Stakeholder Dialogue
—Advancing Business Management through Dialogue with External Experts

Mitsui Fudosan’s purpose is clarified in its Group statement: “The Mitsui Fudosan Group aims to bring affluence and comfort to urban living.” This statement expresses the Group’s aim to contribute to a sustainable society through urban development. The real estate industry has a natural affinity with ESG, and employees have internalized the mission to enrich people’s lives through urban development. Sustainability includes three meanings: “sustainability of the earth = environmental coexistence”; “sustainability of people = health and longevity”; and “sustainability of the economy = creation of new industries.” These concepts underpinned our smart city projects in Kashiwa-no-ha and Nihonbashi.

External partnerships are essential in the real estate business today. For example, to create a smart city, it is absolutely necessary to cooperate with various industries in areas such as the development of urban operating systems and infrastructure, including institutions for science and education.
This is why I want to create social value by developing ecosystems with an increasing number of partners that share the same values and aim to “achieve a good balance of ESG, innovation, and earning power in their core business.” It is necessary to enable customers to understand social value, and employees also need to recognize social value as a competitive advantage. Fujitsu refers to global sustainability in “Our Purpose,” and I have high expectations for our partnership with Fujitsu and our goal to jointly develop an ecosystem to help solve social issues through business.

Human economic benefit has been prioritized over a responsible use of the earth’s resources, leading to damage to common property and impacting climate change. There is a need to realize “good capitalism” by combining the power of digital transformation (DX) and sustainability transformation (SX). This formula will also lead to greater resilience in corporate management. The environment for companies has changed drastically over the past few years, and management has become something of a mixed martial art. It is no longer sufficient to simply disclose financial information; managers now need to skillfully combine financial and non-financial information, back their information up with data and actively engage in dialogue with investors and other stakeholders to enable them to understand their company’s value.

At the same time, internal dialogue is also very important. As corporate organizations become more and more diverse, they need to communicate the “why”—the reason for their existence—convincingly and adjust their organizational direction accordingly. In other words, this is a company’s purpose. During the process where companies internalize their purpose as part of themselves, people start to engage in many dialogues, which creates a participative management and ultimately drives transformation.

The “why” is also an important question for technology. By continuing to ask why technology is important and how it can contribute to solving social issues, Fujitsu can realize good technologies and become a leader in DX and SX.

The key to success in purpose-driven management is human capital, and it is vital to develop employees to the fullest extent of their potential. Recently, Fujitsu seems to be creating a corporate culture encouraging people who learn autonomously. I hope the Fujitsu Group will continue to promote purpose-driven management through engagement with its employees.

Looking at international conferences like the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, it seems that many leading companies are promoting sustainability management that combines their business with ESG initiatives, and not sustainability management in the sense of simple, traditional CSR activities. Like many of these progressive companies, Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd. is taking the same approach. In 2021, Fujitsu decided on seven Key Focus Areas for growth, while repeatedly going back to the question, “Why Fujitsu?” In this particular dialogue, I felt there was a need to strive even harder to unify our business with ESG initiatives and contribution to society.

Innovation is necessary for transformation. Therefore, diversity and conflict are also important elements. Healthy conflict is generated by dialogue in situations where diverse people with diverse values come together. This generates ideas and innovation, enabling the creation of innovative services.

I have heard a good deal of advice from both of our experts about the necessary transformations for Fujitsu to realize its Purpose. We will demonstrate our leadership as a technology company at the forefront, aiming to solve pressing global issues such as climate change and natural disasters.

During my time working in the United Kingdom as the Head of Global Delivery, I was immersed in a diverse workforce and this made me realize how important it is to create an inclusive work environment with dynamic engagement. My experiences working in this global role also shaped my understanding of issues regarding transformation. In the past, our strategic thinking has been focused on the Japanese market with separate management approaches for our businesses inside and outside of Japan. This has now shifted to us formulating and implementing corporate strategies from a global perspective in terms of markets, customers, and values. By having a global perspective, we open ourselves up to learning from others, challenging the way we do things and finding new ways to achieve sustainable growth.

Diverse teams and companies make better decisions and can drive real progress as different voices can be heard and opinions considered. Communication is key in the global workplace to bring this to a reality, and it empowers us to move toward a common goal. It ensures we have effective engagement among our colleagues, customers and stakeholders, which is of the utmost importance.

In 2020, we established a non-financial performance indicator that is now standard practice for many global companies. These measures provide a closer link to our long-term organizational strategies and alignment with Our Purpose. We will strive to achieve these non-financial indicators that we have set, and in doing so, we will transform ourselves and our customers, which will contribute to creating a more sustainable world.

I started my career in Silicon Valley. Today, we are working to bring the individual purposes of our employees into closer alignment with the Fujitsu Group’s Purpose to create a strong driving force. However, this is a difficult task, as our employees worldwide have different cultures and ways of thinking. I, myself, too, felt confused over cultural differences and customs when I first came to Japan. I am certain that it is important to constantly engage in dialogue, and to improve our ability to engage in constructive dialogue.

As we promote seven Key Focus Areas through Our Purpose- and data- driven approach, technology plays an extremely significant role. Our aim is to use technologies in which we are strong, like AI, security, supercomputing, and quantum computing to create services in fields like green energy and resiliency that lead to solutions for social issues globally. We will create systems that can supply the same level of services anywhere in the world, and enable customers to provide good business to their customers in turn.