- Henn-na Trading Co., LTD.
- Industry: Tourism
- Business Type: Travel-specialized Trading Company
- Number of Employees: 26 employees
- Purpose of System Development: Purchase Order Management System

### Interviewee and Interviewer

- CTO Mr. Arata Aoshima (Henn-na Trading Co., LTD.)<br>
- Project Manager Yuko Fujino (Jitera Inc.)

Founded in 2017 as a specialty trading company in the tourism industry, Henn-na Trading Co., LTD. has contributed to the operational efficiency and digital transformation of the industry through the wholesale of supplies and consumables to hotels and inns, as well as the introduction of robots and system development leveraging technology.

However, the order management for consumables and supplies had yet to break free from an environment heavily reliant on phone and fax, leading to person-dependent and inefficient processing tasks and challenges in order management.

To address these issues, the development of a purchase order management system aimed to improve operational efficiency in the old-fashioned hotel industry, leading to the creation of the hotel and lodging digital transformation platform "Rakuder."

We interviewed Mr. Arata Aoshima, CTO of Henn-na Trading Co., LTD., and Yuko Fujino, a Project Manager at Jitera, to learn about the reasons behind choosing Jitera as the developer for Rakuder, their user-centric system development, and their pursuit of convenience.

### Challenges

・Telephone, FAX, and email are the main forms of personal ordering and receiving operations<br>
・Inefficient processing operations and order receipt management

### Solution

・Development of a system that can manage everything from ordering to inspection work for hotels, trading companies, and suppliers

### Expected Effects

・Anyone can do ordering work<br>
・Inspection work can be done on a smartphone, preventing omissions in inspection<br>
・Hotels, trading companies, and suppliers can manage orders on the same system

# The "Proposal" of a Step-Up System was a deciding factor in choosing Jitera

― Please tell us about the challenges you faced in the old-fashioned hotel industry and the background to your decision to solve them using "Rakuder".

**Aoshima**: The task of ordering in the hotel industry still mainly involves using the phone, fax, or email, and data is not centrally managed, so to speak, orders are made based on "intuition and experience", which was a problem.

Each hotel has introduced systems aimed at improving operational efficiency, but they have not penetrated the industry much, and many operations still rely on cumbersome and individual experience and intuition.

In addition, the hotel industry is facing a serious shortage of manpower. If we don't change the way we order throughout the industry, we won't be able to go on, as we don't have enough manpower.

In this situation, we, as a specialist trading company in the tourism industry, launched a project to create an "integrated ordering system" and turn it into a platform, with the intention of "wanting to solve the major challenges facing the industry".

In the course of this, we held a competition, and among several applicants, Jitera made a proactive proposal, saying, "If you have the budget you have given us, we can develop this as well as the requirements you have given us", so we chose them as our development partner.



![https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder青島さまSP(w358).png](https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder%E9%9D%92%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%95%E3%81%BESP%28w358%29.png)




![https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder青島さまPC(w720).png](https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder%E9%9D%92%E5%B3%B6%E3%81%95%E3%81%BEPC%28w720%29.png)



# Polishing Products to Match the Unique Challenges and Needs of the Industry

― What were the difficulties in developing Rakuder?

**Fujino**: In developing Rakuder, we had to be aware of three users: "hotels", "trading companies", and "suppliers".

Thanks to the strong commitment of the Henn-na Trading Co., LTD. to solve the challenges of the industry, the development project became much larger than we initially expected, and the requirements kept increasing, saying, "We want to do this, and we want to do that." Defining the requirements while considering the overall optimization, such as choosing and prioritizing the functions to be developed, was a very difficult task.



![https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder藤野SP(w358).png](https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder%E8%97%A4%E9%87%8ESP%28w358%29.png)




![https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder藤野PC(w720).png](https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder%E8%97%A4%E9%87%8EPC%28w720%29.png)



**Aoshima**: In the initial release stage, we were aiming to make the system usable at a minimum level on site, but after that, we added more functions as we heard from users and improved the product. There was a request for a chat function, and we developed it. In the hotel industry, phone and email are the main communication means, but there is a trend, especially among the younger generation, to use chat for communication, and it's easy to send messages at any time, so we developed a chat function. Hotels have night shifts, and often the timing of calls is outside business hours, so the advantage of being able to send messages at any time is significant.

