[Interview with Yasufumi Takahashi, President & CEO, and Executive Officers Fumihiro Yamaguchi and Tomohide Miyamura of Miletos Inc.] Aiming to Elevate Miletos Products into the Industry Standard Alongside New Talents

Miletos Inc. operates under the mission of “transforming business processes from legacy to modern,” providing the AI-powered expense management solution “SAPPHIRE” and the payment reconciliation AI “STREAM.” We spoke with Representative Director and CEO Yasufumi Takahashi, Executive Officer / SAPPHIRE Division Head Tomohide Miyamura, and Executive Officer / STREAM Division Head Fumihiro Yamaguchi about Miletos’s business, why they joined after their experiences at Accenture, and the vision for the future. What is the unique value they describe as “delivering not a product, but the process itself”? We explore the appeal of using consulting experience to actually “create” a business.

The Business Process Transformation That Miletos Is Aiming for — “Free from Dependence on People and Paper”

— First, I’d like to ask Representative Director Takahashi. Could you tell us about Miletos’s business?

Takahashi: Miletos’s mission is to leverage AI technology to transform business processes from legacy to modern. Anchored in data utilization and advanced automation through AI, we are working to build business processes that are free from dependence on people and paper.

In pursuit of that mission, we currently offer products including “SAPPHIRE” — an AI-powered expense management and invoice payment solution that achieves both stronger governance and greater efficiency — and “STREAM,” which automates payment reconciliation with high precision and speed to make the financial picture visible and enable proactive management. That said, selling these is not the goal. What we pride ourselves on delivering is not the product, but the process itself — one that requires no human intervention.

— Mr. Miyamura, could you tell us about your work?

Miyamura: I am responsible for the business strategy of “SAPPHIRE,” our expense management product. The SAPPHIRE Division operates through two teams: a sales team and a consulting team.

The division is broadly divided into a sales team and a consulting team. The sales team handles outbound sales to large enterprises with expense management challenges, while the consulting team supports proposal work for the sales team and handles end-to-end delivery after a contract is signed — from requirements definition through to system implementation. My role is to oversee both sales and delivery. Rather than just chasing revenue, what drives my thinking is that “even if we can sell a proposal, it means nothing if we can’t actually deliver value” — and equally that “if we can’t determine from the sales stage whether we can actually deliver, and what resources it will require, we’ll inevitably hit a wall.” I run the business with that mutual dependency in mind. Sales and delivery are two sides of the same coin; neither works without the other.

— Thank you. Mr. Yamaguchi, could you tell us about your work?

Yamaguchi: I oversee the overall business strategy for “STREAM.” STREAM, alongside SAPPHIRE, is one of the core products underpinning our business, and boasts one of the fastest payment reconciliation speeds in Japan. The work of reconciling incoming payments is unglamorous, yet it is extraordinarily time-consuming. It is not uncommon for large enterprise clients to have hundreds of thousands or even millions of incoming payment records. The matching of that vast volume of billing data against incoming payment data was traditionally performed manually by tens or even hundreds of people. By automating that matching work using AI — with speed and accuracy — we aim to improve financial transparency and operational efficiency, and further accelerate the freedom and growth speed of management.

Our clients are primarily large enterprises. After a decision to implement, we continue to provide support through and after the system goes live. Because we engage on a project basis, this becomes comprehensive support for the client.

The Business Structure Behind the Two Flagship Products — “SAPPHIRE” and “STREAM”

— So each product division has both a sales function and a consulting function. Could you tell us about total headcount and how it breaks down across divisions?

Miyamura: Company-wide, we have 31 full-time employees, and including part-time and contract workers the total is around 80. The SAPPHIRE Division has approximately 5 people on the sales team — including inside sales, field sales, and sales administration — and approximately 5 to 6 on the consulting team.

— Could you tell us about the headcount composition of the STREAM Division?

