Fujitsu 2012 Annual Report Download - page 77

Q2: What approach do you personally strive to
bring to your work as an auditor?
Auditors have a weighty responsibility. For this reason, we
have to always approach our work with a healthy sense of
skepticism, and be resigned to the fact that we will occasion-
ally have to face off against management. There are three
things in particular that I personally strive for. First, I pay
close attention to the character of those involved in manage-
ment, and not only managers at the parent company. On any
given day, I am in close contact with managers at domestic
and overseas Group companies, as well as various depart-
ment managers working at our business sites. Through
repeated conversations with them, I eventually get a multi-
faceted understanding of them as a person, including their
personal stance and capacity.
The second thing I strive for is to stay abreast of changes.
The environment both in and outside of a company is in a
constant state of flux. Since critical management issues are
rarely resolved overnight, I do my best to gauge a company’s
ability to respond to such issues by examining its past, pres-
ent and probable future approach, its speed in addressing
such issues, and the real and predicted outcomes.
Third, I act from a group management perspective. The
Fujitsu Group is home to roughly 540 consolidated subsidiar-
ies. I visit worksites to get direct input from those on the
ground about where Group resources overlap and where room
for mutual flexibility exists. From there, I try to envisage the
potential for making operations more efficient.
When I became an auditor after having been directly
involved in management as a vice president, I found that I
had to examine the basic starting points that underlie man-
agement from square one. Furthermore, the connections and
networks cultivated over my decades at Fujitsu have become
useful aids in fulfilling my current role as an auditor.
Q3: What is your personal assessment of
Fujitsu’s governance structure?
For a global ICT company like Fujitsu, the pressure is on to
strengthen management transparency, management over-
sight, and other aspects of corporate governance. From an
early stage, Fujitsu sought to answer these calls by recruiting
highly independent outside officers.
The outside directors and outside auditors have an objec-
tive perspective grounded in their own specialist knowledge,
which they bring to the task of monitoring the board’s deci-
sion-making process. Consequently, when it comes to how
the Board of Directors is managed, the atmosphere is one in
which the directors, on the business execution side, are
responsible for explaining their actions to the outside officers
and the auditors. Last fiscal year, Mr. Yoshikazu Amano, a
former statutory auditor for Toyota Motor Corporation, joined
our ranks as a statutory auditor for Fujitsu. My sense is that
Fujitsu will continue to benefit from an awareness of new
management issues thanks to the observations he offers
from his own experience in managing and auditing a global
corporation.
By combining the efforts of outside officers and auditors in
this way, we are working hard to make corporate governance
even stronger.
Q4: To wrap up, what issues lie ahead for Fujitsu,
and what are your expectations for the
Company?
Based on what I see as an auditor, there are two key issues.
The first is new risks that will materialize from changes in the
business environment. More to the point, as global develop-
ment of the cloud business and ICT services quickens, this will
likely spark changes not only in the surrounding business
environment but in Fujitsu’s own business. As an auditor, I
need to monitor the situation closely to be sure that Fujitsu is
coping well with the associated risks.
The other issue is responding to corporate misconduct.
This is an area where the original role of the auditor comes
into play. Fujitsu has no problems in this respect at the
moment. But several well-known companies have been
rocked by major scandals in recent years. This situation has
deeply impressed upon me that auditors bear a great deal of
responsibility for upholding good corporate governance. No
matter the circumstances, auditors need to be fair and unbi-
ased, and to stand firm in performing their duties.
As for my expectations going forward, let me say that if
Fujitsu is determined to develop as a global ICT company,
then it has to be capable of offering services well into the
future and earn its customers’ trust. For these reasons, in
addition to a sound financial base, Fujitsu must be brimming
with a desire to achieve this vision; and this desire must be
shared by employees and management alike. It is also crucial
that Fujitsu be a transparent company where corporate gov-
ernance functions as it should. My sincere hope is that Fujitsu
continues to clear these benchmarks and finds further growth
as a company of excellence.
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FUJITSU LIMITED ANNUAL REPORT 2012
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