Introduction

In October 2010, Polyplastics established the Polyplastics Group Corporate Philosophy. In February of the following year, the corporate executives visited each of the group companies to explain the corporate philosophy and the medium-term plan, which is no doubt still fresh in the memory of all employees.

From now on P-Mates plans to include articles on the corporate philosophy.
The first of these articles appear in this issue—two people share their thoughts concerning the corporate philosophy.
One is Ms. Linda (Chao Jiang) at PTM. She initially submitted her thoughts to this issue’s Share theme, “Your happy stories in Polyplastics.” We have included her article because we feel that the content deals with the kind of “Polyplastics-Family” we want to become.
The other is Mr. Hajime Suzuki, one of the company’s directors. He gives his thoughts on the “Polyplastics-Family.”

In the future, PPC HQ and I, as one of the P-Mates editorial team, want to make time and opportunities for contemplating the corporate philosophy together with all of you.

Erina Endoh, PPC GAD

Take good advantage of culture difference, make work goes more smoothly [by linda(Chao Jing), PTM]

Take good advantage of culture difference, make work goes more smoothly
(Shared by Linda, the secretary of PTM)

As a Chinese employee working in Japanese company, I find many different working ways between Chinese people and Japanese one after a period time.

In Japan, planning is considered to be 80% of the job, and they tend to take time with prior preparation while in China, its importance appears to be different. Basically they tend to dislike things that become unnecessary after prior preparation.

The content of my job is always trivial but important. I often meet problems at that time when I deal with them in my own way or so-called Chinese way that means less prior preparation, until once a Japanese expatriate taught me a good method by a sample, which is to make detailed prior preparation list for those arrangement even it maybe revised several times or cancelled in the future. Although he is back to Japan for long time, I have accustomed to this way of doing things which make my work goes smoothly and clear from then on.

Each culture has its own outstanding point, just assimilate it to perfect yourself.

My thoughts around "Polyplastics-Family"

I would like to share my thoughts around “Polyplastics-Family”, one of the two “Value” which our corporation has the ground on. Moving our corporation forward into the future, a point which I would like to focus on in this value of “Polyplastics-Family” is “Diversity”.

Since the corporation established in 1962, Polyplastics has grown businesses very successfully firstly centering on Japanese customers and later expanding businesses also with its transplants. As of today our corporation has built strong positions in key market segments also with non-Japanese accounts as a leading engineering plastics supplier in Asia. As you know, Polyplastics has now businesses in nine countries all over the world. If we look at the 2010 business result, 63% out of the total volume sold derived from outside Japan although a majority of the total volume was produced still in Japan. 49% out of the total sales turnover were generated from outside Japan. If we look at the structure of our employees, 46% out of the total number of employees which is 1,623 as of March 1, 2011 reside outside Japan. More importantly as you have read in the CEO message No. 19 dated January 2011, one of the key strategic objectives in the medium term business plan for 2011-2013 is to further expand businesses in emerging countries. Another key objective in the medium term business plan is to invest as much as 20 billion yen in three years to come to secure the product supply to support our business growth in Asia. Undoubtedly the business of Polyplastics will be further globalized in years soon to come.

In the meantime, in October 2010 the corporate philosophy comprising of “Mission”, “Vision” and “Value” was redefined. Now we all are coming to have a clear prospect on why we are here, how our corporation would like to be, and on which the corporation has the ground to reach our goals.

Now a question coming in my mind is “In the processes to move our corporation forward along with the corporate philosophy, how can we become more successful than the past and also how can we become more successful than others ?” In my mind, “Diversity” is a key driving factor for our corporation in that sense and now is the time for us to try more to substantiate the potential strength of “Diversity”. What does this mean in our actual world? There can be many answers.

Working with global companies for many years, I saw many processes for global, regional and / or cross-functional teams to have evolved ideas in sharing goals and to have elaborated final ideas. There are too many examples to enumerate. For instances, how best can we manage global accounts as well as global contracts’ administration? How can we better manage order execution processes covering customers in all Asia who speak different languages? How best can we achieve a common target price increase in different regions / countries? How best can we share the safety information globally? In most cases, discussions start with conflicts of various opinions. However, as discussions progress, discussions converge into a direction as long as they all share what needs to be achieved and eventually they elaborate a final idea.

In some case, one needs to adjust an elaborated idea in a process to implement it in meeting the nature of local requirements, which could lead to making the original idea even better also for others. In the other case, after the implementation of an elaborated idea one needs to adjust it to cope with changes occurring in the market, which information could help others better manage businesses also in other market places. Both cases imply that “Diversity” gets more meaningful in bilateral processes for each other. A best practice that our corporation has in one location could get even a better best practice through this sort of bilateral processes. Needless to say, respecting each other is a prerequisite to make bilateral processes successfully function.

I am certainly aware that Polyplastics has been trying to pursue “Diversity” and we should be proud of what we have accomplished in terms of “Diversity” so far. Especially I am very pleased now to see new activities leading to pursue “Diversity” in some organizations such Japan Sales Division and TSCs among Japan, China and Thailand. Under the constantly changing markets, doing things in a same manner does not necessarily lead our corporation to a success in future and in this sense “Diversity” could play a key role for our future. Haven’t you ever had a case that you flatly denied opinions of others? Maybe we should try to understand at least thoughts behind those opinions. A mindset necessary to pursue “Diversity” is to stay open and flexible, and thus we would become able to stay creative, I believe.

My experiences were centered mainly on sales & marketing related areas, but I believe this way of thinking can be applied in all functional areas also such as research & development, administration as well as production. To substantiate the potential strength of “Diversity” further, stay open and flexible, share goals but do not be afraid of conflicts, and try to have bilateral processes for each other to learn. I do hope this culture will take root in our organization in a near future. 

On the contrary, such organizations as those which reject “Diversity”, comprising only of people having homogeneous sense of value, lose vitality and stagnate. Those organizations cannot be proactive to change themselves to achieve goals in coping with constantly changing market places. Needless to say, this is not what our corporation is pursuing for. What our corporation is pursuing for is “Polyplastics-Family” which is filled with challenging spirit of seeking to constantly evolve. In this connection the management is responsible for finding a way how best we can reflect “Diversity” on managing our corporation including its decision making process.   

As a conclusion, “Diversity” can be a driving tool to evolve our corporation and eventually to differentiate ourselves from others in the market. Seeing many challenges ahead of us, it is a meaningful opportunity now to re-think about implication of “Diversity” for everyone. I would be extremely grateful if this message could prompt your discussions to pursue “Diversity” with / among your colleagues in our global network.  

Last not but least I thank Mr. Goto for giving me a chance to talk about my thoughts around “Polyplastics-Family” and the secretary office for their help.  

Hajime Suzuki