Yoshihiro Kitamura: Message from the Head of the Media & Solutions SBU FY2020

Evolving with the times: Creative solutions for the changing world

The Media & Solutions SBU has been part of Recruit since the company's beginnings 60 years ago. Over the course of those 60 years, the M&S SBU has continued to provide new value by constantly evolving to meet the needs of our individual users and enterprise clients. The COVID-19 global health crisis provided us with an opportunity to stop and reflect on our business practices. Faced with this unprecedented event, we were each pushed to question the true purpose behind our actions and what value those actions were creating. We realized that changes in the world required us to search for new, creative ways to provide value to society. So we began to adapt our products and services to accommodate rising business challenges due to COVID-19.

Yoshihiro Kitamura Managing Executive Officer Head of Media & Solutions SBU President and Representative Director of Recruit Co. Ltd.

For example, we repurposed AirWAIT(Available in Japanese only), a reception management tool for retail locations that gives customers a virtual ticket to hold their place in line, for use in hospitals, medical institutions, and even restaurants to help prevent the spread of infection through waiting rooms or lines. Study Sapuri(only in Japanese), an online learning service, has become a practical and safe way for students to continue learning while they are unable to physically attend school. Classes are designed to make the most out of student-teacher interaction. Students can learn autonomously from a variety of educational videos and connect with their teachers virtually when they have questions about the content. Many schools have adopted the service as a teaching tool and have shared invaluable feedback that we are using to improve the platform.

Stronger together: M&S SBU's operating companies unite to contribute more to society

While we've repurposed many of our products and services to respond to the effects of COVID-19, we believe we can do more to strengthen the M&S SBU's overall contributions to society. Combining the expertise of each of our businesses will uncover additional areas where we can provide value. We created "Personal Data Policy*" as an integrated written guideline in the Media & Solutions SBU. We also began integrating our legal functions in April 2020. As we continue to evolve and leverage new technologies, we will strengthen our value proposition and expand the scope of what we can do to help our users and clients access "Opportunities for Life." We plan to have fully integrated all of the M&S SBU's operating companies by April 2021.
There is still so much we can do to address the world's challenges. As new challenges arise, the Media & Solutions SBU will continue to seek out creative solutions and enhance our value proposition so that we can contribute more to society.

Sep 30, 2020

This article is based on information available at the time of publication.