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Striving to meet social responsibilities as a provider of “Technology Support on the Leading Edge”
As the semiconductor testing device global leader, Advantest supports industrial development globally through leading-edge measurement and testing technologies. We consider these technologies ‘mother technologies’ that ‘give birth’ to high-performance products. Semiconductors are now used in virtually every industry, so it is no exaggeration that our technologies and products play a vital role in society’s confidence and its safety and security. In this sense, our corporate social responsibility (CSR) is our business itself.
Going forward, we will continue to support industrial development and help ensure safety and security for people around the world by further honing our measurement and testing technologies. The ultimate expression of this goal can be found in our corporate mission, “Technology Support on the Leading Edge,” and corporate mantra, “Quest for the Essence.” Also, based on our fundamental CSR policy of “Aiming for sustainable business development and enhancing corporate value in line with our corporate mission and mantra,” all employees are fearlessly taking on the challenge of creating leading-edge technologies and contributing to a more affluent society.
1000 Days Created Foundations for Leap Forward
Recently, the semiconductor industry business environment has been tough. Despite the challenging conditions we have worked to meet the targets of the Corporate Initiative “1000 Days” launched in July 2009, of “posting a cumulative profit in the three years from fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2011.” Employees have worked as one to implement reforms from a mid-term perspective. Thanks to these efforts, by the end of 1000 Days in March 2012, employees had submitted over 1,600 theme proposals and we achieved major improvements in operational efficiency and cost reductions.
I believe we achieved our goals in this program, including our main goal of returning to profitability, which we realized on an operating income basis if Verigy Ltd integration costs are excluded. I consider to be even more important achievement is that through this 1000 Days, a corporate culture has now taken root in Advantest in which employees independently search out areas for improvement and provide reform themes, and work in teams that cut across department or country borders. I strongly feel that this corporate culture provides a solid foundation for a major leap forward in the future.
New Corporate Initiative ACT2014
Prior to our integration with Verigy in April 2012, total combined market share between the two companies was 39%. Post-integration, this has increased to 47%(by VLSI Research), which is undoubtedly the result of utilizing both companies’ strengths to more precisely meet customer needs.
We secured leading market share globally though the integration, but our social responsibilities have also increased in step. We are strongly aware that we now affect more customers, more employees, and more people in different parts of the world. Reflecting this, we launched our new Corporate Initiative ACT2014 to meet these responsibilities by leveraging integration synergies to the maximum.
ACT, or “Advantest Culture Transformation,” expresses our strong intent to integrate our corporate culture with former Verigy and implement reforms that reflect the New Advantest. One of the series of activity under ACT2014 is our new human resources system, Advantest Resource Management System (ARMS), which creates a globally unified employee qualifications, remuneration, and education and training system. I believe this system will help cultivate a corporate culture that encourages employees to proactively endeavor to achieve growth for both the company and for themselves.
Entering New Business Fields Without Fear of Failure
In addition to increasing market share in our core test systems business, in ACT2014 we have set ourselves the goal of achieving a four-fold increase in our new business segment.
Until now, we have mainly provided technologies and products to the semiconductor industry. Fundamentally speaking, our core competence of measuring and testing technology can be applied to an extremely diverse range of areas and aspects of life. Therefore, going forward we will not confine ourselves to only areas where we have past success, but without fear of failure we will take on the challenge of entering new business fields.
Within these new fields, we will particularly focus on areas that solve society’s problems, such as healthcare, environment, and energy. For example, in the healthcare field we are utilizing our technologies to advance medical diagnostics and we have developed a photoacoustic imaging system that can safely examine skin tissue damage.
Going forward, we will strive to achieve the ACT2014 goals of developing high value-added products that can contribute to solving societies’ problems via our technological strengths and corporate culture of taking on challenges. At the same time we will listen to the voices of our customers in a wide range of fields to better understand their needs.
Fulfilling Social Responsibilities as a Global Leading Manufacturer
We hold a globally leading market share in our industry and thus our business can have major impact on societies throughout the world. We must therefore place even greater importance on CSR. I believe that considering that our business represents our CSR, then we must also accept the importance of fulfilling responsibilities by constructing a flexible management system able to respond rapidly to changes and pursuing our corporate mission and mantra regardless of economic conditions.
Also, based on our environmental policy we enacted the Advantest Group Environmental Action Plan, which aims to harmonize our business with the global environment, and the entire Group proactively engages in environmental management. Fiscal 2012 is the final year of our Fifth Action Plan and under this plan we have strived to develop green products that help to reduce our environmental footprint. We furthermore are continuously working to improve employees’ environmental awareness, including through power saving measures carried out since the March 2011 earthquake in Japan.
We have been evaluating CSR initiatives using the ISO26000 International Standard in order to self-evaluate our CSR initiatives in order that we may implement even more effective initiatives in the future. As the name of our corporate mantra, Quest for the Essence, suggests, we are searching for our essence and by this process clearly identifying our strengths and weaknesses. While asking “What type of CSR reflects Advantest?” we will use this quest to implement further reforms around the world and become a truly global company trusted by the world’s societies.
To achieve this, I believe that it is vital that we communicate even more closely with all our stakeholders and I would like to thank them all for their support and look forward to their continued understanding and encouragement.
