Next-Generation Businesses
Feature:
Initiatives for Next-Generation Businesses
The NAGASE Group constantly strives to provide value that spurs innovations for comfortable lifestyles for future generations. We “Identify, Develop and Expand” technologies needed in the future. In this feature, we introduce the businesses the NAGASE Group has been focusing on for the next generation.
Case 2
NVC Office Creating the Core of NAGASE’s Future Businesses
Started in April 2017, the New Value Creation (NVC) Office’s mission is to spur innovation in the NAGASE Group and create new value, as its name states, that will become the core of future businesses through collaboration across business divisions. The NAGASE Group intends to create new businesses and new value the world has not seen before.
Position of the NVC Office in the NAGASE Group
Before it created the NVC Office, the NAGASE Group had been a founding member of the IBM Research Frontiers Institute (RFI), a fundamental IT research consortium launched by IBM in the U.S. with the objective of facilitating R&D among companies from different sectors. The NVC Office was the culmination of ideas within the NAGASE Group that it needs an organization for disseminating information within the Group and to train human resources to create innovations across business divisions.
The primary role of the NVC Office is to create new businesses over timeframes of 5–10 years. With the slogan “Bio-Inspired Technologies,” the NVC Office aims to create value with new ideas not seen before.
The driving force behind the NVC Office is the convergence of knowledge. Currently, it has four employees with engineering Ph.Ds in different fields of expertise. These four people bring their experiences in R&D at private-sector companies to a variety of discussions while respecting one another’s opinions. Through these discussions, various business ideas emerge.
Four Ph.D. Engineers’ Fields of Expertise
NAGASE Technical Vitality Program in its Second Year
GM, NVC Office and Executive Officer
Yasumitsu Orii
The NAGASE Technical Vitality Program has entered its second year of activities for the technology community, taking a bottom- up approach to innovation in the NAGASE Group.
These cross-divisional activities are independently undertaken by various on-site employees on a voluntary basis. In its first fiscal year, the program had 50 participants who split into five working groups (WG), comprising next-generation wireless communications, additive manufacturing, materials informatics, health tech and business reforms through Digital Transformation (DX). Employees from different backgrounds came together to pursue these activities, which lead to free-thinking ideas that span across the organization.
These activities have steadily produced results. The materials informatics WG was promoted to the corporate level, and in the second year, new WG were launched for next-generation sensors and biomimetics. The seeds of next-generation businesses are beginning to bud and grow.
Project
Launching Materials Informatics
Materials Informatics (MI) is a field of technology for developing new materials by combining the latest data processing technologies with materials science and we are currently moving ahead on joint development with IBM.
The NAGASE Group, which has a strong presence in the chemical field, also has overwhelming expertise in materials. It is the NAGASE Group’s belief that using this knowledge in combination with engines equipped with the latest AI could contribute significantly to rationalizing new substance and new material development.
The Group’s Nagase ChemteX and Hayashibara are already moving ahead on verification of this initiative and there are great expectations of the results. Following verification within the Group, we plan to start providing services to chemicals and biomaterials manufacturers.
Axonerve™ an Algorithmic Search Engine IP
Axonerve™ is a data search algorithm IP developed by NAGASE based on an idea from domestic research organizations. NAGASE developed this IP core for FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays) and is expanding its IP core licensing business.
FPGAs are devices whose circuit configurations can be easily programmed. With this advantage, we will developing a new market for acceleration of network virtualization and high-speed data processing for the 5G communication and data center application.
Blockchain System Development
Growing numbers of companies are exposed to new risks with the passage of time, such as the music or media industries exposed to the dangers of the copyright business or the medical or food industries where there are strong requirements for product traceability.
Under these circumstances, the NAGASE Group turned its focus to realizing highly reliable transactions through distributed ledgers enabled by blockchains for secure and traceable value exchange functions. This started a movement as a new undertaking in the NAGASE Group’s DX that will preserve existing businesses and create further new businesses. The Blockchain Promotion Team was launched as a cross-divisional project in February 2020 and has started discussions on future commercialization.
Integrated Report 2020
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(5.9MB)Download Separate Files
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NAGASE’s Value Proposition（1.4MB）
Our Value ｜ Identify ｜ Develop ｜ Expand ｜ Driving Our Value
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Message from Management（526KB）
CEO Message ｜ CFO Message
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Story for Value Proposition（839KB）
Story of the NAGASE Group’s Value Proposition ｜ 1. Our Philosophy ｜ 2. Our Business Model ｜ 3. Our Roadmap for Growth ｜ 4. Our Sustainability Management ｜ 5. Our Destination
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Management & Sustainability（505KB）
Our Board ｜ Interview with the Outside Directors ｜ Corporate Governance ｜ Compliance ｜ Risk Management & Responsible Supply Chains ｜ Creating Environmental Value ｜ Innovation ｜ Creating Social Value ｜ Social Contribution Activities
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Businesses ｜ Functional Materials ｜ Advanced Materials & Processing ｜ Electronics ｜ Mobility & Energy ｜ Life & Healthcare ｜ Regional Strategy
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11-Year Financial Highlights ｜ Financial Information ｜ Consolidated Subsidiaries, Affiliates and Offices ｜ History of the NAGASE Group ｜ Investor Information ｜ Corporate Information