Yamaguchi: It’s slightly smaller than the SAPPHIRE Division — 1 to 2 people in sales and 5 to 10 in consulting including contractors, with consultants substantially outnumbering sales. This reflects our emphasis on implementation support.

Going forward, we plan to add more people on both the sales and marketing sides to expand the business. Fortunately, client inquiries are plentiful, so our current focus is on delivering our services reliably.

— How many people typically work on a project? Could you also tell us about typical project duration?

Miyamura: In the sales phase, in principle a single sales representative faces the client. After contract signing, the delivery team consists of one to two consultants, with a separate PM also involved. For the development phase, the SAPPHIRE development team handles design, development, and testing — but this is a shared development structure across the product as a whole rather than being organized project-by-project, since customization for individual engagements and overall product feature enhancements proceed simultaneously. In terms of project duration, around two months for requirements definition, two months for development, followed by testing, gives a total standard schedule of approximately six months.

— Is the setup similar in the STREAM Division?

Yamaguchi: Because STREAM is delivered to relatively large-scale clients, the project scale is necessarily larger as well. We sometimes form project teams that include engineers and others, and it is not uncommon for those teams to number five to ten people.

On the other hand, for a smaller-scale case where only a portion of payment reconciliation needs to be implemented, a few people can handle it. However, because clients often consider adoption at the timing of an ERP replacement, projects that ultimately involve around ten people are the norm.

— In a ten-person setup, how does the team break down?

Yamaguchi: Consultants work on the client’s side to handle requirements definition, business flow definition, switchover training support, and similar work. When product customization or integration with other systems is required, one to two consulting members may be added.

There are also a handful of engineers handling development, and testers who check what has been built. Not everyone is on-site at the same time, but the team works efficiently through a division of responsibilities.

SIer and Consulting Backgrounds Thriving — The Kind of Person Miletos Is Looking For

— I’d like to ask about the kind of people you are looking for. Are there trends in the backgrounds of people who join the company — for instance, a large proportion with consulting firm experience?

Takahashi: There is certainly a tendency toward people with consulting firm backgrounds, but in the sense of being able to handle system implementation and delivery, we also think SIer backgrounds with aspirations toward consulting are a good fit.

The role is product-centric, but skills in maximizing the implementation benefit of SAPPHIRE or STREAM and in leveraging them effectively are required. We are also looking for people who can think and communicate from the client’s perspective rather than simply building what they’re told to build.

— In terms of mindset, what kind of person do you think will thrive here?

Yamaguchi: Our culture is relatively free and open, so I imagine it could be tough for someone who tends to be passive. For that reason, I think people who can proactively move on their own initiative are a better fit.

Our clients are primarily large enterprises, and their challenges are often complex. I recognize this is a more challenging environment than most. I think people who enjoy that kind of environment are the right match.

Miyamura: In the SAPPHIRE Division, there are cases where a single person handles a project. Because the majority of projects involve core systems, long-term engagements are not uncommon. For that reason, I think people who are skilled at building relationships with stakeholders, and who have strong empathy both externally and internally, tend to be a great fit. Personally, I find those kinds of people easier to work alongside and believe they tend to produce better outcomes.

Takahashi: And someone who can say “help me” when they’re stuck is important. The consultants currently here are mostly Accenture alumni, centered on people who served as Managers and Senior Managers. When you don’t know what to do, asking immediately gets you good advice. People who hesitate and find it hard to ask will probably struggle.

The Joy of “Creating” a Business — Unique Experiences Available at Miletos

— Could you tell us about what makes working at Miletos appealing and what kinds of experiences people can gain here?

Miyamura: The greatest appeal of working in the SAPPHIRE Division is the opportunity to engage in sophisticated work you can’t get elsewhere — the “mutual co-evolution of product and operations” that is unique to a SaaS vendor. We occupy a very distinctive position. We don’t simply “do whatever the client asks” like an SIer, nor do we say “we can’t change it because it’s the product specification” like a traditional package vendor. We find the optimal answer by looking at both the client’s operational challenges and the product’s possibilities. It is this complex, challenging work that makes it genuinely rewarding.

