Case Study: NEC Solution Innovators cuts release cycles from eight months to one week with Microsoft Azure

NEC Solution Innovators turns to DevOps built on Microsoft Azure and OSS and gets amazing results

NEC Solution Innovators, Ltd., the NEC Group’s software development and system-integration arm in Japan, faced slow, siloed waterfall development with long release cycles (about eight months), limited development resources, and difficulty responding to changing user requirements—risks that threatened overwork and delays for municipal customers that account for a large share of revenue.

The company adopted a DevOps approach on Microsoft Azure combined with open-source tools (Visual Studio Team Services, Docker on CentOS/Ubuntu, SonarQube, Terraform, Spring/Angular), built an automated pipeline, and delivered a Workplace Environment Improvement Tool in three months. Release cycles fell from eight months to as little as one week, pre-release costs dropped to about ¥5 million versus much higher traditional costs, and the organization shifted to rapid, iterative delivery with weekly releases and broader DevOps adoption.

NEC Solution Innovators

Tomohiro Fukui

Manager, Information Systems Division