January 4, 2021 New Year's Greeting

At the very start of the New Year, I would like to extend my warm greetings to all and express my sincere appreciation of your continued loyalty toward Mitsue-Links.

Due to the new coronavirus, last year the business environment experienced great upheaval. Regarding this, there were two phenomena which I found particularly surprising.

Firstly, all our daily routines and established perceptions had to change in an unprecedentedly short time. At our company, styles of working that are not fixed to any particular place or time, such as remote work, online meetings, and staggered commuting, have become commonplace.

Secondly, the incredible speed of our ability to adapt was astonishing. Actually, I thought that it was going to take much longer for our company to get used to operating under coronavirus measures. However, it took only a couple of days for work to get going - and that happened without any significant difficulties.

As the coronavirus pandemic is expected to continue, going forward there are three main concerns regarding our company.

The first is productivity. While there are no significant reductions in productivity for routine-type work that can be done alone, workers may not be as productive when working together on complex tasks. For instance, communication through online meetings makes possible both business connections and operational coordination, but it doesn’t equal face-to-face collaboration.

The second concern is service quality. In addition to our staff working remotely, it is often the case that our clients are too – this means that online meetings have become the main form of communication. This distance makes it harder to grasp the actual customer needs, to make the right judgment and take the adequate actions. As a result, in such an environment, cases in which the quality of service fails to meet customer expectations can easily occur.

The third is related to the development of new services that befit the new environment. Considering the enormous scale of the ongoing social transformation, it is only natural that what society needs will change. In my opinion, the present moment is a test of our organization’s ability to meet the new needs of this new society.

Handling each concern on a step-by-step basis, I hope that we can overcome the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. By doing so, I believe we will be building the foundations of our further growth.

As always, I kindly ask for your continual support and wish you good health, prosperity and a happy New Year!