After joining Sakata Shokai (now Sakata Inx Corporation), I was first assigned to the General Affairs Department. As soon as I joined the company, I was put in charge of union measures and traveled around to various offices to study labor-related laws. After about two years, I was assigned as a secretary to an executive officer, but I didn’t like working at the head office, which was too rigid, so I asked to be assigned to the Trade Department, which had a more liberal atmosphere, and it was accepted.

Although I joined the trade department, the work of the trade department at that time was mainly selling imported goods domestically, and even here I could not suppress my curiosity. So I started exporting alone. In hindsight, I think I was very fortunate to be able to go abroad and work in an environment where I could work relatively freely. I also think that the company saw the merit of having me, a curious and unconventional person in every sense of the word, as the “cutting edge captain” to open up the export sales business. In the spring of 1957, I went on a 40-day business trip by myself to the ASEAN countries, and during my visit to the Philippines, then the most economically developed country in Asia, I discovered a new business possibility.

In the Philippines, I set my eyes on electronic components, which had nothing to do with ink. At that time, there were already more than 10 TV production plants in the Philippines. However, upon closer inspection, I found out that they were all assembly plants and most of the electronic parts were imported from the United States. Instead of selling televisions, I decided that the best market from the standpoint of needs would be to handle electronic components, which were highly versatile and could be incorporated into any electrical appliance, as they had the greatest potential in a world that would become increasingly electronic. The global market for inks was about 2 trillion yen at the time, and I thought, “If I do everything for 2 trillion yen, then the company’s development will be limited. Let’s do something else,” I thought.

Since then, I have sold a variety of products other than electronic components. It was around this time that I met Mr. Kakehashi, who would later establish Roland Corporation. Ltd. Mr.Kakehashi established Ace Denshi and Sakata shokai (now Sakata inx corporation) also invested in, we proceeded to manufacture and sell electronic musical instruments. At the same time, he noticed the Hammond organ made by an American electronic organ manufacturer and decided to sell it in Japan. At the time, there was already a company in Japan that had the rights to represent the Hammond organ, but I didn’t give up and went to the US headquarters to negotiate directly with President Sorensen.During the meeting, I told him, “The reason why your organs are not selling well in Japan is because they are too expensive. Even the cheapest type is more than the annual income of a Japanese. If you want to sell a large number of organs, the price has to be close to the monthly income of the country.If we can use our technology to produce low-end Hammond organs on an OEM basis, we will be able to sell them not only in Japan but around the world. After several rounds of negotiations, we succeeded in concluding an exclusive distributorship agreement for Hammond organs in 1968. Thereafter, Hammond International Japan was established as a joint venture between Hammond Corporation, Sakata Shokai, and Ace Electronics, and began selling low-cost Hammond organs in Japan and abroad.

Our company history says that we started our EMS business in 1979. However, I cannot tell you exactly when we started our EMS business. This is because even before the term “EMS” was introduced to the world, we had been doing contract manufacturing using subcontractors in order to meet the needs of our customers.In that sense, there is no doubt that we are Japan’s pioneers in this business. As the production bases of Japanese companies began to spread to ASEAN countries, the needs of customers also changed. From procuring only electronic components, we began to offer kitting services to deliver electronic components in units to be fed into production lines. Contract manufacturing was an extension of this.”This is the result of our honest attempt to respond to the needs of our customers, such as, “It would be great if you could mount the components on the board and bring it to us. Therefore, we started contract manufacturing as a means of supplying materials.Our objective was to expand the distribution of electronic components, and EMS was a means to that end, not the true purpose of our company. At that time, we were amateurs in manufacturing and did not even have the resources for manufacturing within the company, so we invested in a reliable factory in Singapore and absorbed their manufacturing know-how.We thought that if we didn’t have the resources to handle it internally, we could just work with what we had. In fact, it is precisely because we don’t have the resources that we can enter into new businesses without the time and constraints of scrapping our existing resources. This is what I call the “The Benefits of Zero,” and I have been promoting this concept within the company. With the same belief, we continued to expand our contract manufacturing business in ASEAN and China.

I took over as president after 10 years. I believe that my role now is to promote the sharing of SIIX’s values.

“There is a saying, “A fool learns from experience, a wise man learns from history. I don’t think that everything I have done has been the best, but I would like our employees to understand the importance of building trusting relationships with customers, as I mentioned in the first half, how to expand business, and the passion to overcome difficulties. We need to act with humility and learn with eagerness. As comrades in the same boat, we must have high ideals, but if our superiors and subordinates are not facing the same direction, the boat will not move forward. In order to do this, we must always remember to be fair. I myself would never consider promotion based on race or gender, and I would never do anything illegal. To use a golf analogy, we believe that the most important thing is to “go to the middle of the fairway” and eventually take a shortcut. We believe that the true reason for our existence is to build a relationship of trust not only with our customers but also with all our stakeholders. “I will continue to say, “If you have a relationship based on trust, you can breakthrough almost anything, because I was able to do it when I was an ink manufacturer.