Group CEO New Year Message to Employees: Further Growth and Development Through Challenge and Our Collective Wisdom

Happy New Year to everyone in the Panasonic Group. 

Welcome to 2025. I hope you enjoyed a peaceful holiday with your family and friends and that you are starting the new year with a fresh outlook on your work. Many of you have probably made some resolutions for the new year, but please remember that health, safety, and compliance are the prerequisites for everything we do. In particular, I would like to ask everyone to approach their work with a safety-first mindset and a focus on achieving zero accidents in the workplace this year.

My first job this year was to give an opening keynote speech at CES 2025. CES is a world-class technology exhibition held every January in Las Vegas that attracts a great deal of attention. My opening keynote was the first for the Panasonic Group since 2013. This year, under the theme “Well into the future,” I provided an update on our efforts to achieve a decarbonized society and described initiatives to help customers in a variety of fields through our proprietary AI technology known as Panasonic Go.

The key element in Panasonic Go involves using AI-based large language models (LLMs) in combination with our own small language models (SLMs), which fine-tune proposals and solutions by leveraging Panasonic’s unique knowledge and expertise.

These technologies are already being used by Blue Yonder, and development is also under way at Panasonic Well. In fact, Panasonic Well is close to commercializing AI agent technology that can offer optimized solutions for individual customers based on their respective data.

AI is a fiercely competitive field. Maximizing our ability to use AI efficiently is the key to making the most of the unique knowledge and expertise we have nurtured and will continue to nurture. Our AI-driven proposals and solutions will help both B2C and B2B customers. In particular, we are positioned to develop competitive solutions for supply chain management (SCM), energy management, and other fields. It should also be possible to transform internal operations so that they become more accurate and efficient.

You may be wondering why we chose “Panasonic Go” as the name of this initiative. Well, we have two reasons: first, because “go” means “to move,” and we plan to make a big step forward in digital transformation (DX) as a group; and second, we are moving towards the fifth leg of our 250-year plan (2032–2056). It should now be clear to everyone that this is an initiative that will bring about significant change for us.

Three months remain in the current mid-term period. As it stands today, and with the exception of cumulative operating cash flow, we are not in a position to achieve the KGI* targets for the mid-term period. Personally, I consider the situation to be unacceptable. Yes, the external environment has changed—but it has also changed for our competitors. When sales decline, the typical response is to compensate by reducing costs; however, Groupwide, in almost every operating and divisional company, the fixed-cost ratio has increased. This is the main factor behind the decline in profitability.

* Abbreviation for “Key Goal Indicator.” An indicator relating to the achievement of important goals.

If our goal is to become more profitable, then we need to do two things: become more efficient and focus on work that creates value for our customers. To improve efficiency, we need to make thorough use of AI—even for complex tasks with a variety of conditions. Across the Group, we have many, many “similar but different” indirect operations. We will accelerate efforts to unify and standardize these operations toward Groupwide optimization. 

The beginning of a new year is a great time to recommit ourselves to thoroughly improving our productivity. When it comes to creating value for customers, everyone should be asking themselves the key question—“What does my customer want from me?”—and then adopting a customer-first approach.

The Panasonic Group has not been able to turn around its growth. We are afraid of change, content with the status quo, falling behind in DX, and work style reforms are only halfway done. That’s the reality, right? 

At the beginning of last year, I chose the character “kei” as my “Kanji of the Year,” and I made a vow to “UNLOCK” things, as we say in English. I wonder how much progress you or your department have made in “UNLOCKING” things? If we are going to be a top global competitor, then we must accelerate “UNLOCK” and fundamentally change the way we do things. 

With this in mind, I have chosen the character “koh” (“change”) as my “Kanji of the Year” for 2025. This character can mean “changing the old into something new and better” as well as “tightening what is loose.”

When the Group was on a growth trajectory, with a firm resolve and sense of urgency, everyone took on challenge after challenge and approached their job with the desire to “beat the competition” and “help our customers.” This is the very embodiment of “Evolution” in the Panasonic Leadership Principles (PLP). But I wonder if this is still true today. Aren’t we content with making a profit while losing ground to the competition? Aren’t we satisfied with the way we do things rather than trying to improve and evolve? In the meantime, our rivals continue to evolve.

If we intend to entrust this company to future generations, then we must continue to outperform the competition and transform into a group focused on growth. To do this, we must constantly question the status quo and change the way we do things. Status quo means decline. Let’s take on these challenges together and achieve growth.

Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan opens in April this year. The Group’s pavilion, “NOMO NO KUNI,” is a place where young people, in particular, can be inspired by an exciting and promising vision for the future.

Let’s continue to be a company that is relevant to society and customers. To this end, let’s face up to and overcome our challenges. I would like to make 2025 a year in which our collective efforts and wisdom trigger our transformation. I have high expectations for each of you.