the various businesses that leverage it will not stop. The key is not to be swept away by the current but to turn it into a driving force toward your company’s destination.
For this, what is required of executives is not to become experts in minute technical details but to fulfill the role of an “IT Architect”. An architect may not be intimately familiar with concrete mix ratios or pipe diameters, but they define the quality of life or work to be conducted there and draw the overall blueprint (purpose) to realize it. Then, based on that blueprint, they delegate work to carpenters (in-house teams) or specialist contractors (vendors).
The “Digitalization/AI Introduction Subsidy 2026” must not be a subsidy for buying building materials without a blueprint. It should be utilized as a valuable opportunity and funding for drawing your company’s “blueprint for reproducibility.” Exhibitions are useful as venues for gathering information on the latest materials and construction methods, but the information obtained there must always be evaluated and selected against the backdrop of your own company’s blueprint.
Lurking within the phrase “just go digital” is an escape from this design work. When executives withdraw from this core task, that void will inevitably be filled by the “sale of means.” What your company purchases next should not be merely a software license, but “digital-enabled reproducibility” itself, which supports sustainable growth.
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