鉄の意志持ち長期目線で：日本経済新聞
Faced with unexpected levels of losses or delays in revenue projections, we can get upset and resort to ad hoc measures. This is especially true when shareholders press for “achieving the planned figures.
“The uncollected amount is higher than we expected. If this goes on, we might lose up to X billion yen a year,” reported the head of the new business four years ago with a sobering look on his face. After three years of losses since its inception, the new payment business had finally returned to profitability for the full year. The amount of uncollected money shown was in a different order of magnitude. That was four years ago.
Should we downsize the new business? Should we cut costs and still maintain current year profits? But that would be synonymous with slowing down the company’s growth rate over a five-year span. Our CEO said, “We were prepared to a certain extent. To some extent, we were prepared for that. Hence, we will not change the pace of sales growth. I will explain to investors that if we strengthen our improvement measures, we will surely achieve good results in five years. As a director in charge of corporate planning and IR, I strongly agreed with him.
If the current profit plan is not achieved, or worse, if there is a loss, even if the company has the cash in the bank, it will be tempted to save costs in order to ensure profit. It is tempting to cut back on the things that are essential for future growth, such as hiring and minimum development costs, which should be the worst thing to do. This is where an iron will is needed. At the time, we promised our investors that we would achieve 100M usd operating profit by 2020. If we only looked at that year’s profits, we would not be able to fulfill our promise.
Investors from all over the world who saw the announcement of the financial results rushed to call with questions. Our CEO and I traveled around the United States and Europe, visiting each of the institutional investors who were shareholders in the company to explain the current situation. There was no other year that I couldn’t sleep as much on the eve of an IR session in Europe and the United States as I did that year.
We said, “To achieve our long-term goal, we need to grow this new business well. To do so, this business will incur a temporary loss, but the overall pace of growth will not change,” he explained. In addition, “user data analysis” is the key to getting out of the red, and when I explained the analysis method in detail to them on the spot, they understood it well.
There are many institutional investors in Europe and the United States who say, “I’d rather not be able to achieve goal in five years’ time. There was also an investor who said, “Explain to me what your ideal will be in 100 years. We were able to get through this crisis without a noticeable drop in share price because foreign investors, who understood our long-term perspective, took the opportunity to buy up a lot of stock. The business did not slow down and returned to profitability, and is now driving our overall growth and also a major contributor to the company’s success.
Some changes in plans are unavoidable in the business that require stopping the bleeding. However, we want to have the iron will to resist the temptation to save costs when we can secure profits in other business units. If we prioritize short-term bookkeeping, our long-term goals are distant.
