Initiatives of the Global Marketing Division
New value creation initiative based on strong technological expertise of the Company and extensive understanding of the market
Sumitoshi Asakuma
Executive Vice President
Global Marketing Division
Role of the Global Marketing Division
The Global Marketing Division is an organization where a team of members with superior technical expertise and familiarity with the Group’s business segment structure work with broad perspectives to lead marketing activities for all our products. With a strong focus on “new”-ness, the Global Marketing Division helps the Sumitomo Bakelite Group enter new business fields and create new markets. To do this, it is essential for us to practice “Co-creation with Customers.” Specifically, we carefully identify customers involved in cutting-edge research and development in innovative areas, and then work on building strong partnerships with such customers
Allocation of Resources to Corporate-Wide Priority Fields to Drive Marking Efforts Through “One Sumibe” Initiatives
The Global Marketing Division assign its members to geographical regions which are important to our business, which include not only Japan but also China, Europe and the US. In 2024, the Division also dispatched employees to India, where a strong market growth is anticipated. These globally stationed members regularly communicate with each other to work as one across the globe. The current focus areas for the Division include ICT, mobility, healthcare and energy, which are defined as corporate-wide priority fields. Each of these areas, having a good market size and being closely related to Digital Transformation and Green Transformation drives, has good potential for future growth and can also make significant contributions to society. Through One Sumibe Activities, we collaborate with other teams and divisions of the company to drive marketing activities in these new business areas.
For ICT, we collaborate with the Optical Circuit Business Development Department to swiftly bring our optical circuit materials to the market to support photoelectric fusion techniques, a technological region which is expected to be core to the future high-speed high-capacity communications that are essential to run AI servers and other advanced technological elements.
In the mobility field, we work closely with various business units to accelerate our plastic e-Axle project and the development of other power module materials to expand the company’s business. As an outcome of these efforts, our technology is now used in cutting-edge eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft motors. Our optical circuit material technologies are also used in optical communications for automotive ADAS (advanced driver-assistance system), where operating integrity is critical to end user safety.
In healthcare, we actively speak with customers to understand their needs for materials for vital sensing devices that are expected to play greater roles in preventive medicine and remote medical services, and relay these insights to our laboratories to accelerate their material development work.
In the energy area, we focus on promising renewable energy fields that have a good potential to contribute to the carbon neutrality goal, and our team of globally distributed members work together to market our offerings in these fields.
With long-term commitments in various fields, all the teams of the company work together toward creating new values.
Building Partnership with Customers to Achieve “Co-creation” of Values
To practice “Co-creation with Customers” in priority fields, our Group works with external partners, such as equipment manufacturers, raw material manufacturers and academic institutions, to offer solutions to our customers and to create new values. Our Group also put a lot of effort into promotional activities to help make our technologies and products better known to customers. These promotional activities include, among others, participation in large-scale open trade shows in various locations and also in-house exhibitions at our important customers. As part of our One Sumibe Activities, we carefully design and organize these promotional events by closely collaborating with various other teams and departments so that the event, including what items to display and how to present them, best aligns with the needs and preferences of the audience/customer in order to make the event beneficial for all the parties involved. We believe that these day-to-day marketing and communication efforts eventually enable us to move forward to the next stage.
“Co-creation with Customers” to Generate New Environmental and Social Values
As an outcome of these day-to-day marketing efforts and strong partnership with customers built through existing businesses, co-creation of new values is now becoming a reality, and a number of projects are being undertaken. For over twenty years, “CS (customer satisfaction) improvement” has been one of our key goals, and our corporate culture places great emphasis on listening to our customers and working with them to solve issues. To accelerate “Creation of environmental and social values”, which is defined as one of the material issues for our Group, we aim at working with even more customers in the future to further our value creation initiative.
Initiatives of One Sumibe Activities
Maximize the power of the whole company, boost teamwork and nurture a sense of belonging in employees
Atsushi Tanaka
Executive officers
One Sumibe Promotion Committee leader
CS (customer satisfaction) Improvement Across the Whole Sumitomo Bakelite Group
Since defining “CS (customer satisfaction) improvement” as one of its key goals in 1998, the Sumitomo Bakelite Group has been committed to listening to its customers, working with them to solve their issues and building strong partnerships with them, enabling the Group to further strengthen its business base. This CS spirit has become deeply ingrained in the Group’s operating fundamentals.
The CS Promotion Committee, chaired by the company president, discusses and plans CS improvement measures. Our policy for the next three years is to aim at “customer delight,” one step beyond aiming at “customer satisfaction” as we used to do. Under this new policy, we encourage a positive shift in our employees’ mindset and also take steps to provide greater visibility in our activities. The One Sumibe Activities are part of the initiatives we take to achieve for these purposes.
Cross-Departmental Solution Proposal to Most Effectively Fulfill Customer Needs
The One Sumibe Activities started as part of CS improvement efforts in 2017, to encourage horizontal collaborations between multiple teams and departments in the Sumitomo Bakelite Group to provide solutions to our customers. “Sumibe” is a loving nickname for our Company, long used among customers as well our Group employees. One Sumibe Activities started by designating a cross-departmental team to work with each of our priority customers (“Priority Customer Practical Teams”), orchestrating Sumitomo Bakelite Group’s activities associated with its target customer to build a stronger partnership. The Priority Customer Practical Teams helped organize many in-house exhibitions showcasing a Group-wide collection of technologies and products at customer sites, which would have otherwise been difficult in the traditional single-department approach. The Priority Customer Practical Teams contributed much to building valuable partnerships with many of our important customers.
One Sumibe Activities are planned, implemented and reviewed every year by the One Sumibe Promotion Committee, consisting of sales division general managers and heads of other business units, under the supervision of the CS Promotion Committee. Initially, One Sumibe Activities focused primarily on interacting with our priority customers. However, we learned over time that these cross-departmental activities also help inspire and motivate the whole organization. Members who were involved in projects organized by Priority Customer Practical Teams all voiced that they “loved collaborating with other teams and departments and making new connections.” At the start of the new Medium-term Business Plan, we reviewed One Sumibe Activities and discussed how it could be made better. Thereby we redefined the One Sumibe vision as a “group of activities that create new value through voluntary collaborations across the Group.” One of our goals for this Medium-term Business Plan is to “make sure that ‘One Sumibe’ is deeply embedded in the whole Group organization as a corporate culture, across domestic and overseas entities, across all functional units including manufacturing, sales and R&D, and across all sites and geographical locations.” To pursue this goal, we have newly organized an “Influencer Team” in the company. Besides the continued work of the Priority Customer Practical Teams, the Influencer Team collaborates with the Priority Field Sales Expansion Teams membered by our laboratory and factory experts, and accelerates information sharing across multiple departments to strengthen collaboration and teamwork in our Group. We will organically connect all these activities to deliver products and services that will delight our customers.
