The Asahi Kasei Group proactively promotes the utilization of digital technology as a means of leveraging its diverse intangible assets to transform business models and drive value creation. In promoting the utilization of digital technology, we formulated a digital transformation roadmap. Designating the period beginning in fiscal 2022 as the Digital Creation Period—which followed the Digital Introduction Period and the Digital Deployment Period—we are currently advancing initiatives to realize management innovation through DX by this road map. We will then transition to the Digital Normal Period, in which all employees utilize digital technology as a matter of course. The company’s initiatives to date have received a strong reception. Asahi Kasei has been selected as a DX Stock for three consecutive years—2021, 2022, and 2023—a selection that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) makes jointly with Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc. and the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA). Our DX initiatives were also featured in the 2023 Monozukuri White Paper, which is produced jointly by the METI, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
We have worked continuously to strengthen our framework to accelerate the promotion of DX across the Asahi Kasei Group as a whole. In April 2021, we consolidated DX promotion and IT-related organizations in R&D, production, and manufacturing to establish Digital Value Co-Creation. In April 2022, we overhauled DX promotion organizations in sales and marketing and for cultivating digital human resources on a company-wide basis, enhancing management, and achieving business transformation. We are implementing company-wide activities matched to the operational challenges faced in our business sectors. In addition, we established an independent organization for cultivating digital human resources in January 2023. This organization is accelerating initiatives designed to reinforce digital foundations, such as managing the curriculum for cultivating human resources, including the plan to train all employees as digital human resources and the DX Open Badge program.