In concrete terms, at large enterprises with tens of thousands of employees, we work with clients to think deeply about “what are the challenges in our current business process?” and “how could SAPPHIRE improve this?” — and then give that concrete form as an actual system. Identifying challenges as a consultant, implementing solutions as a SaaS vendor, and watching those results be applied to other clients as well — being able to experience that entire cycle is something uniquely possible at Miletos.

— So the goal is to propose the optimal solution, not simply build what’s requested. Mr. Yamaguchi, what are your thoughts?

Yamaguchi: The STREAM Division is at a stage where we are just getting started, so the ability to accumulate a wide variety of experiences is one of the interesting aspects. Enterprise-focused solutions in the payment reconciliation domain are not necessarily mainstream, yet the demand is extremely high. We are at a moment when we are updating the product continuously as we identify client challenges, and there is also a great opportunity to gain experience from a business development perspective — thinking about how to expand this business further.

When we are providing support through execution, projects run for one to two years or more. Being engaged with a client over a period of years and working not as an advisor but on actual “business development” is a significant experience.

— So it’s possible to experience not just consulting, but ultimately the launch of a business itself.

Takahashi: That’s right. Consultants don’t often have many opportunities to actually “build” something — but thinking “I wish there was a tool for this” while engaging with client challenges is something a surprising number of consultants have experienced. Our company is a genuinely compelling and challenging place in that it allows you to actually give form to those “if only this existed” ideas and test them.

Identifying “this is the challenge” and forming a hypothesis about “this might be how to solve it” is exactly what being a consultant is about. But in the execution phase, the need for engineering capability arises, or it simply falls outside the scope of what a consulting firm does — and a gap between consultant and client can emerge.

At our company, we step into the execution phase as well, working closely with engineers to leverage the latest technology and actually build systems. That environment is, I believe, extraordinarily interesting and rewarding.

From Accenture to Miletos — Three People Describe Their Career Paths and Reasons for Making the Move

— I’d like to ask each of you about your career backgrounds. Mr. Takahashi, could you go first?

Takahashi: I joined Accenture as a new graduate, spending a long period primarily in operational consulting with some strategy projects in between. While supporting clients, I developed a desire to be involved in product development as well, and made the move to join the current company.

— I see — so the experience of consulting at Accenture is what sparked your interest in products.

Takahashi: My interest in products grew out of involvement in projects aimed at reducing the workload in back-office operations and similar areas.

But building a product and delivering value to clients are similar but distinctly different things. Solving client challenges is of course the consultant’s role, but developing a product is not. That led me to think about being able to support clients as a consultant with a product at the center — which is why I joined Miletos.

— So you weren’t a founding member of Miletos?

Takahashi: That’s right, I wasn’t. Miletos was established in 2016, and some time after that I started working at Miletos on a side-job basis. It started as a fairly casual helping hand, but in conversations with the Miletos team, when I was asked “what do you want to do?” and I talked about products, the response was “then why not try it here?” — which is how I came to be involved as a part-time contributor.

The founding president had nurtured the product seeds to a certain stage, and when it was judged that the product had value, I decided to join Miletos formally. Once the product had scaled and received investment, the founding president passed the baton to me, and that is how the current structure came about.

— Mr. Miyamura, could you tell us about your career background?

Miyamura: I spent seven years at a Japanese SI company as an engineer and programmer, working on internal systems and core system development for clients. After that, wanting to be involved in more upstream work, I moved to Accenture in 2015 and worked primarily on SI delivery for about six years. After leaving Accenture, I worked as a freelancer for about two years, and it was through those connections that I met Takahashi. I came on board as a contractor and am now a full-time employee serving as Division Head.

— Had you always been interested in programming and engineering?

