Omron 2009 Annual Report Download - page 26

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24
It’s a difficult time for all companies, which must
confront decidedly different issues depending on
short-, medium-, and long-term time frames.
Stakeholders are tested on how they address these
different issues while sharing their different time
frames. Simply taking an idealistic long-term approach
might lead to bankruptcy in a year, which would com-
pletely negate any plans for 10 years in the future. Yet
concentrating solely on resolving the issue at hand
could force a company to sacrifice something that
would be important a decade from now. That’s why I
think it is important to ask shareholders and all stake-
holders to help find solutions that will work in the short,
medium, and long term.
These periods of adversity are the time to cultivate
human resources, which is essentially the same as
improving “on-site capabilities.” I think you’ll find that
people grow more in times of hardship than when
times are good; in retrospect, that’s been true in my
life. A company’s ability to grow over the long term is
ultimately decided by the strengths and relationships
of its individual employees. The current conditions are
an opportunity for many companies, and I think Omron
is one of those companies.
—— Is Mr. Toyama’s role as an outside director
therefore to accommodate the time frames of var-
ious stakeholders?
Mr. Toyama That is one of my jobs, but I believe I must
represent the perspective of how Omron can continue
developing and evolving over a longer time frame and on
a broader axis. My job is not to represent the interests
of any single stakeholder. As an outside director, my
job is to provide perspective for the Company’s overall
corporate value. I believe I have been asked to do the
best I can to help guide the Company over a longer time
frame and on a broader axis.
—— What expectations do you have for Mr.
Toyama as an outside director for the Company?
Mr. Sakuta We are envisioning scenarios for the
Company when conditions are bad rather than when
conditions are good. In these circumstances, I would
like Mr. Toyama to take a hard look at Omron using
his abundant real-world experience at the Industrial
Revitalization Corporation of Japan. I would also like
him to provide perspective from outside the “village
community” that a company can become. The input
of Mr. Toyama and our other outside director, Mr.
Masamitsu Sakurai, who has a wealth of experience
in management at a company similar to Omron, will
be invaluable as management seeks optimum solu-
tions for further enhancing the quality of Omron’s
corporate value.
Feature 1 Dialogue between Omron President and CEO Hisao Sakuta and
Outside Director Kazuhiko Toyama