Market Overview

The domestic telework-support application market (total seven categories, based on the sales at businesses) was estimated to have risen by 64.6 percent to 101,882 million yen.

Deployment of telework-support applications aims at creating a telework-ready environment together with cost reduction, work efficiency improvement, and paperless. In the COVID-19 calamity in 2020, the government has recommended telework from the viewpoint of infection prevention, which at once increased the number of companies implementing telework which led many telework-ready environments at companies, boosting the market expansion in FY2020.

The demand for web conference solutions and business chat tools rapidly expanded, for they are necessary to facilitate the business workflows in the telework environment. Also, aiming to solve the issues of paperwork　and of the custom of stamping documents with seals, which require employees to go to the office, workflow solutions and electronic contract services have begun being increasingly introduced. In addition, virtual office tools have started attracting attention as a means to solve an issue of a lack of communications stemming from a certain period of time passed since deployment of telework.

Noteworthy Topics

Virtual Office Tools Market Fully Launched and Likely to Grow Steadily After FY2021

Virtual office tools are the products that offer a structure to enable real-time interactive communications online. The tools have a virtual office function that builds a pseudo office in virtual space on the internet in addition to a chat function (voice/image/text), a screen sharing function, an entry/exit log function etc. The market of virtual office tools is fully launched in FY2020.

The virtual office tool market size (based on the sales at businesses) is projected to attain 2,000 million yen, 800.0 percent of the size of the previous year. As many companies suffer from loss of unity, after a certain period of telework implementation, causing a lack of communications and making some employees to feel the loneliness and being isolated. By offering virtual space to share, an immediate call out function without the need of scheduling, and a function to visualize the status of employees, virtual office tools make the environment close to a physical office online. Therefore, implementation has been growing mainly among those companies suffering from a lack of communications. The market is also booming because of increasing new entry.

Despite some challenges are yet to be solved, such as improvement of awareness and building and maintenance of customer loyalty, the demand for virtual office tools are expected to expand furthermore as a common platform for vigorous communications online in a situation where workstyles are diversifying. As the number of user companies as well as users is projected to steadily increase even after FY2022, the virtual office tool market size is expected to reach 18,000 million yen by FY2025.

Future Outlook

Although workers may resume commuting once again to a certain degree after the infections are subdued or the restrictions on events/activities are relaxed, the market forecast based on this research regards that the telework will be widely accepted by FY2025 just as the same level as FY2020, now that workers have realized the advantage of telework such as improvement in work-life balance stemming from decreased commuting hours and that user companies have acknowledged the necessity of telework as one of BCP measures and for creating an attractive working environment.

The domestic telework-related business application market size (total of seven categories) is projected to attain 132,700 million yen in FY2021, 1,302 percent of the size of the previous fiscal year. While the end of COVID-19 pandemic is still vague, the demand is expected to continue in FY2021 for building a telework implementation environment.

Digitalization and going online at companies accelerated in the COVID-19 calamity, which has fueled paperless and improved work efficiency, which are also the factors for telework-related business applications likely to expand. For instance web conference solutions are utilized in various cases including seminars, corporate training stockholders’ general meeting, employment interviews, etc. By carrying out these events online, it is expected to reduce the time spent for traveling, cut the transportation cost, etc., which leads to the applications to be used furthermore.

After FY2022, as telework pervades in corporate activities, growth of the telework-related business application market is projected to slow down. Meanwhile, digitalization and going online at companies aiming at higher work efficiency and cost reduction are likely to continue in the mid-term perspective. CAGR from FY2022 to FY2025 of the market is 11.2 percent, and the telework-related business application market size (total of seven categories) is expected to achieve 208,535 million yen by FY2025.

Research Outline