Creating New Standards

The DIGI/TERAOKA Group is made up of a wide range of talented individuals: engineers, whose dedication to product development is fueled by the image of customers thrilled by our products; salespeople, whose passion is inspired by picturing a customer’s store that is revitalized with the help of our solutions; and devoted support staff, who envisage their colleagues truly enjoying their work, and strive make that a reality. The work roles of these people differ, but there is one important characteristic that they all share: the enjoyment of being innovative in their work.

At DIGI/TERAOKA Group, our style of innovation starts from square one – re-examining our customers’ objectives from scratch. We start by listening to our customers’ concerns and objectives. At the same time, we gain deeper insight by visiting and learning about their workplace, and then repeatedly rethink the objectives, sometimes strongly questioning underlying assumptions in the process. This is our approach for getting at the true nature of what our customers are trying to achieve. By breaking through the status quo; by breaking through existing standards.

Getting at the true nature of our customers’ objectives can reveal basic needs that were previously hidden. By matching these basic needs with the potential of our technologies, we can make a dramatic leap forward with our solutions and create new standards in the process. This is our style of innovation, and practicing it is a great source of joy and fulfillment for us.

We hear a lot about market maturity and economic stagnation, but we do not subscribe to such commentary. The tougher the market conditions, the more acutely our customers need new solutions. So, we will not hesitate to break through established market standards and create new ones. And when those standards become commonplace, we will break through them again, and take up the challenge of creating the next new standard.

At DIGI/TERAOKA Group, we take pride in providing carefully crafted professional solutions that faithfully match the needs of our customers. We will continue to apply our unique style of innovation to creating new solutions that exceed our customers’ expectations into the future.

Chairman of the Board
Chief Technology Architect
Kazuharu Teraoka

Sharing a Vision of the Future Through Innovation

“Show gratitude! We can do it! Let’s create what others can’t!” This is our corporate philosophy, which was created by Takeharu Teraoka, our second president, in 1935; one year after the company was established. And as this philosophy states, the development of groundbreaking products driven by the gratitude we feel for our customers is in our company's DNA and has been handed down since our company’s establishment. However, even if we think our products are innovative, we cannot consider a product to be a market innovation unless a great number of customers use it and appreciate it. It is precisely because of this unforgiving reality and the difficulties in creating new markets that we continue to strive in meeting this challenge.

For example, consider the semi-self-checkout system we released in 2010. Although our product was revolutionary, with the cashier doing the product scanning and the shopper doing the payment, we were told by many that it would never succeed. However, our persistent efforts in conveying the message that the system could reduce shopper checkout waiting times by one-half and help resolve staff shortages in stores resulted in the system still being used across Japan today, with countless satisfied customers and our company being hailed as the semi-self-checkout pioneer. It was our dedication to sharing this message with our customers that allowed us to create the new standard of semi-self-checkout. We envisioned how our innovation could work in our customer’s stores and the benefits it could provide and then energetically communicated this vision to our customers. And, we are proud to say that it was through these steady and unrelenting communication efforts that we were able to open up a new market.

The DIGI/TERAOKA Group has been taking on the challenge of creating new standards since its founding. We have set a new goal for the medium to long term – achieving consolidated sales of 200 billion yen by fiscal 2034, which is the year that marks the 100th anniversary of our company’s establishment. With gratitude to our customers as our driving force, we will unite our entire group to strengthen our capacity for groundbreaking innovation and compelling communication. Through this we will reinforce our potential and presence in our four main business fields of retail, food industry, logistics, and hospitality. This is the goal that we, by all means, want to realize.

However, you cannot realize that which you cannot envision. And that is why we are envisioning the excitement and delight that our groundbreaking innovation can bring to our customers and then sharing this vision with them through compelling communication, to make it a reality. We will continue to build on the trust our customers have in us and inspire confidence that DIGI will continue to create new standards into the future.

President
Kosuke Yamamoto