Message from CEO
Returning to Our Pioneering Spirit: Business Diversification and New Growth
Jin Kagawa
Representative Director, President and CEO
Tough Business Environment Challenges Throughout 2023
The year 2023 was a tough one for our company due to severe business environment challenges. However, in “Affiliate Marketing,” the Travel category, which was adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years, have started to show signs of recovery.
Performance of our pay-per-click advertising service “StoreMatch” was affected by changes in online mall campaign implementation policy throughout the year, but “StoreMatch Pro” saw continued growth as well as expanded sales among local governments and other such organizations. Additionally, we have become active in the area of retail media, which represents a new trend in retail advertisement. One service we provide in this area is “Retail Linker”, a retail media networking service that brings together retailers and manufacturers, and a service that takes full advantage of the many years of experience and trust we have built up in the e-commerce market.
Our solutions designed for accommodation facility operations, which were developed in collaboration with group company Dynatech Inc., have seen strong performance in the midst of the post-COVID-19 resurgences in tourism demand. However, it is clear, upon reflection, that a more proactive approach is necessary amid the many intense changes taking place in our business environment.
Innovation in Both Existing and New Fields
In Marketing Solution Business, we are responding to changes in consumer purchasing behaviors by shifting efforts toward social commerce in the realm of social media. Regarding EC Solutions Business, we are pursuing efforts in retail media and working to expand distribution in channels outside of Yahoo! Shopping. There is still room for greater innovation in existing business fields.
As for travel technology business, we are strengthening collaborations not only with Dynatech discretely, but throughout the ValueCommerce Group as a whole. To this end, we have established the in-house Travel Tech Promotion Office in order to enable more rapid responses in that field. Specifically, we intend to leverage our product development assets to provide new products to Dynatech while also making full use of existing data and know-how in our operations.
In new business, we will utilize innovation from our two existing business fields as well as from the new field of travel technology, searching for ways that this can be leveraged in diversification endeavors in order to develop a new, fourth pillar of operations for ValueCommerce. Finally, through M&A, we plan to take advantage of the knowledge and technologies provided by other companies in order to realize business operations with greater efficiency and speed.
Our Restart Year: 2024
We position the year 2024 as our “restart year,” during which we will revamp our various operating and promotion frameworks while making growth-oriented investments aimed at accelerated business growth. Our organization is one built on experience and results in self-development endeavors, and on a venture spirit that gives rise to innovation. Even if a company has many long years of experience in a particular field or industry, it is essential to maintain the fearlessness of innovation and change felt at one’s founding in order to continue breaking into new territory and moving forward. With this in mind, we have updated our corporate philosophy, mission and vision for the first time in six years.
Starting with the corporate philosophy, we have returned to our pioneering spirit and readopted “Your Success is Our Value,” which we used at the time of our founding. Thus far, we have worked hand-in-hand with others in a supporting role throughout our many endeavors; moving forward, we intend to view ourselves as, and serve as, a pioneer and a leader instead.
In addition, we have established “Efficiently Connecting Accurate Information” as our mission and “Creating a Society with Diverse Choices Through Cutting-Edge Technology” as our vision. Identifying accurate information from among the great volumes of information at our disposal, and then efficiently delivering it to those who require it, is our company’s raison d’être. As such an organization, we respect the diverse array of backgrounds and values possessed by different people, and strive to realize a society that gives each person an abundance of potential choices.
ValueCommerce will expend all possible efforts to successfully create new value and continually convey our value as a company. In this regard, I ask for your continuing support and guidance as we move forward together.