プロネート(従業員 44 人、東京都板橋区)は製版業として 1973 年に創業しました。印刷・同関連産業の事業所数はピーク時の 54%に激減しています。同社の経営も課題を抱えていますが、このような業界にあって存続してきたのは、常に一歩先を読み、新事業への進出を続けたからです。

同社は、フォーブスなど海外雑誌向けの企業広告印刷のためのフィルム作成を経営の柱としていました。印刷は各国で行いますが、各国の技術水準にあわせてフィルムを作るノウハウを持っていました。そのおかげで順調に発展し、この分野では日本企業の中で55%のシェアを占めました。

しかし、転機が来ます。1984 年、社長がニューヨークで日本製品の広告があふれているのを見、日米貿易摩擦は益々激化し、日本製品の広告への反感が強まり、海外雑誌向け広告需要も減るに違いないと一瞬にして感じ取りました。内需への転換を宣言(国内の商業カタログなどへ)、85年のプラザ合意による円高でこの仕事は減り続けましたが、準備をしていたため売り上げを 1 円も落とさずに内需転換に成功しました。

海外雑誌用の仕事に代わり、競争力のある事業をカラーカタログなど販促ツールのデジタル印刷に求めました。国内でデジタル化を最初に始めた印刷会社10社のうちに入ると言います。デジタル化により大幅にコストダウンしただけでなく、顧客の多様な注文への対応が容易になり、小ロット・スピード印刷するオンディマンド印刷、広告対象の特性に合わせ印刷内容を変えるイメージ・パーソナライズ印刷などに進出しました。

また、転機が訪れます。きっかけは 97 年 10 月にサンフランシスコで開かれた印刷機の展示会でした。ここに講師としてビル・ゲイツ、スティーブ・ジョブズが登場、印刷物だけでなく、インターネットなども販促ツールにする時代が来ていることを察知、創業 25 周年の 98 年に「複合メディア印刷業」を方針として打ち出しました。販促ツールとしてのモバイルサイト用ウエブの開発など、IT・デジタルを販促ツールとする事業を拡大します。

さらに、2002 年には顧客の販促活動そのものを企画し、運営する事業も始めました。その準備として大手広告代理店に社員を出向させ、ノウハウを吸収しました。中心となっている仕事は大手スーパーと提携し、冷凍食品のキャンペーンを行うことです。企画から会場運営まで行います。

以上のように、プロネートは変化への敏感な対応により新分野の開拓を続け、現在の売り上げ構成は、印刷が 6 割、販促の企画運営が 3 割、IT・デジタルが 1 割となり、98 年に打ち出した「複合メディア印刷業」という目標を実現しつつあります。しかし、印刷業の経営環境は厳しく、プロネートの売上はリーマンショックとスマートフォンの普及による人々の「紙離れ」で大きく落ち込み、数年間赤字に陥りました。現在赤字を脱しましたが、会長兼社長の狩野征次氏によると、同社が生き残るにはもっと変わらなくてはならない。今や消費者はスマートフォンを使い、欲しい商品をどこでも手軽に購入する時代であり、非印刷部門をさらに拡大、変身を続けると言っています。

「企業は環境適応業」という言葉を思い出します。

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Pronate (44 employees, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo) was founded in 1973 as a printing plate making business. Meanwhile, the number of establishments in the printing and related industries has decreased sharply to 54% of the peak. The company's management also faces challenges, but it survived in such an industry because the company was always forecasting one step ahead and continued to enter new businesses. The company's management pillar was the production of films for printing corporate advertisements for overseas magazines such as Forbes. Printing is done in each country, but the company had the know-how to make films according to the technical level of each country. Thanks to that, it has developed steadily and has a 55% share of Japanese companies in this field.

But the turning point has come. In 1984, when the president saw a flood of advertisements for Japanese products in New York, he felt instantly that, from now on, the trade friction between Japan and the United States will intensify, the antipathy toward advertising of Japanese products will increase, and the demand for advertising for overseas magazines will surely decrease.

So he declared a shift to domestic demand (to domestic commercial catalogs, etc.), and although the appreciation of the yen due to the Plaza Accord in 1985 continued to reduce this job, the company did not drop sales even one yen because he was prepared for that. And he succeeded in converting domestic demand. Instead of working for foreign magazines, he sought a competitive business in digital printing of promotional tools such as color catalogs. The company is said to be one of the 10 printing companies that first started digitizing in Japan. Not only has digitalization significantly reduced costs, but it has also made it easier for the company to respond to diverse orders from the customers. He then advanced into on-demand printing, which prints in small lots and speeds, and image personalized printing, which changes the print content according to the characteristics of the advertising target.

Again, another turning point has come to the company when the printing press exhibition was held in San Francisco in October 1997, where Bill Gates and Steve Jobs appeared as lecturers, and he realized that the time had come to use not only printed matter but also the Internet as a sales promotion tool. Therefore, in 1998, which is the 25th anniversary of the company's founding, he set out a policy of "multi-media printing business". He expanded his business using IT and digital as sales promotion tools, such as developing web sites for mobile sites.

In 2002, he also started the business of planning and managing the customer's promotional activities themselves. In preparation for that, he sent an employee to a major advertising agency to absorb the know-how. Currently, the company's core job is to partner with major supermarkets to campaign for frozen foods. The company handles everything from planning to venue management.

As mentioned above, Pronate continues to develop new fields by responding sensitively to changes, and the current sales composition is 60% for printing, 30% for planning and management of sales promotion, and 10% for IT / digital. He is achieving his goal of "composite media printing", which he set out in 1998. However, the business environment of the printing industry was harsh, and sales of Pronate fell sharply due to the Lehman shock and the spread of smartphones, causing people to "leave paper" and fell into the red for several years. The company is currently out of the red, but according to Chairman and President Kano Seiji, the company must change even more to survive. Consumers are now in an era where they can easily purchase the products they want using smartphones, and they say that they will continue to expand and transform their non-printing departments.

I remember the phrase "a company is an environmentally friendly business."