Approach
Niterra efforts to create new businesses
Since our founding in 1936, Niterra has contributed to the development of society with our core technology of ceramics.
Until now, we have grown to have the world's top market share centered on products for internal combustion engine vehicles such as spark plugs and sensors. But now the world is about to change dramatically.
In particular, the automobile industry is facing a once-in-a-century period of major change, from internal combustion engines to electrification, as we move toward decarbonization on a global scale. Given the need for major changes in our business models, we are also transitioning from a company that accurately responds to customer needs to a company that anticipates potential issues and resolves them.
Our challenge is to create new businesses to tackle the various issues facing the world and contribute to the realization of
a better society and the provision of new value to the world.
Development of innovative human resources
A company's assets are its people. The New Business Creation Department, which was established to develop a wide variety of new businesses, is working to develop human resources who will bring innovation to the world. Centering on the culture creation project, which was launched autonomously mainly by young employees, the action guidelines of the new business creation department are set by the employees themselves and shared with all members as shared values. These guidelines include: "True value is created through dialogue with customers," "Think about what is best and act without being bound by the way things are normally done or the standard way of doing things," and "Always think about the value you can provide." We believe that the essence of fostering innovative human resources is to develop talent who can create value themselves, rather than following the value created by others.
We have a lineup of practical educational programs that specialize in creating new business which includes a variety of learning and awareness training, such as business creation training, design thinking training, DX education, and language training.
In addition to in-house educational programs, employees actively participate in external innovator training programs, discuss new business creation methods with other companies, and gain experience by being seconded to venture companies and mutual secondments with other companies.
We are also focused on developing more practical human resources, towards building a group where each individual thinks and acts autonomously rather than top-down.
Our entire company is about to change.
Fostering a culture of innovation
Unlike existing businesses that have accumulated experience, new businesses are uncharted territory. They have to take on challenges without the benefit of experience. It is necessary to absorb opinions from various people, from a variety of careers, and bring together a wide variety of ideas.
In the new business creation department, we are promoting the creation of an organization where everyone feels that they can freely and safely express their opinions. This is why we introduced the concept of “holacracy,” a mechanism for creating an organization with a high degree of autonomy through role-based relationship (“rolationships”) rather than job titles. Everyone takes responsibility for their own roles and shares their opinions on the same level to build a flat organization capable of utilizing collective intelligence.
However, “holacracy” also has its weaknesses. It can be difficult to produce results in development work that requires speed, so for this reason, we have also introduced an agile development method called “Scrum” for development work. This is a framework that can efficiently create value by repeating the development cycle in a short period of time. Holacracy is our system for running the organization and Scrum is our mechanism for developing solutions. We aim for a flat and highly efficient organization with our unique "Nittocracy" that combines these two concepts. In ideation, Venture Lab takes the lead in creating "seeds of innovation" through a variety of methods, such as generating ideas in a diverse community, soliciting ideas from the entire company, and using an online idea solicitation platform.
Co-creation inside and outside the company
So far, Niterra has developed new businesses based on our core technology of ceramics, further developing this technology from there. However, going forward our mission will be business development and product development centered on solving social and customer issues. This means that we will take on areas that are not just extensions of ceramics technologies. To do this, we will need “co-creation” with outside cooperation to supplement our own technology and experience.
In order to promote co-creation, venture labs have been established as open innovation bases in three locations: Silicon Valley in the United States, Germany, and Tokyo. We look to be the first to find startups in each region and engage in activities to co-create new businesses . We also engage in activities aimed at promoting innovation and collect detailed information, constantly searching for new information, ideas, and collaborative creation partners not only from other companies but also from local communities and exhibitions. We expect to see synergies from the cooperation and information sharing between each base in Japan, the United States, and Europe and BCC. In addition, at our automobile-related bases around the world, each company promotes its own activities for new business, and we closely exchange information.
In addition, in order to create businesses with a sense of urgency, we are actively making external investments in various companies that have the management resources we do not have. For this reason, we are looking for partners around the world, partnering with venture capital firms that have a wealth of information and connections with startup companies globally.
In this way, by collaborating in various ways with a variety of companies, we are able to connect the dots and develop our business in a way that is focused on the big picture.
