Message from the Representative

Message from the President

uSonar Co., Ltd. Representative Director and CEO

Katsuhito Nagatake(Katsuhito Nagatake)

Working together with our customers and employees to shape a future that cannot yet be foreseen, with co-creation as our theme.

I am Katsuhito Nagatake, Representative Director and CEO of uSonar Co., Ltd.

I joined the company in 2000 and was appointed as Representative Director in 2019.
Since joining, I have been part of the Sales Department and have consistently worked in sales.
At that time, the department was called the Planning Department, and we placed more emphasis on planning and proposing solutions than on simply selling products.
This policy has been carefully upheld and continues to be a core part of our operations today.

During my university years, I majored in history and conducted research on ancient history.
In the history department, we created arguments by examining documents, conducting repeated investigations, deriving hypotheses, and providing supporting evidence.
The nature of our database marketing support services is essentially the same.
We create specific hypotheses based on facts—such as markets, clients, services, and tools—and apply them to corporate activities.
Our company's core business is to provide support for building the databases that serve as the foundation for these marketing activities.

Twenty years ago, because the company was more compact in both scale and headcount compared to today,
I was able to learn the importance of continuous knowledge acquisition directly from many people, regardless of their specific job functions.
It is a fond memory of mine to have spent late nights in front of a whiteboard with demanding yet personally respected colleagues,
passionately discussing the future vision of the company and the tools and services we needed to realize.

We have also been fortunate with our clients.
Since our main services in the early stages of my career were focused on sales promotion,
I learned "to whom" and "how" to deliver information through campaign work in the music industry and card promotion projects for oil companies.
Gradually, we shifted our focus to areas that improve operational efficiency, performing "customer data maintenance" and "customer data analysis,"
which allowed us to expand our business with luxury brands, the office equipment industry, and the financial sector.

Our company has introduced a "Demand" system. We focus on utilizing feedback from our clients—including what other companies might label as "complaints"—to improve our own products and services.
I believe that having such a long history of relationships with these vocal clients is one of our company's greatest strengths.

No one can accurately foresee what the future holds, not just for uSonar, but for the world at large.
With "co-creation" as our theme, we will work together with our clients and our employees to shape that unpredictable future.

Message from the Chairman

Representative Director and Chairman

Nami Fukutomi (Nami Fukutomi)

Our Goal Is to Be the "Most Non-Competitive Company in Japan"

uSonar has adopted "Non-Competition" as its management policy since 2015. Non-Competition

Previously, we integrated features such as SFA (Sales Force Automation) and MA (Marketing Automation) into our cloud service, uSonar.

Unconditionally listening to every customer request often leads to overly complex and excessive features that are unnecessary for the majority of users.
As described in The Innovator's Dilemma, this can result in 'meaningless high performance,' much like the excellent Japanese home appliances of the past.
The SFA and MA features we developed as a result became commodities without a competitive edge, leading to futile and intense market competition.

We learned from Al Ries's 'Focus' that a company should specialize only in its areas of expertise.
From this, we moved toward 'coexistence' and 'non-competition,' concluding that we should focus on our core strengths while entrusting adjacent fields to other companies with their own unique advantages.

Our area of expertise is the comprehensiveness of our 12.5 million business establishment records.
For customers seeking SFA, MA, or BI (data organization tools), we introduce companies that offer the most suitable solutions.

As a result,
1. Former competitors have become our partners.
2. Our sales team can provide optimal proposals as specialists.
3. We can provide objective consulting support through integration with adjacent products.
Consequently, we have achieved both higher customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.

We aim to be the 'most non-competitive company in Japan.'

We appreciate your continued support and cooperation.

* 'Non-competition' is based on Chapter 4, 'Cooperative Strategy,' of 'Competitive Strategy Without Competing' by Professor Hideo Yamada of Waseda Business School.