Initiatives that contribute to the sustainable development of both enterprise and society

Tanaka: Looking ahead, what kind of plans does the NTT Group have for CSR, and what issues exist?

Kanazawa: Basically each company will continue to conduct activities in line with the Group's Priority Activities and targets. The important thing is to practice good PDCA management and ensure one's activities are contributing as intended to the sustainable development of both the enterprise and society.

Tanaka: That's a very important concept. Enterprises aren't charities. Their basic mission is to provide outstanding products and services, and this in turn contributes to the development of society and results in profits for the company. This is also the United Nations' stance, and I think the NTT Group's approach is right on target.
What about specific issues, though? There must be some issues particularly relevant to the NTT Group, such as ensuring safety when a disaster occurs, or ensuring network security.

Kanazawa: Where disaster preparedness is concerned, we recognize that we manage infrastructure that serves as a vital lifeline, and so if anything happens to it, it could have a huge impact on society. That's why we try to ensure the continuity of our business at all times.

Iwahori: Right from the start, we employees see it as our mission to keep people connected around the clock every day of the year, and to keep any impacts to an absolute minimum, no matter what happens.

This point is about half-way down the page.

Tanaka: No matter what happens — that's a great attitude. I know that the NTT Group discusses various aspects of disaster preparedness with the government and also participates in various committees. I'm a member of a government working group too, and so I know how important it is for an enterprise like NTT to provide sound opinion based on its public role and its knowledge and experience in the field.

Iwahori: Regarding security, there are customers who have suffered despite the precautions taken by the NTT Group, and so we can't afford to assume that we're doing enough. We really do need to go all out to address emerging needs in society.

Tateno: I think that ensuring information security is crucial, and as one of our security solutions at NTT Communications, we have
a dedicated team— our Security Operations Center — that monitors customer networks on a 24/7 basis.

Kanazawa: Something that's become a really serious issue is ‘underground' and other problematic sites posting illegal or harmful information through i-mode or the Internet. The posting of illegal information is of course a problem in itself, but telecommunications providers too need to do what they can to protect society from such sites. NTT DOCOMO now provides filtering and various other services to protect users.

Morishita: At NTT Resonant too, we provide a search service for children on our Kids' goo portal site that hides any harmful information. We also support the activities of the Information Ethics Education Study Group^*. I think that getting involved in such activities also helps to foster understanding for the services and initiatives of the NTT Group.

*Information Ethics Education Study Group
A study group dedicated to working with educational facilities to promote information ethics education through researching current attitudes among children and their guardians, and preparing guidance materials and analyzing their effectiveness.