Earning trust as a “Value Partner”

With the growth of broadband in both fixed line and mobile communications and the rapid spread of smartphones, an increasing diversity of sophisticated services and devices are coming to the telecommunications market. Customers are also paying closer attention to the stability and reliability of telecommunications infrastructure following the Great East Japan Earthquake, and information and communications technology (ICT) is expected to play an increasingly important role in healthcare, nursing care, education, environment, energy, security and other fields. The industry is, moreover, undergoing major changes and evolution as a result of IP-driven convergence between fixed line and mobile services, convergence between communications and broadcasting, and the leveraging of ICT to create new opportunities for growth beyond existing spheres of business, and the pace of such changes will almost certainly increase throughout the world as we move forward.

We will endeavor to drive this evolution in the ICT market and contribute to the sustainable development of society both through conducting world-class research and development, and through building a cutting edge ubiquitous broadband environment that enables us to offer a diversity of secure, reliable and convenient services and create new business opportunities.

This is the last year of implementation of the “Road to Service Creation Business Group” Medium-Term Management Strategy that we announced in May 2008. Marshaling our collective strengths as a group to further strengthen our overseas and cloud businesses in line with the constantly expanding telecommunications market, we are committed to becoming a “Value Partner” (a partner that delivers new value) and earning the unswerving trust of our stakeholders through continuing to provide safe and reliable services.

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Leveraging ICT to address social issues

I believe that it is the mission and corporate social responsibility of the NTT Group to contribute to the resolution of social issues both within Japan and in the world at large through leveraging ICT.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 made us more than ever aware of the role of telecommunications as a lifeline in the event of a disaster, and the importance of enabling people to connect with each other in any contingency. Regarding the full restoration of quake-damaged equipment, we will endeavor to building even more reliable networks and further enhance our disaster preparedness throughout Japan by providing new disaster services and improving existing services. We will also accelerate our advanced research efforts and R&D aimed at creating even more disaster-resistant networks and services.

We consider the environment to be of paramount importance, and in 2010, we drew up THE GREEN VISION 2020 as our new vision for addressing global environmental issues. Under this vision, all of our employees are working as one to reduce environmental impacts through initiatives focused on the three themes of creating a low carbon society, implementing closed loop recycling, and conserving biodiversity.

One example is Green NTT, a groupwide initiative that we launched in 2008 to expand our in-house solar power generation as a source of renewable energy that can contribute to the creation of a low carbon society, and we plan to deploy a generation capacity of about 5 MW by the end of fiscal 2013.

I think that by promoting the utilization of ICT, we can also contribute to the resolution of a wide range of issues facing present-day society, including the declining birthrate and aging population, healthcare and nursing care issues, and the need for better governmental services and education.

For example, where healthcare and nursing care issues stemming from the aging population are concerned, ICT could be used to gather health data from vital sign measurement instruments to enable geographically separated locations to work together on the management of disease treatment and prevention. We currently provide remote health consultation and other similar solutions in cooperation with local authorities and hospitals, and are involved in a number of trials to test remote healthcare solutions that employ the latest technologies.

I feel that we can make a very meaningful contribution to the sustainable development of society by pursuing such initiatives.

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Together with our stakeholders

In fiscal 2012, we revised the NTT Group CSR Charter that sets forth our CSR commitment and goals to bring it in line with the ISO 26000 international standard for social responsibility published in November 2010. We have also endeavored to share quantitative indicators in the NTT Group CSR Priority Activities that we set forth in 2008 so as to accelerate the integration of these activities with our business goals. As a result, we have been able to further enhance groupwide CSR initiatives. At the same time, we are treating the repeated transmission problems occurring in our mobile communications and incidents of misconduct by group company employees with utmost seriousness. We have established a task force to work on the groupwide prevention of recurrent transmission problems, and are further enhancing our information and risk management to ensure appropriate business operations.

In addition to the continuation and enhancement of our initiatives in the important areas of human rights and the environment, we will intensify our efforts to fulfill all aspects of our corporate social responsibility and contribute to the sustainable development of society as a global ICT enterprise.

We intend to put even greater priority on dialogue with our stakeholders moving forward, and we hope that you will not hesitate to offer your candid views and suggestions regarding our activities.

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