Miyamura: No. I studied electrical engineering as a student, and I hadn’t originally been aiming to become an engineer. But I felt that “in the age ahead, IT skills will be essential at the business front line.” I decided to first build a solid technical foundation and then think about my career from there — which is why I started at an SIer as an engineer.

— And then you moved to Accenture — was that driven by wanting to advance your career?

Miyamura: Yes. As an engineer, my work was primarily centered on building systems to a defined specification. But I started wanting to be involved from a more fundamental level — asking what the client’s real challenges are and how they can be solved. At Accenture I experienced SI delivery where I could see across the entire project, from requirements definition through to system implementation.

— You then went through a freelance period before formally joining Miletos. How did you come to meet Miletos and decide to join?

Miyamura: Through six years at Accenture on numerous large-scale SI projects, I gradually started to feel a sense of incompleteness at the fact that “the relationship ends when the project does.” While working as a freelancer, I connected with Takahashi through a mutual acquaintance, and came to be involved in Miletos’s work as a contractor.

After actually working there, I was attracted to the possibility — as a SaaS vendor with its own product — of being involved in operational transformation at clients over the long term, and moreover of going beyond solving individual company challenges to potentially creating industry standards. That was what led me to join.

— Finally, Mr. Yamaguchi, could you tell us about your career as well?

Yamaguchi: I graduated from university and joined a major automotive manufacturer as a new graduate. I then gained experience at a foreign company specializing in big data marketing, and moved to Accenture wanting to broaden the range of proposals I could offer to client companies.

After several years as Manager in Accenture’s accounting and management control team, I was considering going independent as a freelancer when I received an invitation from Representative Director Takahashi, who had been on the same team, and joined Miletos as a contractor. My prior involvement in the payment reconciliation domain through projects at Accenture was also a factor in deciding to join.

Establishing the Industry De Facto Standard and Challenging New Domains

— I’d like to ask each of you about your vision for the future. Mr. Takahashi, could you tell us about the company’s vision and outlook?

Takahashi: We want to remain a lean, elite organization — generating new things at the right moment when they’re needed. To embody our vision of “a society where more people can create,” we first need to be in contact with the latest AI, case studies, and technology ourselves. I want to take the insights we gain from the latest developments and give them back to clients in the form of “this might be applicable here.”

— Mr. Miyamura, what is your vision?

Miyamura: I am aiming for SAPPHIRE to become the de facto standard in the industry. But that is not simply about capturing market share.

The goal is to develop the product to the point where it can genuinely be said that “if you revisit your operations to align with SAPPHIRE, your processes will naturally be optimized.” To achieve that, we need to keep evolving the product and business processes together — carefully calibrating the balance between individual client requests and industry-wide standardization, between current challenges and the future ideal state.

This is exactly Miletos’s mission of “transforming legacy processes into modern processes” — something I want to realize in the expense management domain. Being involved in a transformation that goes beyond efficiency gains for a single company and changes how an entire industry works is something I find deeply fulfilling.

— Thank you. Finally, Mr. Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi: STREAM is entering a phase I’d describe as a second founding. Going forward, I want to select the most important features and establish a standard approach — a kind of template for “how this type of work should be done” — and also define what payment reconciliation in Japan ought to look like.

One of our strengths is the ability to process hundreds of thousands to millions of incoming payment and accounts receivable records in a matter of seconds. We are also considering applying that matching algorithm to other industries and operational domains — including analytical work for the retail and distribution sector and supply chain demand forecasting — expanding beyond existing needs.

I want to take on the challenge of determining how to deploy the matching algorithm and how to make the right choices in a situation with many options.

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【Post-Interview Note】

Miletos Inc. — Company Information

Address	DAIWA Ginza Building 7F, 6-2-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
Founded	June 2016
Capital	Approx. ¥260,000,000
Representative	Representative Director & President: Yasufumi Takahashi
Employees	80 (including contractors)
Business Activities	AI product development and operation, operational improvement consulting

Miletos Inc. — Job Listings