Greetings by President Keichi Kobayashi at the FY 2018 Entrance Ceremony
Congratulations to you all on joining our company. Today, I am delighted to be able to welcome 150 new colleagues to the Furukawa Electric Group spread around the world.
As I am sure you are all aware, the world situation is changing rapidly, but our company is also changing significantly. In particular, our Group management is becoming more globalized and on a consolidated basis we now have over 120 group companies spread throughout the world, with more than 50,000 group employees, and overseas sales accounting for over 50% of our sales. Our company has been able to continuously develop in this manner over the past 134 years since our founding in 1884, by carefully maintaining and passing on the principles expressed by Ichibei Furukawa as the Furukawa Electric Group’s DNA to 1) Value employees; 2) Value customers; and 3) Value new technology.
Based on the Furukawa Electric Group’s One Furukawa policy, we place importance on our common values and philosophy. We have selected five keywords to represent our Core Values, which we emphasize as values that are particularly dear to us. These are Integrity, Innovation, Addressing Reality, Ownership and Speed, and Collaboration. I would like you all to place importance on these values too and always have them in mind as you go about your work.
This year, fiscal year 2018, represents the halfway point in the midterm management plan, Furukawa G Plan 2020, which we have been working on since 2016, and will be a very important bedrock year toward realizing Delivering Sustained Profitable Growth. The accumulated results of each of you focusing on achieving your own targets, rather than expecting someone else somewhere to achieve a target, will lead to the achievement of our Group’s targets, so please have a strong awareness of this in your work.
Therefore, I would like to ask three things of each of you joining our company today.
But before I do so, please remember that safety comes first.
We prioritize safety over everything else. From today, you will each take your first step as members of our company and fully-fledged members of society. Your environment has just changed completely. It is at these times more than any others that we must brace ourselves and be alert to danger. We prioritize safety over everything else. Please impress this on your minds. I ask for your care and cooperation in this matter.
Take an interest in all your activities and enjoy intellectual discovery
The first thing I would like to ask of you is that you experience the joy of intellectual discovery. We live an era where it is difficult to predict future changes but what I am asking of you is not to simply passively deal with changes in society but to discover issues yourself and create new knowledge and new value. This is not just something to think of as part of your work. I would also like you to enjoy it, to experience the joy of discovery. This also leads to further curiosity. Please raise the antenna of your curiosity up high, take an interest in all your various activities, and create your own new knowledge. Innovation is born from combining different knowledge to create new ideas. When the knowledge that each of you has discovered is combined, new, exciting business opportunities will be born, one after another.
Be brave and share and disseminate your own opinion
The second thing I would like to ask of you is that you proactively share and disseminate your opinion. As you continue in your work with us, with curiosity and joy in the search for and discovery of knowledge, you will certainly develop your own thinking and your own opinions. When you do so, there may be times when you feel you cannot share or disseminate them out of fear that if you say them in front of your senior colleagues and superiors, you will be laughed at and shown up as being ignorant. However, the real thing to fear is not saying your own opinion and leaving it unsaid. I want you each to expand the boundaries of what you “can” and “will” do. I want you each of you to approach your own work by seeking to realize lots of “cans” and with an awareness that opinions and ideas that are borne from your “will” can lead to new products and new business that excite your senior colleagues, your superiors, and our customers, who are also our partners.
Maintain a high sense of ethics and place importance on Integrity
The third thing I would like to ask of you is that you go about your work with integrity. As you proceed in your work with us in the future, you will doubtless face numerous difficulties. At these times, please approach them by making a full-frontal attack. A company cannot survive and develop without increasing profit, but even more important than this is the greatest mission of corporate activities: to contribute to society. Today, products that we have created with pride are currently entrusted with the lives of many people all around the world, in the form of infrastructure, energy and automotive products. Let us contribute to the realization of a truly sustainable society by holding the value of Integrity dear to us and reliably maintaining quality. I ask all of you to maintain a high sense of ethics as employees of this company, and to act fairly, in good faith and with Integrity to become business people who can work with their heads held high anywhere in the world.
Finally, I would like to say that you are stepping onto a great, wide, world stage. Please pay proper attention to safety and to your health, as you aim high to perform great work on a global scale.
Welcome to Furukawa Electric Group. I have high expectations for your future.
About Furukawa Electric Group
Furukawa Electric (TSE; 5801, ISIN; JP3827200001) Group started business in 1884, when its copper-smelting facility and wire manufacturing factory was established. Since then Furukawa Electric has become pioneers in the latest technologies by addressing diverse technological issues. Furukawa Electric has released products in a number of areas, including telecommunications, electronics, automobiles, and construction, with the three types of materials it works with at their core, namely, optics, plastics, and metals. Many of these products have attained the top global market share, and all of its products have contributed to society in numerous business areas. Furukawa Electric reported consolidated revenues of JPY 843.3 billion (approximately USD 7.8B) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017.
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