News

HENNGE Starts Sales on Behalf of "kickflow," a Cloud Workflow that Streamlines Ringi and Approval Process 2023.10.24

HENNGE K.K (headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo, Representative Director, Chief Executive Officer: Kazuhiro Ogura, “HENNGE”) is pleased to announce that the company will start selling "kickflow," a cloud workflow provided by kickflow, Inc. (headquarters: Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chief Executive Officer: Taito Shigematsu, “kickflow”), on October 24, 2023.

In recent years, as part of the promotion of work style reforms in response to the changing of the times, such as paperless and remote working, there has been an increasing shift to digitalization in the areas of Ringi(*1) and approval. Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapidly growing need for cloud-based workflow systems that can complete the entire process from application to approval, regardless of work location, by digitizing the internal approval process, which until now was generally done with paper and seals. In addition, even among companies that have already digitalized the ringi process, there have been many cases where the previous generation of workflow systems were used, resulting in issues such as "high operational load," "work becoming more personalized," and "UI/UX being difficult to use."
*1 Ringi is a traditional decision-making process in Japanese companies, circulating papers to multiple divisions and obtaining approvals of parties concerned.

"kickflow" is a cloud workflow system launched in 2020 to address these issues. It has been highly evaluated for its ability to improve the speed of approving requests, reduce the man-hours of administrators, and increase corporate productivity through flexible collaboration between tools, and is rapidly being adopted by major companies and growing businesses.

HENNGE, which provides HENNGE One, a cloud security service, invested in kickflow in February 2022, believing that business synergies could be generated from both companies prviding services for corporate information system departments. (*2) Subsequently, through test marketing conducted jointly by kickflow and HENNGE, it became clear that HENNGE One users had workflow system issues and that kickflow could contribute to solving those issues.
Therefore, HENNGE made an additional investment in August 2023 (*3) and has now decided to start selling kickflow.

HENNGE will continue to provide various services and functions to solve issues faced by HENNGE One users and many other companies to further promote corporate productivity.

*2 "HENNGE Invests in kickflow, Inc., a Cloud-based Ringi and Workflow System Provider" https://hennge.com/global/info/news/20220308-kickflow-gl.html
*3 "HENNGE Invests as Lead Investor in Pre-Series A round of kickflow, Inc., the Provider of Cloud Workflow “kickflow”https://hennge.com/global/info/news/20230818-kickflow-gl.html

Comment from Mr. Taito Shigematsu, Chief Executive Officer of kickflow, Inc.
We have been very pleased with the generous support we have received from HENNGE as a shareholder, and we are very pleased to be able to pursue the same mission from now on. Today is a new starting point for us, and together we will continue to face the challenges of the information systems sector and strive to contribute to solving Japan's problems.

Comment from Yoshiki Nagatome, Director, Executive Vice President (Sales and Marketing) of HENNGE K.K.
We are very pleased to be selling kickflow at HENNGE. Among HENNGE's customers, many information system staff suffer from change and face the challenge of solving various issues both inside and outside their companies. We are confident that our close collaboration with kickflow will broaden the range of value that HENNGE can provide and contribute to further productivity improvements for our customers.

■ About kickflow
kickflow is a cloud-based approval and workflow system developed for medium-sized and large companies. kickflow is designed as "the next-generation workflow system that is easiest for enterprise companies to use" based on interviews with more than 300 companies on their issues.
It is equipped with functions that meet the needs of enterprise companies, such as "robustness against organizational and personnel changes," "rich APIs," "sophisticated UI," and "advanced security support functions," and has an extensive operational track record in companies with several hundred to several thousand employees.
URL：https://kickflow.com/

■ About kickflow, Inc.
Company name: kickflow, Inc.
Location: KS Floor, Risona Kudan Building 5F, 1-5-6 Kudan Minami, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Representative: Taito Shigematsu
Business content: Planning, development, operation and sales of “kickflow”

■ About HENNGE K.K.
HENNGE K.K. was established in November 1996. It is a SaaS company, guided by the philosophy of "liberation of technology to change the world" and it develops and sells unique services that bridge the gap between technology and reality. HENNGE provides "HENNGE One," a one-stop cloud security service enabling consolidated IDs and passwords management of multiple cloud services and "Customers Mail Cloud" which is a cloud email distribution service. Since October 2019, HENNGE had been listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), Mothers, and then, a transition was made to the TSE Growth in April, 2022.
The company name "HENNGE" originated from the Japanese character for transformation, 'HENNKA' and 'CHALLENGE', which represents its commitment to keep challenging against every change we encounter.

Company name: HENNGE K.K. (securities code: 4475)
Address: Daiwa Shibuya Square, 16-28 Nanpeidaicho, Shibuya City, Tokyo
Representative: Kazuhiro Ogura (Representative Director, Chief Executive Officer)
URL: https://hennge.com/

■ Contact information for inquiries regarding this press
HENNGE K.K.
Corporate Communication Division
Email: info@hennge.com
TEL: 03-6415-3660
Person in charge: Yano

*The names of companies, products and services mentioned in this press are trademarks or registered trademarks of HENNGE.K.K. or other related organizations.