2020 New Year’s Greetings from Shoei Yamana, President and CEO
Continuing Efforts to Meet Customer Needs for “Visualization” to Contribute to Addressing Social Challenges

A Happy New Year to you all.

In 2019, a festive mood prevailed throughout Japan with the start of the new Reiwa era. In contrast, the year saw repeated natural disasters which caused serious damage in many parts of the country. I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy to all who were affected by the disasters and are still unable to return to their normal lives. Globally, the intensifying U.S.-China trade friction made the business environment extremely difficult. In 2020, we remain cautious about the geopolitical risks, including the political uncertainty in Europe and the trends in the U.S. presidential election, while seizing the opportunities offered by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games to continue to contribute to the evolution of society.

Since our founding in 1873, we have constantly sought to visualize the invisible by leveraging our core technologies in the fields of optics, materials, image processing and nano-fabrication, thereby meeting various customer needs for visualization. This commitment remains embedded in the DNA of Konica Minolta.

Under our three-year Medium-term Business Plan “SHINKA 2019” starting from 2017, we are striving to create innovations to bring new values to society. To be specific, we have developed solutions to social challenges that will become more pressing by 2030, such as the labor shortage, mismatch between worker skills and job requirements, and increasing demand for medical and nursing care services. Such solutions include: the integrated IT services which we offer to our customers by expanding the sales of an edge IoT platform, Workplace Hub; and the sensor- and smartphone-based services designed to help improve the work efficiency of care workers and enhance the quality of life of elderly persons in need of care.

By offering such digital workplace solutions to corporate customers, we hope to create environments that allow professionals to work with greater productivity and creativity. We believe that the more motivated professionals are, the happier the recipients of their services will be.

One of the driving forces behind all these endeavors is human resources. In 2020, we will open a new R&D center in Osaka, Japan, to reinforce the training of specialists in our proprietary image IoT and AI technologies, encourage interactions among these specialists, and create new innovations to better meet customer needs for visualization. More than 40,000 Konica Minolta members are determined to raise their skills to maximize performance and work in open collaboration with customers and business partners, instead of working solely within the Konica Minolta Group, with the aim of creating new values for the global environment and human society.

Lastly, I offer my sincere wishes for your good health and happiness, and would greatly appreciate your continued support and encouragement for the Konica Minolta Group in 2020.

Shoei Yamana
President and CEO
Konica Minolta, Inc.