Konica Minolta 2009 Annual Report Download - page 8

6
The Greater the Change,
the Greater the Opportunity
T he fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 (FY March 2009)
saw Konica Minolta complete its FORWARD 08 medium-
term management plan. We performed well in the first half
of the fiscal year in keeping with the growth strategies of this
initiative, particularly in our Business Technologies and Optics
businesses. But a global economic deterioration in the second
half hit our operations and results hard. We responded by
stepping up efforts to slash costs and otherwise safeguard
revenues and earnings. Despite these efforts, consolidated net
sales decreased 11.5%, to ¥947.8 billion. Operating income
declined 53.0%, to ¥56.3 billion, and net income dropped
77.9%, to ¥15.2 billion. So, while initially on track to reaching
our FORWARD 08 objectives a year early, we were unable to
attain our targets.
I became President and CEO of Konica Minolta Holdings,
Inc. in April 2009, a particularly demanding time for the
Konica Minolta Group. In FY March 2010, the outlook for
the business climate will remain as tough as it was in the
fiscal year under review. The dramatic changes we face are
not a passing phenomenon; we bear witness to a global
paradigm shift in social frameworks. Given that Konica Minolta
is challenging powerful rivals in these tumultuous times, we
must advance and strengthen our market position. But to realize
our potential, we must ourselves evolve and equip ourselves
to build new momentum.
In launching our new management structure, I shared
a new vision with all Group employees of making Konica
Minolta sufficiently robust to achieve strong, ongoing growth
while becoming essential for world society.
We formulated MANAGEMENT POLICY <09-10>, covering
April 2009 through March 2011, as the first phase in transform-
ing this vision into reality. I will outline the main points here.
Please refer to pages 12 to 14 of this report for details.
To Our Shareholders
Becoming a Robust Company
W e will overcome the global recession and remain competitive
amid drastic changes in the business environment by enhancing
our corporate capabilities. Even when there are few prospects
for sales growth, we aim to become an organization that can
consistently generate free cash flow. So we will, for example,
cut fixed costs and trim our balance sheet while stepping up
selection and concentration with existing operations.
At the same time, we will ensure that our customers are
the foundation of all our operations, aiming to become a strong
corporate group that thinks and operates innovatively. We will
innovate in all business processes, including development,
manufacturing, and services. We will also pursue business
model innovation.
As society’s environmental demands are increasing, we
will naturally comply with regulatory requirements while provid-
ing our customers with businesses, products, and services that
offer world-class environmental performance and quality.
Achieving Strong,
Sustainable Growth
W e have driven forward with our genre-top strategy, through
which we have concentrated resources to build positions
in the top group in promising business areas and markets.
These endeavors have borne considerable fruit. In Business
Technologies, for example, we lead in office MFP and pro-
duction printing fields in Europe and the United States. In our
Optics business, we dominate the markets for VA-TAC films
for large-size LCD televisions and in optical pickup lenses for
Blu-ray format.
But we will never consistently deliver strong growth if we
rest on our laurels. We need to bolster our genre-top strategy to
establish an unchallenged market position. We must also under-
stand that the markets for our successful businesses will ulti-
mately encounter slower growth and mature. It will be impossi-
ble to keep expanding if we just stick with existing businesses.
We have to harness core technologies to innovate and provide
Leadership