Message from the President Jan.2010

Happy New Year!

The year 2009 was a year of crisis from beginning to the end. We would like to make the year 2010 as a year which we over came the crisis. It means that we need to regain the operating profit which is the essential to continue our business.

In the beginning of the feature article of this issue, I wrote about “self-help”. This word comes from a famous phrase “Heaven helps those who help themselves” (by Samuel Smiles). It is a way of thinking in following sense. When the things are going well, a men tends to think that it is because of own abilities. But then the things are not going so well, a man tends to blame it on the environments. And the man tends to believe that without improvement of environment, his condition will not improve. This phrase explains that, at first, having spirit of self-help is importance. In a time of hard situation, you have to cheer yourself, support your own though, help yourself from a danger, and guide yourself to a happy situation in your standard. You shouldn’t blame others, but you should act on your own to help yourself. You can get what you want if you can make Your-self as a biggest supporter of yourself.

Each of us is all continuing our work although we faced the rapid decrease of the engineer utilization ratio since last April. Those engineers who are continuing to work at our clients have earned absolute trust and need from our clients even though the market condition is harsh. And they are continuing their effort to gain more orders for our un-assigned colleagues. Those who are not assigned to the clients are, by elder and younger engineers teaming up, going though the educational training programs. Our sales forces are also continuing their strong approach to our clients to achieve one more new order. And our administrative people are trying to improve the productivity and cut cost to a last one yen. By everyone’s effort, I believe, all the employees are doing what we can do under the circumstance. But I also like to remind you that the grant from the government Subsidies for Employment Adjustment is one important factor which we can continue our business. This means that we are doing what we can do to continue our business, but the entire company is not quite standing on its own.

Since the company has a certain roll in society, its basic requirement is to stand on its own feet. This year, we have to regain our position as a corporation in society by standing on its own feet without anyone’s help. In order to achieve this, first, each of us has to move forward in step by step to support ourselves. Those who are assigned to a client should try to obtain the clients needs so that it will result in extending their current contract; those who are in the educational training should learn the skill which can result in new assignment; sales force should try to win as much orders as possible; and administrative people should do what they can do to support engineers and sales force. In another word, we need to continue our effort to support ourselves and then support each other.

Let us make this year as a year for self-support.