I remain very impressed by the incredible innovation that OMRON delivers, and the commitment you have to corporate responsibility. One of the things that I have heard from people at OMRON is how your products are vital to society as well as to the environment. And it seems that each of you has a story on how you identified a major problem that has had no solutions in terms of developing systems to address it.

Let me start by asking an operations-related question. When you develop a new product or system that has an important social impact, do you devote the same amount of time toward delivering a profit on such a system, or are you more patient? Or is it different for each case?

For OMRON Healthcare, it's case by case. For example, we have a product that is an ECG (electrocardiograph) monitor. The product has not yet become a profitable line of business, but we have received many words of appreciation from users and endorsement from many doctors. In the meantime we will remain patient in terms of profitability and try to cultivate the product from a long-term perspective. That is how we position this particular product.

In the case of the Industrial Automation Company (IAB), we believe that we must always secure a certain level of profits as long as we do business. Does that mean that we will withdraw from a business if it doesn't immediately deliver a profit? No. If the product is aligned with our strategy and domain of focus, and as long as it benefits society, we position the product as an 'investment'. And we will try to absorb the cost of the investment by means of existing business. This allows us to nurture new ideas while securing a profit for IAB as a whole.

So long-term thinking is definitely part of your plan.

I have heard about these challenges from others at OMRON: how to promote CSR activities, how to make sure that employees are in compliance in China, how to deal with supply chain issues, and the issue, of course, of diversity. We could talk about some other types of issues. For example, how climate change will continue to affect your customers, and how that will affect your future products and business models. We might talk about, for example, growing healthcare costs around the world and the difficulty of providing people access to preventive care. Of course, many of you mentioned safety and security. And there seems to be a growing gap between the types of regions that have access to systems that promote safety and security and those that don't. So which one of these many challenges do your companies put priority on?

For the Electronic Components Company (ECB), our top priority has been in instilling OMRON's corporate principles among employees. We believe that to address CSR, it is most important that our staff fully understand that OMRON is a company that has these corporate principles. Even so, in some countries compliance remains a tough challenge. In fact, there was one case in which a local employee was fired for fraud. It has nothing to do with nationality--it's also possible that a Japanese expatriate may become involved with fraud. And some other countries face management-related challenges.

In China and Asia-Pacific, IAB took the lead in providing compliance and ethical conduct education for local staff, and we have also performed monitoring for compliance status. We strengthened education for those staff dispatched from Japan to work at local companies, so we haven't had any scandals involving Japanese expatriates. However, there still remain local customs that condone bribery or other unfair dealings in some regions. In such regions, the biggest challenge is how we can make local staff align with our way of thinking that emphasizes fairness and integrity.

The Automotive Electronic Components Company (AEC) itself assumes a position as supplier for our client companies. From our customers' point of view, AEC is an element of their own supply chain. The automobile industry is very strict about delivery schedules, and demands very high standards of technology. Our employees, of course, understand the OMRON Principles and CSR very well. But as long as we try to continue meeting the demands of our clients, we will get extremely busy and tend to work long hours. In that situation, some employees feel that concepts like 'maximum customer satisfaction' and 'respect for individuality and diversity (of employees)' specified in the OMRON Principles contradict each other. Some may wonder if there's a gap between what is actually happening in our workplace and how CSR practices should work as an ideal. In other words, there's a gap between the principles and how they can be put into practice. We believe that we must continually challenge ourselves to overcome this gap.

I think OMRON maintains a consistent stance for eliminating the gap between principles and reality. But I can certainly see examples of tension in the supply chain, and so there is no good solution to the problem that you've raised. Because to solve this, it requires that someone bear more costs. Or it requires breakthroughs and innovation in your business process. Either one involves money and time. So from your perspective, one question is: if you are going to be asked to comply with supply chain practices, do you need more consistent rules that everyone follows?

As far as the Social Systems Solutions Business Company (SSB) is concerned, information security has recently become a major societal challenge. So we have started to deal with information management that includes information leakage problems in the supply chain. Our approach is like this: first, we make a checklist and 'visualize' rules that we want both our staff and suppliers to observe. Then, we evaluate how much these rules are followed using the checklist. We also consider that worksite monitoring, auditing and inspection are necessary, both inside and outside our company. Education for our staff and also for suppliers is also necessary. We are aiming to promote rule-formation, monitoring and education as a 'triple set' package.

We ourselves should also improve our evaluation skills. No matter how well defined the rules are, it's no use if our abilities to assess the compliance of rules are poor. Obviously it takes time to raise evaluation skills. But to avoid the risk of incorrect evaluation, it is important to improve our evaluation skills.

As for supply chain management, in some cases at OMRON Healthcare we form a capital alliance with a supplier and send a director-class representative to the company in order to assure good product quality. The first aim is to enhance quality, but by sharing the OMRON Principles and code of conduct with our suppliers we are striving to go further into CSR management for the supply chain.

It is vital that we tackle important CSR challenges at the global level. But for things like 'respect for diversity', it would be difficult for all of our Group companies worldwide to implement the same measures. In Japan, our focus is on employment of persons with disabilities and creating work environments in which women can work more comfortably and demonstrate their capabilities fully. But it's impossible to import these initiatives directly to other regions. The concept of directly applying our experience in Japan to other countries is not always applicable. So Mr. Rochlin, could you give us some advice regarding global promotion of CSR activities?

Well, first I think it's important to start with common sense. I think it is important for businesses to identify the things that are most important in the regions, in the areas, and in the markets that are most critical, and deal with them one by one.

As well as the development of new products, it also takes time to develop effective and strategic CSR systems. I think that one challenge for a company is to increase and innovate the ways that they develop systems, production processes and products that respond to these expectations. And I think OMRON has the components, the experience and the growing potential to develop and succeed in this manner, if you choose to continue to invest in it. But it will require great courage and at times great faith.

Lastly, let me say thank you so much for spending the time and sharing it with me.