■Future outlook
1. Earnings forecast for the fiscal year ending 2025/2
The company plan for the fiscal year ending 2025/2 of WingArc 1st ＜4432＞ is that sales revenue is 27,600 million yen, up 7.2% from the previous fiscal year, operating profit is 8,000 million yen, up 9.5%, EBITDA is 9,470 million yen, and net income attributable to owners of the parent company is 5,800 million yen, up 7.2% from the same period. The fiscal year ending 2025/2 is the third term of the “Mid-Term Management Policy” announced in January 2022, and it is expected that business expansion will progress mainly in the cloud.
Sales revenue from forms and document management solutions is expected to increase 10.3% from the previous fiscal year to 18,200 million yen. We will focus on developing the electronic form platform “invoiceAgent,” which aggregates, distributes, and optimizes forms distributed between companies. Large companies place importance on the realization of DX that is closely linked not only to the field of forms but also to core systems. For this reason, we are improving the function of “invoiceAgent” so that the standard standard “Peppol” for electronic documents recommended by the Digital Agency can also be utilized. Also, in form-related business, it is important to completely digitize not only customers but also business partners. Although the invoice system and the revised electronic book storage law were enforced in the 2024/2 fiscal year, cooperation between companies is sometimes insufficient because companies have introduced different form systems. According to the company's survey, 55.5% of company employees responded that they use different form systems for storage/management and receipt. Of these, 90.8% feel a decline in work efficiency, and 76.6% are concerned about the increased risk of information leakage. The company captures such demand and aims to have 1,000 to 1,100 cloud contractors.
Meanwhile, in data empowerment solutions, the importance of low code/no code development is increasing due to the expansion of DX, and we aim to advance into the same market. There is a low-code development market in the neighboring area of the BI market, which is the company's main battleground. The basic functions of BI are those that aggregate and visualize data, but rather than developing and introducing many programs to that market, we aim to advance into an area where various tasks can be easily performed by utilizing data aggregated and visualized by BI. For example, simple problem solving is possible with BI aggregation and visualization, but in the case of the company, if the functions of “MotionBoard” are incorporated into this, problem solving in line with individual operations becomes possible. Also, for large enterprises, etc., which the company excels at, we aim to acquire them, including subsidiaries, etc. through “Dataring.” By storing system-managed information and data created in Excel etc. that have not been systemized (such as holding a site etc. at hand) in a database, these can be used for business/management such as business analysis/sales process analysis/sales management, etc., and it can also be used for site operations such as construction sites, farm management, and operation information. Cooperation with “Dr.Sum” (storage/aggregation), “MotionBoard” (visualization), and “invoiceAgent” (storage/operation of forms) is also possible to respond to different business processes for each enterprise. We have already acquired flagship projects, and the idea is to launch them in the future while firmly constructing account plans, etc. Also, in 2024/3, “Dr.Sum Copilot,” which enables collaboration with the generative AI “ChatGPT,” was released. The database engine makes it possible to generate programming languages SQL and Python, and data processing man-hours can be drastically reduced. We aim to win the market by lowering it down to the business level.
Furthermore, we will work on public markets. There are three areas of local government-related businesses: the My Number system, the agency DX system, and the residents' contact system, and quasi-public businesses where local governments carry out regional revitalization. After introducing “SVF,” “Dr.Sum,” “MotionBoard,” and “invoiceAgent” into these areas, we will build alliances with companies with knowledge in each area, and aim to expand into the same market.
(Written by Yasushi Inoue, FISCO Guest Analyst)