Karen Okamura, who is one of the members of Data Analytics Group, managed the entire program and also participated in the training herself.

"Basically, it was a style of online self-study using existing training programs such as Coursera and Google Cloud Skills Boost, but we had weekly sessions where we could directly ask Google Cloud representatives about any unclear points once a week. Despite the varying digital literacy levels of our team members, the program was designed in an easily digestible manner that matched each participant's level of knowledge. I had been in a sales team for the past 2.5 years and had no experience nor knowledge of cloud computing at the beginning of the program. Google Cloud representatives offered to answer questions using more familiar examples, such as use cases that were placed in the context of Shiseido. With this, I learned skills far beyond my expectations. I feel that I learned something that I could not have learned from textbooks," says Okamura.

When the program concluded in March 2023, three out of five participants obtained the advanced-level Professional Data Engineer certification. While Okamura was not one of them, she began applying her newly acquired skills in her everyday work.

"Thanks to Google Cloud Skills Boost and other training materials, I have been able to deepen my learning by connecting the dots, and move forward in honing my digital skills independently," she says.

With the success of the initial trial, Nagamori reported the results to the head of the CS&P department and made the call to implement the second round. This time, the entire CS&P department was involved, and 36 participants gathered to join the program.

"I recognized that everyone was at different stages of digital literacy, so I expanded the types of certifications to be attempted," says Okamura. "The two new programs were the entry-level Cloud Digital Leader program, and the intermediate-level Associate Cloud Engineer program which both are easy to get started with for digital beginners like me. In addition, I changed the objective of the weekly sessions with Google Cloud representatives not only to clear up any unclear points but also to use the time for self-study, and renamed it mokumoku-kai."

Ultimately, despite the fact that most of the participants were from the business department, about 70% of the 25 participants took the certification exam, and 8 of them were able to successfully acquire their respective certifications.

"In the post-participation survey, many participants said their fear of digital technology has decreased. They are now able to embrace DX and have begun thinking about how to incorporate digital transformation strategies into their work," says Nagamori. "Participants have also made counter-proposals for data utilization, such as incorporating BigQuery to make business plans. The learnings gained from the training are now being applied in their actual work beyond the framework of the program. The fact that we were able to improve the participants' knowledge of digital technology, regardless of whether they passed or failed, was a major plus point."

With these efforts in place, Okamura and Nagamori hope that the program participants will help to elevate the company's digital transformation. Nagamori said that he hopes that they would return to their departments and spread the word about this initiative, so that a company-wide DX can happen naturally.

"I can't imagine the amount of effort it would have taken if we had tried to implement an initiative like this on our own. We were able to customize an existing program for our members who are not digitally literate and I'm really grateful for that. We are planning to provide hands-on training on BigQuery, Looker, and other tools for business department members, and we are currently coordinating this with Google Cloud. I am also interested in the generative AI training programs that are being developed, and would like to incorporate them into our programs."

"In the medium to long term, we also hope to create a virtual organization within Shiseido through this initiative. The idea is that those who have participated in the training will become personnel with a "digital" tag, and by bundling them together, we can create some new value,” says Nagamori.

A total of 63 people have participated in the programs so far. "They belong to different companies and departments and have different job contents, but they are all members who have participated in this program with the same aspiration. We want to use this connection to establish a virtual organization within the company, spread the digital innovation created by a diverse range of talents within the company, and implement mechanisms to collaborate with the outside world by expanding it," says Nagamori.