[Sakai City, Fukui] Leveraging 'external immediate assets' to solve corporate challenges

Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture, which operates the "Professional Talent Matching Support Program" to help local SMEs and sole proprietors leverage "immediate assets" from major metropolitan areas, held a "Professional Talent Utilization Seminar" at City Hall on May 28 to recruit new participants. These "pro talents" are experts who support regional SMEs as side jobs or concurrent roles while working at major corporations. This marks the third year of the program in partnership with "Calvin" (Minato-ku, Tokyo), a support provider with an established reputation for matching and project launch support. This fiscal year, with a significantly increased budget, the city is recruiting a record 20 companies. With management environments rapidly changing due to market expansion needs, labor shortages, and AI technological evolution, participating business owners showed keen interest in leveraging external immediate assets.

Since Sakai City began the program four years ago as a policy demonstration project, a total of 21 businesses have participated across diverse sectors, including textiles, landscaping, guesthouses/restaurants, nursing care, and dry cleaning. Approximately 30 business owners attended the seminar on May 28.

Calvin Representative Director Kichika Higashi, who moderated the seminar, explained: "Due to the government's work-style reform and the legalization of side jobs, even regional SMEs that have lagged in labor shortage countermeasures or DX can now effectively utilize experts without needing to hire new full-time staff." The program features a monthly fee of approximately 30,000 to 50,000 yen and comprehensive support from consulting consultants.

In the case studies, Hiroki Hasegawa, President of Hasegawa Landscaping (Harue-cho), shared that with the help of a pro talent, they built a proprietary AI estimation system, reducing estimation time from one week to 30 seconds and increasing contract rates. Representatives from Yutic and Murata Stoneworks also reported successes in EC sales growth and management review. In the post-seminar survey, 11 out of 12 participating companies expressed a positive intent to utilize the program. Calvin President Higashi emphasized the importance of clarifying company challenges before matching and encouraged the use of their challenge-organizing mechanisms and national success case collections.