Message from the President May.2023

The Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA), an incorporated administrative agency subordinate to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, published DX White Paper 2023 in March 2023. This document summarizes the digital transformation (DX) initiatives of companies in Japan and the United States, as well as the human resources, technologies, and strategies necessary for moving forward with DX.

According to the white paper, Japanese companies achieved some progress in digital optimization for the improvement of business, including the digitalization of analog and physical data and productivity improvement through the streamlining of operations. It says, however, that Japanese companies are behind their U.S. counterparts in DX, the objective of which is extending from business transformation into social transformation to create new products and services and fundamentally transform business model through customer-oriented value creation. The white paper says that Japanese companies need to pursue further initiatives.

Both the improvement of internal operations and the creation of value for customers are important. However, from the perspective of the original purpose of DX (X = transformation), I also think that we should work to be able to provide new value to customers and society through the transformation of business models that can be achieved by fully leveraging data and digital technologies.

We should first:

• increase our sensitivity to information (input) to learn about changes in the external environment, trends in advanced technologies and other information.
• imagine what will make customers and society feel comfortable and happy (art), design to achieve these ideas (design), and combine the necessary technologies (technology) to create services and products.
This cycle is important.

We are a company that contributes to the development and growth of society through the promotion of technological revolutions and innovation, which are implemented by our customers in the manufacturing industry, together with them as partners. Accordingly, through customer-oriented value creation, we are also able to contribute to creating new value for society via our customers. I ask that employees implement the above cycle while adhering to a customer-oriented approach.