As AI performance improves and work efficiency increases, the number of people and time required for projects will be compressed, potentially making the "man-month business" model—the mainstay of the traditional IT industry where costs are calculated based on the number of engineers and hours worked—unsustainable.
PartnershipsHitachiFujitsuFourtiens Consulting
Major Japanese SIers Accelerate Adoption of FDE Model to Counter "Man-Month" Business Model against AI
This article is a translation. Read the Japanese original
In response to this, an increasing number of major Japanese SIers are adopting the "FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)" model, a job role established by US-based Palantir, to create structures that handle everything from problem discovery to design and implementation.
In its first-quarter financial results for fiscal year 2026, Hitachi, Ltd. explicitly stated that it aims to expand its domestic FDE workforce from approximately 300 people as of July to approximately 1,000 by the end of the fiscal year, and its overseas FDE workforce from approximately 100 to approximately 350. Fujitsu stated that it has learned the FDE way of working through a six-year partnership with Palantir, and explained that it estimates approximately 150 billion yen in sales by fiscal year 2030 through business creation driven by FDE.
Additionally, NTT Data Group's Quartessence Consulting launched "FDE-style consulting" in June, aiming for sales on the scale of 10 billion yen in five years.
On the other hand, some view these movements as merely a rebranding of traditional System Integration (SI) and SES (System Engineering Service), where engineers are stationed at client sites to develop systems. The Palantir model is characterized by building client operations on top of its own product platform and feeding the insights gained on-site back into product improvement.
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- 「FDE」は常駐SEのすげ替えなのか “人月商売の死”を打破したい国内SIer、打開策は意外なところに？ （ITmedia AI+、2026-10-01）