Founded in 1915, Japan’s Shimane Bank has played an integral role in the country’s most sparsely populated region, funding and supporting local businesses over more than a century of change. The bank has close ties to businesses in Shimane, and a head office in historic Matsue City, home to one of Japan’s few intact 17th century castles. When Shimane Bank entered into a capital and business alliance with SBI Group in 2019, it sparked a new era of change and modernization. The alliance presented an opportunity to take a new look at old processes and modernize everything from the bank’s mobile apps to its sales systems.
With 24 branches in Shimane province and nine branches in the neighboring Tottori region, leaders at the bank pushed ahead with transformation and realized that the contracts for many of its networking switches and servers were due to expire. This presented the perfect opportunity for infrastructure renewal alongside wider transformation. Shimane Bank also knew that its previous approach of buying hardware outright and managing it directly was costly and labor-intensive, with hardware bought from varying vendors over time. The bank needed a simpler approach.
Turning to a Trusted Partner
Tsukasa Fujiwara, Business Administration Group, Shimane Bank, said: “We had introduced different networking devices at different stages over the years, which complicated asset lifecycle management. Our IT team spent many hours registering and updating inventory, checking up on contract deadlines and managing equipment replacement and disposal – leaving them with less time to dedicate to strategic work.”
Shimane Bank had previously replaced its virtualization infrastructure, introducing Lenovo’s ThinkSystem servers. That project was a success, so it was natural that the bank continued its partnership with Lenovo when updating physical infrastructure. With many tasks such as updating equipment placement still completed manually, and equipment disposal taking up time and financial resources, the bank had reached the limits of its traditional approach of purchasing, owning and managing equipment. Leaders were keen to find a more effective solution for tasks including daily operational management and long-term asset management.
Mr Fujiwara said: “In the past, we didn’t have enough storage space, so we had to manage the equipment in various dispersed locations. During the last renewal, I had to drive the truck myself to take the equipment to the disposal site.”
Freeing Up Time and Costs Through Flexibility
The shift meant that Lenovo handled all management tasks, from procuring IT equipment to renewing maintenance contracts. The bank opted to procure its latest round of hardware through Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), becoming the first financial institution in Japan to do so. The flexibility of Lenovo TruScale meant the bank could reduce upfront costs and, by offering the hardware and modular services needed via a pay-as-you-go model, released Shimane from the obligation to manage its own IT assets. Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630 V2 servers and Cisco networking equipment were also adopted through a multi-year lease arrangement.