On April 1, 2018, CRESCO celebrated the 30th anniversary of its founding. We owe the growth of the Company to date to our shareholders, and would like to express, from the bottom of our heart, sincere gratitude to you for your consistent and special support.
As a token of our appreciation, the Company included a commemorative dividend of 10 yen per share in year-end dividend.
In April 2016, the CRESCO Group embarked on its new five-year vision "CRESCO Ambition 2020." In fiscal 2017, which is the second year of the five-year vision, we implemented key strategies toward its achievement to enhance the corporate value of the Company.
Despite the existence of numerous matters of concern including the uncertainty in the business conditions arising from the overseas situation and trends in the foreign exchange market and the stock market, the business environment continued to improve on the back of, among others, improvements in corporate earnings and the employment situation and the expansion of domestic demand. Efforts to address the “fourth industrial revolution,” “work style reform,” and “labor shortage” to strengthen the competitiveness and the growth potential of enterprises are generating further demand for software and systems development that contributes to productivity improvements. These trends provided opportunities to demonstrate the superiority of the CRESCO Group, which operates in a wide range of business fields encompassing advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and IoT (Internet of Things) in addition to its core technologies of application development technology, IT infrastructure construction technology, and embedded technology.
Under the five-year vision, the CRESCO Group has not only focused on reinforcing its development system (securing and training human resources, etc.), managing quality, and strengthening cooperation within the Group, but has also worked on various endeavors, including researching leading technology, creating new businesses, and expanding sales of various services and solutions, in order to cope appropriately and speedily with the maintenance and expansion of the order volume and the development of services in response to changes in the market and the incorporation of advanced technologies.
Although uncertainty arising from, among others, geopolitical risks and economic policies of the U.S. and China continues to linger, the economy in general is on the growth path. As evident in the BOJ Tankan published in March 2018, business conditions continues to improve. Despite variability among industries and business categories, we predict that IT investment as a whole will continue to be on an expansionary trend, supported by an increase in demand primarily for labor saving and competitiveness reinforcing and responses to Tokyo Olympic Games that are only two years away and inbound tourism. The trend of the information services industry as a whole capitalizes on the trend of “digital transformation,” which promotes the transformation of business models that utilizes digital technology, in addition to more active IT investment under the backdrop of a cyclical improvement in performance of companies and “aggressive IT management.” As a result, it is considered certain that the demand for system development is expected to rise.
Within the main segments in which the Company operates, growth is expected particularly in the areas of human resources, travel, and distribution in the software development segment and automotive electronics and information appliances in the embedded software development segment. With the advent of “digital transformation,” these areas are experiencing further expansion of customer base. We expect that promising business opportunities will arise from, among others, the renewal of the enterprise system, systems to support new services, embedded systems for new products, the need for productivity improvements with artificial intelligence and RPA (robotic process automation) caused by manpower shortage, and transition to the cloud.
The management policy for fiscal 2018, which is the third year of "CRESCO Ambition 2020," will be "management in line with "CRESCO Ambition 2020," "steady growth based on raising the quality of the business and productivity," and "expansion of the size of group businesses through M&A." The Company will promptly execute various measures to address challenges to push forward with research on advanced technologies and creation of new business, while enhancing the value added of existing business segments, and will thereby realize sustainable growth and increase corporate value.
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Challenges in FY2018 |
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In order to lead the "digital transformation" and to offer speedily realistic proposals which enable customers to realize their own growth through the innovation of their business model, the CRESCO Group will reinforce our technology and quality aspects further in the software development and embedded software development businesses, which constitute the pillar of the Group's business. At the same time, we will contribute to society by actively incorporating advanced technology and enriching services and solutions contributing to customers' growth.
June, 2018
Toshio Iwasaki, Chairman & CEO
Hiroyuki Nemoto, President
