Fuji Oil Europe digitizes business processes: from paper flow to Power Platform
When Fuji Oil Europe wanted to revamp its intranet a few years ago, the food producer turned to AXI. What started as a classic Microsoft 365 project grew into a far-reaching digitization trajectory in which dozens of processes now run entirely through the Power Platform.
“The collaboration with AXI has become a true partnership,” says Stijn D’Hondt, Finance & IT Manager at Fuji Oil Europe. “They contribute ideas, bring new perspectives, and ensure that we work more efficiently, step by step.”
Fuji Oil Europe is part of the Japanese Fuji Oil Group and produces vegetable oils and fats for the food industry. From its site in Ghent, the company supplies cocoa butter substitutes and special oils for chocolate and bakery applications, among other things. With over 175 employees and a strong focus on R&D, Fuji Oil serves an international customer base in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
The challenge: time-consuming, paper-based processes
When Fuji Oil Europe wanted to revamp its intranet in 2019, the company resolutely opted for Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. The aim was to create a modern digital workplace with greater collaboration and knowledge sharing. A second goal soon emerged: replacing manual, paper-based processes with digital flows.
“We wanted to get rid of the paperwork that kept going from one department to another,” says Stijn D’Hondt. “That kind of flow took weeks, and documents sometimes got lost. Everyone worked in silos, with no visibility on progress.”
The internal IT team quickly realized that digitizing these flows would save a lot of time. In addition, the outdated working method caused frustration and limited transparency.
The solution: Power Apps as the engine of efficiency
Together with AXI, Fuji Oil Europe built a series of Power Apps on the Microsoft 365 platform, step by step. The first and most important application was the product initiative flow, a complex approval flow that connects various departments: from R&D and Sales to Production, Quality, and Logistics.
“In the past, the entire process was done on paper,” explains D’Hondt. “Now, each department fills in its part via the Power App. Everyone can see where the file is and what steps still need to be taken. That saves a lot of time and frustration.”
The results are clear:
- Time savings: the process for creating a new product in SAP has been reduced to approximately one week.
- Transparency: everyone can track the status of each file.
- Data quality: errors and lost documents are a thing of the past.
AXI built a Power app application that supports Fuji Oil's product initiative flow, a complex approval flow that connects R&D, sales, production, quality, and logistics.
Meanwhile, AXI has worked with Fuji Oil Europe to build more than ten Power Apps, including applications for customer and supplier creation, credit notes, catering orders, and investment requests.
“We work with AXI to identify what is useful, map out the flow with the departments involved, and AXI translates that into a working application,” says D'Hondt. “And in the meantime, we continue to fine-tune the applications.”
Meanwhile, AXI has worked with Fuji Oil Europe to build more than ten Power Apps, including applications for customer and supplier creation, credit notes, catering orders, and investment requests.
Flexible and cost-efficient
One of the advantages of this approach is that Fuji Oil makes maximum use of its existing Microsoft 365 licenses. No separate software licenses are required, only the development costs for the apps.
In addition, the applications are easily customizable. “Because we are familiar with the logic of Power Apps, we can manage a lot ourselves,” says D'Hondt. “That makes us flexible. We don't have to go to a software supplier for every change.”
This is also interesting from a financial point of view: there are no recurring license costs, and adjustments can be made internally.
A partnership that grows with you
AXI has been supporting Fuji Oil Europe since 2019. What started with the setup of the intranet has grown into a close partnership around the digital workplace and process optimization.
“What I appreciate about AXI is that they don't just do what we ask,” says D'Hondt. “They challenge our ideas and come up with improvements themselves. For example, they came up with the proposal for an onboarding and offboarding app. We hadn't thought of that ourselves.”
Today, Fuji Oil Europe is continuing to work on the integration of Power Apps with SAP, including for the automatic creation of customers and suppliers. In addition, applications for plant maintenance and further automation of financial processes are being explored.
“We see many more opportunities to link with SAP and thus avoid manual work,” says D'Hondt. “AXI now knows our company inside out, so we can move quickly.”
