Fumikiyo Uchioke, President and CEO

Although our group business has sustained growth and expansion due to the continuous increase in sales and profits for nine consecutive terms up to the last business year, the business environment for this year will change drastically from the past. You are requested to cast aside the mentality of steadily expanding growth and tackle your job with a renewed awareness with a sense of crisis and a sense of urgency. Also, the future is uncertain about how long the worldwide recession will last or will further deepen and spread. Under such circumstances, I consider it very important to rapidly and accurately gather correct information and make preemptive moves. Keeping this in mind, please put it into practice.

Considering the business environment for this year, let me state three points that I would like you to focus on.

The first is to achieve specific results of the Product Appeal No. 1 Activity.
We launched the Product Appeal No. 1 Activity last year to put the harness business on the growth track and realize the 12 Vision. This year will be the crucial year for the turn of the three-year activity. Each and every one of you is requested to clarify the goals and the time axis, keeping your eyes on the final third year, and to further advance the activity into a more activated and fruitful one towards the successful achievement of the goals, thereby achieving specific results.

The second is to review work by going back to the starting point of manufacturing. Our Group business has sharply expanded for nearly 10 years. Business management with priority given to increases in production has advanced in the process, and assignments that should be tackled as a manufacturer, namely, manufacturing itself, and elimination of waste and pursuit of efficiency in the vicinity services of manufacturing, such as inspection, physical distribution, and inventory control, are left on the back-burner. Therefore, you are strongly urged to take this severe business environment as an opportunity and cast aside the mentality of conventional increases in production and expansion, but rather go back to the starting point as a manufacturer and tackle the review of services thoroughly. Thus, I consider it possible to reform the company into a strong management structure that can produce profits even in a severe business environment.

The third is to perform advanced development that serves as strategic move in the future.
When considering the drastic change in business environment due to the sudden slowdown in the economy at this time, I consider anew the necessity of starting development that will become a strategic move in preparation for or in anticipation of changes or risks in the future society or business environment. I ask you to tackle advanced development in anticipation of the future to develop a corporate structure that can stand sudden changes in the environment.

The business environment this year is expected to be extremely severe for Sumitomo Wiring Systems Group. While advancing reforms that will lead to a strong corporate structure in the future, I would like you to unite all efforts of the Group to overcome the difficulties of the current situation. I hope that every one of you will try harder.