Corporate Metabolism

Hello, I am Mitsunori Kimura, an expert in Smile Engineering. Please see this article for more on "Smile Engineering."

I am researching "Millennial Enterprises."
I call companies that possess mechanisms for longevity "Millennial Enterprises."

There is great value in lasting a long time,
and I consider it my mission to explore how to create that value
while also utilizing information technology.

Now, when thinking about Millennial Enterprises,
the conversation tends to drift toward "what to preserve."

Preserving philosophy.
Preserving technology.
Preserving trust.
Preserving culture.

Of course, that is important.
However, I believe that what to discard is also very important.

Millennial Enterprises are not companies that remain by changing nothing.
I believe they are companies that have changed what needed to be changed
and let go of what needed to be let go, in order to preserve what truly must be preserved.

I would like to call this a company's metabolism.

The human body is replaced daily while remaining the same person.
Old things are expelled, new things are taken in,
and health is maintained through the circulation of blood.
In medical terms, this is called metabolism.

A company is the same.

The people who work there change.
The customers change.
The tools change.
Social norms change.

Even so, the company's unique character remains.

After 50 years, everyone in the company will have been replaced.
Yet, continuing to live as the same company
is the wisdom of a Millennial Enterprise.

In the field of small and medium-sized enterprises, there are many forms,
Excel files, paper documents, meetings, and unique rules that have been used for years.

Each has a reason for why it was created at the time.
There is a history of choosing what was optimal at that moment to prevent someone from being troubled, to prevent mistakes, and to keep operations running.
Therefore, one should not simply reject old things.

However, mechanisms that were initially created to help people
can sometimes turn into things that bind people before we know it.

Checks for the sake of checks.
Documents that no one reads.
Input fields with ambiguous meanings.
Approvals just to avoid responsibility.

When these things pile up, the company's movements become sluggish little by little.

DX is not just about installing new systems.
It is also about finding the clogs that have accumulated in the company
and improving the flow.

What is important is to be grateful for old things before discarding them.

"Thank you for supporting the company until now."
"There was a time when this system was a great help."
"But from now on, let's change it into a different form."

When this sequence is followed, transformation is no longer a cold process.

Discarding is not the same as rejecting.
It is a warm decision made to ensure that what is truly important remains for the future.

The same applies to data.

Sales data, customer data, attendance data, and business records.
Data is a valuable asset for management.

However, simply accumulating it does not create value.

Data that is never looked at.
Data whose meaning is unclear.
Duplicate data.
Data that is not used for decision-making.

As these increase, the company does not become smarter; rather, it becomes more prone to confusion.

Data-driven management is not about quantifying everything.
It is about making what needs to be seen visible, and organizing what does not need to be seen..

A thousand-year company is not an old company.
Rather, it is a company that continues to rejuvenate itself.

Changing for the sake of the future while being grateful for the past.
Changing its form to suit the times while preserving tradition.
Replacing systems to make people happy.

The manager's job is to observe the flow of the company.

Is information flowing?
Is gratitude flowing?
Is learning flowing?
Are people's thoughts and feelings stagnating?

Companies also have a metabolism.

By adopting this perspective,
DX, organizational reform, and human resource development
might become warmer and more essential.

Changing is not breaking.
Discarding is not forgetting.

To ensure that what is truly important remains for the future,
let's improve the flow of the company just a little bit today.

I believe that is where thousand-year management begins.

Thank you for reading until the end.

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