Top Message
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support.
My name is TAKUYA YOSHIDA, President and Representative Director.
It has been almost a year since I assumed the position of Representative Director and President in June 2023, and thanks to your support, we were able to achieve record highs in sales, operating income, and ordinary income for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. However, the profit ratio is on a downward trend due to soaring energy and raw material prices and intensifying price competition. Looking at the industry as a whole, there are many Sections that need to be addressed in order to achieve sustainable growth in a society with a declining population, such as addressing labor shortages and creating new markets. During my first year as President, I first took a fresh look at the obvious starting point: "What is the purpose of our existence? Then, through discussions with internal and external stakeholders, we considered "what kind of value we should provide to society in the future," and drew the conclusion of these discussions as our "Long-term Vision," which is our ideal image for the next 10 years or so.
The slogan of the Long-term Vision is "Creating the future of people and society through the power of connections. The next 10 years will be an era of change, in which the rules and the way of thinking will change in every industry and field. In such an environment, we wanted to become a company that brings innovation to the distribution network by developing our strength "Tsunagu-no-ryoku" (the power to connect), which we have built up through distribution, through people, digital, and partnerships. We want to be a company that brings innovation to the distribution network by developing our strength of "Tsunagari" (the ability to connect) through distribution, and by developing human and digital partnerships. We will continue to take on the challenge of making changes to achieve this kind of the future.
There are two major themes of innovation: The first is the logistics function, which is our greatest strength. In the future, while the labor shortage will become more serious due to the decrease in the working population, "high-mix, low-volume production and low-volume sales" are expected to increase in order to respond to the personalization of services and products in line with the diversification of values. In other words, logistics operations are likely to become more complex as the number of workers decreases. Therefore, we are taking on the challenge of developing logistics with unprecedented and overwhelming productivity. By doing so, we hope to evolve conventional wholesale logistics and expand our logistics network beyond the barriers of categories and industries by utilizing the know-how we have developed and the capacity we have created.
The second is the "connections" we have cultivated through intermediary distribution. Currently, we are connected with more than 1,000 partners and deliver daily necessities to consumers through collaboration and cooperation. However, there are areas of distribution where information is fragmented, and this fragmentation causes unreasonable, wasteful act and unevenness. For example, information such as "where and how many products exist in the distribution system" is not accurately connected, resulting in a great deal of effort to adjust the supply at each stage of the distribution process. In addition, over- or under-supply leads to waste and increased transportation and delivery costs. Thus, there are still unreasonable, wasteful act and unevenness that can be eliminated by Using digital technology and data, and we believe that it will be difficult to achieve sustainable growth in the supply chain if the same thing is done 10 years from now. In response, we are taking on the challenge of creating a "stronger and more diverse network" in the supply chain by leveraging our cultivated "connections" and information assets, as well as digital technology. Furthermore, we intend to create more value by developing this network not only domestically but also globally.
To realize our Long-term Vision, we have positioned the three-year period beginning in the fiscal year ending Mar 31, 2025 as a period of "Constructing the foundation for transformation through structural reform," and we will proceed with our efforts under our new Medium-term Management Plan, "PALTAC VISION 2027. Under the new medium-term plan, in order to obtain the resources to invest in reform, we will strive to steadily increase profits by improving the profitability of existing businesses, and at the same time, we will aim to acquire the ability to execute reform and competitiveness, and to promote collaboration with our partners. In terms of execution capability, we will focus on developing human resources, improving the utilization of data and digital resources, and creating organizational capacity to make the most of human resources, which are the key to value creation. Although these efforts are interrelated, we believe that the first step is to actively incorporate digital technology and external resources, which are evolving daily, and to reform our business operations so that our human resources can focus on value-added operations. This will accelerate the challenge of Creating new value in the peripheral domains of our existing businesses.
Since our founding in 1898, we have grown to the present day by fulfilling our raison d'etre of "realizing affluent and comfortable lives for people" through optimizing and streamlining the entire supply chain. Going forward, we will continue to fulfill our raison d'etre through initiatives based on our newly formulated Long-term Vision / Medium-term Management Plan, and aim to be a company that can grow with all of our stakeholders more powerfully than ever before.
We look forward to the continued support and encouragement of our shareholders and other stakeholders.
TAKUYA YOSHIDA, President and Representative Director
