Message from the President Aug.2009

Recently, the statue of Buddha is kind of popular thing among people. And I hear that there is a very long waiting line to see the special exhibition on The National Treasure ASHURA and Masterpieces from Kohfukuji Temple　displayed at the Tokyo National Museum everyday.There is a word “Shuraba”, meaning fighting scene or scene of carnage, which comes from a fight between Asura (fighting demon) and Sakra devanam Indra (deity of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism) between Ashura god and Taishakuten god because the battle was so chaotic. When we use this particular word, we refer it as the battle fields of life and death, but it also include a meaning as a place or a situation which you just want run away from. Because of this, there is an old saying that “number of Shuraba that a person experience, the person will grow.” Today, as we face the world wide economic crisis, I think we can say that “all the enterprises and the people who work there are facing the Suraba.” Although we are under strong cut back on the fund and people, we still ask to keep the deadline and keep or improve the qualities of the output. And new, many corporations are now struggling from unable to protect employment of its employees. And, although the level of hardness may vary, people who are facing such situations may feel that they are in Shuraba.

In our company, engineering staff may feel this situation, but sales staff may be the ones who feel this situation most. For the sales staff, going out to get new orders instead of just waiting for new order to come is the fundamental. But after experiencing long period of just waiting for new orders, it is hard for a person to change the mind and action toward the other way although the person is understanding its logic in his head.But what I felt from the pledge given by all the sales staff at the Strategic Sales Conference held at each sales area was a very strong will and commitment to change their mind and action. For the engineers, a status of being under the educational training could be said as a Shuraba because you will have to complete the training under numerous restrictions to make the training useful for your self while keeping your motivation up.

But what I felt from the pledge given by all the sales staff at the Strategic Sales Conference held at each sales area was a very strong will and commitment to change their mind and action. For the engineers, a status of being under the educational training could be said as a Shuraba because you will have to complete the training under numerous restrictions to make the training useful for your self while keeping your motivation up.

When a person faces a Shuraba, there are two way the person will react. One is to confront the Shuraba and the other is to run away from it. It is natural for the person to reflectively run way from a Shuraba in order to evade from agony and pain. But if a person is to control such wish to run way and confront the issue, such moment could be a turning point to his or her growth. I my self had number of such experiences. And in the case I choose to run away from such agony, most of time, I ended up regretting my decisions.

During the crisis following the rupture of the Bubble Economy in 1991 too, those colleagues stayed on together with the company supported the growth of the company after ward. From such experience, we realized that the company its self must became strong in order to over come such crisis without jeopardizing the employment. Under such determination, we paid back entire 27 billion yen debt which the company owed at that time, and constructed the management foundation which we can operate only on our own assets. Due to such experiences, although we are facing a Shuraba under current crisis, we are working hard to over come the crisis while protecting the employment of our people.

You can feel the individual accomplishment of growth when you over come the Shuraba. And accumulation of such individual growth would be the driving force for the company’s further growth. I would like to share the mind of not running away from the Shuraba with you.