アメリカの日刊経済新聞「ウォールストリートジャーナル」内に掲載されている『Next Era Leader’s×WSJ』という企画に中村が選出され、掲載されました。
この企画は、急速に変化する時代やビジネスにおいて、柔軟に適応し、時流を捉えるリーダーシップを持つ世界における次世代のリーダーを紹介するというコンテンツです。
「働く面白さを実感し、誇りを持てる企業へ。」という内容にて、メモリーのビジョン・ミッション、経営差別化戦略についてお話ししています。
『Next Era Leader’s×WSJ』（英文記事）はこちら
▼画像をクリック(タップ)すると日本語訳付きの内容をご覧いただけます。▼
Working Together in a Time of Crisis
Norihiro Nakamura, President and Representative Director of Memoly Co., Ltd., draws from past experience to navigate a complicated new reality during the Covid-19 pandemic
Taking pride in your business
We have expanded our business by continuing to change ahead of the times while constantly anticipating the needs of our customers. We will continue to change and take on new challenges with a focus on four business streams: providing solutions with office equipment; Life Partner, which distributes pet food; robots and technology; and health and beauty. Our goal is to grow our business in order to be able to offer a one-stop service solution, and to support these many different enterprises, we need to achieve global brand recognition. Currently, we are recruiting young talent who empathize with our vision and mission, and are eager to collaborate.
Past experience guides future plans
With society currently in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is experiencing dramatic change. When supply chains stopped flowing, we were able to stabilize business without halting commercial distribution by buying a large amount of key commodities. We have always anticipated future events and achieved business continuity through unique strategies.
All of the products and services that we provide are highly sophisticated and have high added value as proved by the intellectual property rights we possess and the awards we have received. We’ve focused on the creation of true uniqueness through originality that doesn’t exist elsewhere. To achieve this, it’s important to stay informed and knowledgeable by reading books and keeping on top of current events. I believe this attitude helps positively change adverse circumstances.
You need to expand the scale of an organization to provide more people with surprising and impressive services and products. From this perspective, the present pandemic is an opportunity. With plans in motion to relocate our office to the city center of Aichi prefecture in 2021, we are preparing to welcome new talent by establishing an Innovation Lab, a training system that empowers employees to take on challenges.
It’s important to identify the abilities of each employee and the positions that are suited to them to discover and develop human resources. We are currently working on several training and evaluation systems to ensure our vision and mission are shared in a spirit of perpetual improvement. I would like to create an environment where employees are able to clearly express their needs and goals, and evaluators are able to provide proper feedback, enabling employees to develop and achieve higher goals. Employees are expected to develop into future leaders in charge of projects or departments, and with proper motivation, I envision them being entrusted with businesses as they grow as corporate managers. It’s a unique advantage that employees can create their own journeys in our company via self-selected challenges and growth opportunities.
Results-oriented growth
Basically, we should be achieving results. The best result is satisfying customers in our four key businesses, and we want to improve our businesses while focusing on this point. That is why you need to seek an ideal state of business according to trends and sometimes change working styles accordingly. The thing that motivates me as a manager probably changes every year. Looking back at the last several years, I rarely got pleasure from achieving results only for myself. I am more interested in helping the people around me than in my own benefit. In other words, the dreams and goals of all those involved with Memoly are also my dreams and goals.
With four differentiated strategies for profitability, social responsibility, education and originality, we have grown the business organically, connecting them. For example, with the SDGs efforts that are becoming rooted in corporate activities, you can’t be profitable without a high level of social responsibility—the two co-exist at all times. Adding education and originality, Memoly has concentrated on bolstering these strategies since its foundation.
I expect employees to take advantage of training opportunities appropriately, developing and pursuing added value and originality without being too conservative. If the company is able to accumulate the added value brought by employees, then we are able to improve our collective value proposition as a corporation. This differentiation strategy allows us to be original.
Work is interesting, work promises growth. And Memoly is a business full of people who enjoy working. I want us to be a company that our employees are proud of, to scale and accelerate growth, and to become a global company. I look forward to our employees achieving the high goals they have set and realizing their dreams at our company, where they can truly enjoy diverse working styles and the pleasure of working.
