News

Matsushita Reveals Three-Year Business Plan

December 04, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) has announced the outline of its new mid-term business plan, named Value Creation 21, for the three-year period from April 2001 through March 2004.

The Value Creation 21 plan seeks to establish a “new Matsushita" that will place top priority on providing value-adding services to customers through the development and marketing of tailored systems, equipment and components. Matsushita is confident that, through these efforts, it can reinvent itself as a new manufacturer, or as the president of the company, Kunio Nakamura, puts it, “a super-manufacturer."

As part of the Value Creation 21 plan, Matsushita has established a number of goals it will strive to achieve by the end of fiscal 2004, ending 31 March, 2004. First, the company will work to bring its operating profit ratio up to five percent of consolidated sales. Second, Matsushita will strive to increase consolidated sales to approximately nine trillion yen for fiscal 2004. Lastly, Matsushita will work optimize capital efficiency.

Nakamura explained that Matsushita's plans to accomplish these challenging goals could be summed up in two keywords, “deconstruct and create." He stressed that the company needed to “deconstruct" or discontinue systems and corporate culture that were successful in the twentieth century but are now outdated or no longer fit the new business environment. Having done away with the old, Nakamura envisions Matsushita creating a new management system that emphasizes adding value for customers and focuses on accelerated growth.

As part of this growth, Matsushita will focus on digital audiovisual technology and mobile technology and communications. To support expansion of these priority businesses, Matsushita will advance its semiconductor, data storage device and display device operations as well as its high-frequency component modules, electric motors and battery lines. The company intends to accelerate growth by adding value through the value chain -- from components and devices to finished products and systems.