Aeon’s “Customer First” commitment has been passed down through over 250 years of history since the company’s inception.
Aeon has continually grown by joining forces with like-minded companies aiming for transformation from retailers to corporations, modernizing and industrializing. The Aeon Group currently has 350,000 employees and sales of over 5 trillion yen. It has become the largest retail distribution group of companies in Japan and in Asia.
Although our scale of business is expanding, and along with this our position of influence on people’s lives, on society, and on the environment, Aeon will continue to honor our basic principle of “pursuing peace, respecting humanity and contributing to local communities, centered on our customers.” In order to practice the dual objectives of “Aeon Group growth” and “Societal development” we need to give attention to a variety of challenges endangering a healthy society. In solving the individual problems, we can also discover business opportunities. Together with our stakeholders, we must promote the growth of “sustainable management”.
Four programs in a three-year “Aeon Group Mid-term Management Plan”, starting from fiscal 2011 through fiscal 2013, support these principles and objectives. Looking ahead to an aging and digitizing society, revolutionary changes are called for in stores and products. It is my hope that by pursuing Aeon’s universal values we will be able to meet customer needs in Japan and in Asia with our “senior shift” response to an aging society, “digital shift” response to the need for shops and stores to reflect urban lifestyle changes, and “Asia shift” response to rapid developments in Asian countries, including the call for “more reliable products and a richer lifestyle.” We will be promoting such businesses in Japan, in China, and in countries in the ASEAN region. While we are unified as a group, we approach projects independently, drawing upon the diversity of our Aeon people, and responding flexibly to local demands and to changes in the market. “Unity” and “diversity” go along with “global” and “local” management.
Through “glocal” management, we can become a “super region retailer” capable of bridging Japan and Asia in peace and prosperity. In this way, Aeon people can join hands with people in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and with people throughout the world facing various difficulties, to offer a future of limitless promise. I believe that it is my work, as the head of a company, to realize this.