**Fujino**: In addition, in the hotel industry, there is often the need to go to the warehouse, not in front of the desktop, to do inspection and ordering. For this reason, we needed to check on our smartphones, and we received a request from users to be "mobile responsive". So, we improved Rakuder to be easy to use on mobile devices.

Until now, the means of checking inspections on the trading company side was limited, but now that we can immediately check the acceptance inspection at the hotel on the system, we have been able to reduce communication costs.

In addition, there are five types of documents implemented, including estimates, orders, vouchers, delivery notes, and invoices, and we have also included a function for users to download them. In the future, we plan to add receipts as well. In order to improve the efficiency of all hotel operations, we want to continue to improve Rakuder.

!["Solution"](https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder_imageSolution.jpg "Solution")

# Quickly Adding Necessary Features and Improving Products Based on User Feedback

― Rakuder is now being used in several hotels and is actually being used on site. What kind of reputation or feedback do you get?

**Aoshima**: Currently, we have several hotels using it as monitors, and we are asking them to give us any problems or improvements they have.

From the hotels that are actually using Rakuder, we are able to get a variety of opinions and feedback, such as "I want you to do this part like this" or "If there is such a function, it would be convenient".

Because they are using the tools thoroughly, we can find improvements that we wouldn't notice otherwise, and get hints on how to make a better product.

― As Jitera supports development, could you tell us your impressions of the current finish?

**Aoshima**: Overall, the system is very user-friendly, even though I asked for a lot of functionalities. Also, because it covers all the functions needed for ordering operations, I think it is in a state where we can confidently put the product out into the world at this stage.

!["Feature"](https://corpsite-backend-staging-retool.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/Rakuder_imageFeature.jpg "Feature")

**Fujino**: Thank you for your evaluation. However, there are still many things we want to do.

Currently, hotels are ordering consumables and equipment from the Henn-na Trading Co., LTD., but there are also orders through EC sites, which makes the management of invoices on the hotel side complicated. To address this, if we link Rakuder to external EC sites to create order requests, we can manage orders centrally on Rakuder. We are thinking of improving the product in the future to achieve such functionality.

In terms of product development, we implemented the basic features necessary for ordering and designed graphical displays of the aggregate results of the data ordered by the hotel, and we developed the product with a commitment to various details.

In particular, when we released a feature that extracts the administrative function that Henn-na Trading Co., LTD. has and opens the trading company functions to external trading companies, I felt that it was a major hurdle in the development phase. It was quite a labor-intensive task to develop while considering various patterns that could be expected when ordering equipment.

**Aoshima**: Hotels do not only procure goods from us, but also trade with many other companies. It was necessary to develop a system to manage orders centrally in Rakuder, but the modification work, which we expected to take about three months, was completed in a short lead time of one month by Jitera's engineers. I was really impressed. Once again, I am amazed at their high technical and implementation skills.

# Jitera's Development Support has a "Passion" and "Bond" that Goes Beyond "Running Alongside"

― If you were to recommend Jitera to other companies, what do you think are the merits or strengths?

**Aoshima**: I feel that they have a deep understanding of the product called Rakuder. They are not just a software development company that we hire for system development, but they are involved in the process of making the product with us, which is very helpful.

I feel a sense of spirit in them, as they are not just supporting us in running alongside us, but also pouring their passion into wanting to contribute to the digital transformation of the hotel industry with us.

In addition to understanding the business and making proposals, thinking about what the product should be and leading the development is exactly what I think is a great strength of Jitera.

― Finally, could you tell us about the goals you have in mind for the future?

**Aoshima**: We want to become like a "digital transformation trading company" that leads the digital transformation of the hotel industry.

Recently, we have been moving from selling "things" to selling "experiences". What we sell is a system or a thing, but what we provide is digital transformation, so it's selling services.

We feel a strong need to change from a traditional "trading company" in order to continue to provide value to hotels by improving Rakuder.

In addition, while the main focus is currently on ordering, we would like to evolve it into a platform that can also be used for hotel management in the future. For example, we have a vision of expanding the added value provided by Rakuder by leveraging data analysis to predict demand, etc.

We aim to create a world where hotels can do everything they want or need to do using Rakuder when they want something or want to do something.

Rakuder product page: https://rakuder.jp/

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