We are accelerating our transformation while continuing to enhance corporate value.
Mikio Okumura
Group CSO
Executive Vice President and Executive Officer
Changes in the Group’s Business Environment
Looking at how the external business environment has changed over the past few years, the world has changed at a faster pace and on a larger scale than we had anticipated, with more frequent and severe natural disasters in Japan and elsewhere, slower growth in the global economy, prolonged stasis in capital markets due to ongoing monetary easing, and accelerated digitalization. Moreover, autonomous cars will change the nature of insurance itself, and groundbreaking advances in technology, such as genome analysis, will lead to a new normal and change our lifestyles for the better.
The Group Management Philosophy is to contribute to the security, health, and wellbeing of our customers and society by providing solutions of the highest quality possible. Amid these changes in the external environment, we aim to remain a corporate group chosen and preferred by our customers by precisely meeting their changing needs and always advancing the Group from a customer-oriented perspective. To this end, we must realize our transformation into “A Theme Park for
Security, Health & Wellbeing,” our vision for the future.
Accelerating Our Transformation
In the two years through fiscal 2020, the final year of the current Mid-Term Management Plan, Sompo Holdings is accelerating the transformation of the entire Group, centered on reforms to the business portfolio, by diversifying business domains and earnings sources, and reforms to the corporate culture to make it more mission-driven and results-oriented. By effecting this qualitative evolution, the Company aims to solidify its footing for strong growth in the future.
In reforms to our business portfolio, we aim for steady growth in profit from overseas insurance with a truly integrated global platform that hones the competitive advantages of each business. Other initiatives are geared toward expanding business domains beyond insurance in Japan. Global ExCo was set up to support and accelerate these initiatives. The diverse opinions and management strategies that come out of Global ExCo will serve to accelerate the Group’s growth. As an example, we can take the Global Transaction Committee, which was set up under Global ExCo in June 2019. Across the Group, this committee promotes M&A activities around the world and promotes transaction-related initiatives in M&A, financing, and tie-ups in Japan and other countries in various business domains not limited to the insurance field.
To realize “A Theme Park for Security, Health & Wellbeing,” we provide added value through collaboration across businesses, utilizing real data as an entire Group and not just the sum total of data from services in each business. The key to this approach is our digital strategy and real data. While deploying cutting-edge digital technologies, we analyze real data to accurately understand the needs of our customers in real time in an effort to offer new value and solutions through collaboration across businesses.
At the same time, we are reforming the business portfolio to organically create new value with real data and digital technologies, aiming for stable growth in business profit and the expansion of business domains beyond insurance.
All executives and employees of the Group are given their own mission and responsibilities for growing each business, developing new businesses, and creating added value. They delve into their missions, taking on challenges without fear of failure, and build on each success to ultimately achieve major leaps in growth. That is how we are reforming our corporate culture. As our corporate culture changes, it will accelerate reforms to the business portfolio. This reform of our corporate culture will require taking on challenges from a fresh perspective, uncoupled from past trends, and translating this perspective into an output-driven culture that prizes diversity and results. In this context, it is important to reform work styles, such as by letting employees work anywhere, as an opportunity to reinforce this mind-set.
By staging such a qualitative evolution, we aim to help solve issues faced by society and our customers, earn their trust, and build up our customer base even further. We intend to create a sustained growth cycle that provides our customers with new and greater value while enhancing our corporate value.
To achieve our transformation into “A Theme Park for Security, Health & Wellbeing,” we are targeting adjusted consolidated profit of ¥300 billion or higher and an adjusted consolidated ROE of more than 10% in the early 2020s.
