Innovation is often thought to be the result of the effort of a handful of geniuses, but the innovation that OKI aims for is Full Participation Innovation. Rather than waiting for a handful of employees to strive to be innovative, at OKI, we emphasize working together to realize innovation, and carry out various innovation activities that company management believes can solve everyone's problems as well as social issues by prompting Full Participation Innovation .
OKI is implementing a range of steps to realize this "Full Participation Innovation". We would like to outline these efforts based on five points.
SUMMARY
1. What is "Full Participation Innovation"
Since its founding in 1881 (Meiji 41), OKI has continued to inherit an enterprising spirit. Starting with its founding business of developing Japan's first telephone, which has been used in telephone exchange systems, we have contributed to the development of social infrastructure through such as ATMs used at financial institutions, road transportation systems, and other innovations.
On October 29, 2020, we announced the "Medium-term Management Plan 2022" with a new key message: "creating a safe society". The key point of this medium-term management plan is for OKI to transform into a proposal/dissemination-type company and take on the challenge of creating various innovations in preparation for OKI's 150th anniversary in 2031. OKI will develop innovations created as a result of fully participation innovation in order to continue to solve social issues.
OKI's definition of innovation is to create new businesses and revolve existing businesses. Innovation is necessary not only for new business departments, but also for indirectly-related departments, and all of our employees are working in the area of innovation to make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today.
For more information, please see the below speech by President Kamagami (then, current Chairman, Executive Officer, and Chief Executive Officer) who lectured about Full Participation Innovation at OKI Innovation World 2021.
OKI began internally implementing, operating, and improving Yume Pro on a full scale in April 2018, including planning OKI's "Yume Pro" innovation management system from October 2017. Furthermore, the planning and implementation of Yume Pro was carried out under the bold leadership of Chairman Kamagami (then president).
Following Chairman Kamagami's leadership, we will continue to promote innovation activities under the President Mori. Please read President Mori's message about innovation below.
2. "Yume Pro" Innovation Management System
Have you heard of the term, Innovation Management System (IMS)?
The innovation management system is one of the management systems such as the quality management system (QMS: ISO 9001) and environmental management system (EMS: ISO 14001) that you are familiar with. While QMS is aimed at quality, and EMS is aimed at the environmental response, IMS is aimed at enabling organizations to efficiently create innovation.
The IMS targets innovation activities with high uncertainty, and as a result it has a feature that significantly differentiates it from other management systems in that it recommends a trial and error process. The guidance standard ISO 56002 was established in 2019, and the certification standard ISO 56001 is scheduled to be established in 2023.
OKI was the first company to comply with ISO 56002, the IMS standard. While thoroughly analyzing OKI's corporate culture, we carried out internal reforms, and optimized the innovation management system. We called this OKI innovation management system "Yume Pro", and we will promote Full Participation Innovation under the "Yume Pro" name.
3. Innovation Strategy
OKI's innovation vision is to solve social issues related to the SDGs. Among these issues related to the SDGs, OKI is focusing on seven social issues listed in the medium-term management plan 2022: Aging-related issues, natural disasters, transportation issues, environmental issues, labor shortages, labor productivity, and the spread of infectious diseases. To resolve these seven social issues, we have announced the "Innovation Strategy" that aims to create business over the medium- to long-term up to 2030.
In the innovation strategy, we break down specific actions aimed at solving the seven social issues into nine focus areas, and define them as an innovation road map based on the process of Yume Pro, which is an innovation management system (IMS) that has been built and promoted company-wide. We have organized the promotion of all the elements necessary for innovation to solve these seven social issues, including research and development of focused technologies that support medium- to long-term business creation, the innovation mechanism, and the reform of internal culture required to realize this. In addition, this road map is regularly reviewed through the evaluation and improvement activities in accordance with the IMS.
**“Swimmers who can make it to the finish”: A team of strong-willed innovation practitioners who continue to drive the innovation process.
***Number of innovations created: Number of companywide innovation projects that have progressed to the solution implementation step.
4. Internal Culture Reform
OKI aims to be a company where everyone participates to create innovation a common everyday work. However, as we all know, the path to innovation is never easy. Innovation activities, which involve repeated trial and error, are fundamentally different from normal business management, so the existing values, business management, and conventional wisdom tend to become obstructing factors. To smoothly implement the various types of support listed in the innovation management system (ISO 56002, Clause 7), we need to share an understanding of company-wide innovation creation activities. We will introduce the internal culture reform that is implemented at OKI.
