Top Message

Presidentʼs Message

Enhancing customer support by
accelerating DX and full efforts toimprove interpersonal skills
To meet the growing need for consulting on property succession and management, we are focusing on
recruiting and training human resources and accelerating the development of support systems for ourconsulting staff and services.
2023 is the second year of our Third Medium-Term Management Plan.
We are undertaking diverse measures to reach our goals by 2024, the final year of the Plan.

Growing demand for property and business succession— H o w do you envision the business environmentchanging?
For the past three or more years, there have been special
circumstances: the COVID-19 pandemic. While many
companies were forced into stagnation, several others
increased their borrowings. Repayments, deferred due tocertain policy measures, will now begin in earnest. In addition,
we often hear from age group “baby boomers” approaching
their late 70s about asset inheritance or management andfrom small business owners considering passing on theirbusinesses to the next generation while they are concerned
about their current cash flow. From now on, together withbusiness succession, supporting restoration of financial
soundness will be a major theme for our Group.
In regard to property succession, the number of asset
owners who own real estate is declining overall. However,
metropolitan real estate prices are on an upward trend,
especially in Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures,
which drives the need for strategic inheritance tactics
inheritance strategy, including securing funds to pay
inheritance taxes. Land prices are also rising in someregional cities, with many asset owners—and not only in
the Tokyo metropolitan area—seemingly concerned aboutproperty succession.
Considering the Group's resources to provide services
to these clients, it is clear that some challenges exist. Asin many industries, the shortage of human resources,
especially in recruitment and training of consultants facing
clients, is an extremely significant issue. To expand ourbusiness, we need to increase the number of consultants
while maintaining and improving the quality of our services.

President

Masazumi Hasumi
12Transitions in numbers of clients and property consulting sales
Numbers of clients (Unit: Individuals)

Property consulting sales (Unit: Million yen)

6,204
5,806

5,564

5,545

4,909

1,752

2018

1,823

2019

1,905

2020

2,076

2021

2,377

2022

2023 (forecast)Consultants cannot be trained overnight; however,if they are cultivated as slowly as in the past, We won’t
be able to respond to the rapid changes in the businessenvironment. For this reason, our Group is working on
promoting DX to support consultants in their work.
An example is the development and use of the ART
system, which systematizes the expertise and skills ofskilled consultants. When interviewing clients, having
the skill to ask the correct questions without missing thepoint is crucial. The ART system assists consultants inthis process and carries out simulation calculations suchas asset composition studies on their behalf, allowing
consultants to concentrate on communicating with clients.
However, at present, this system has not reached its fullpotential. We also believe that DX will help our consultants
develop faster. We will continue to improve and expand
the system and provide training for consultants to achieve
tangible results, such as greater productivity and humanthrough development and operation of public real estateand other assets; consulting on effective utilization ofland, which helps clients make effective use of their land,and several more. We offer these strategic individualized
services to new clients in order to build trust. We thenanalyze the current status of the property using the ART
system to identify issues and make recommendations
to resolve them, which leads to comprehensive property
consulting.
Within our strategic individualized services in 2022, theperformance of Advantage Club exceeded expectations.
We have also seen a positive response to our regional
creative development consulting, andhave madesolid progress in laying the groundwork for each of ourindividualized services. However not all strategic services
were performing good enough yet and we believe thatstrengthening each individually will be key in 2023.

resource development.

Interpersonal skills of consultants who comeface-to-face with our clients

Advantage Club® performance exceeded expectations— C a n you talk about the progress of the Third
Medium-Term Management Plan?
In 2022, the first year of the Plan, progress wasachieved as planned. For example, in our mainstay
property consulting business, our number of clients andour sales both grew.
One of the important cornerstones of our Third
Medium-Term Management Plan is improving the quality
and expanding the quantity of our client services throughstrategic individualized services and comprehensive
property consulting services. Our strategic individualizedservices comprise services, including Advantage Club, areal estate joint ownership system with contracts startingat 10 million yen per unit; regional creative development
consulting, which contributes to regional revitalization— T h e COVID-19 pandemic has changed theway people work. Is there a need for change inmanagement methods too?
Many companies now recognize greater diversity inwork styles, including telecommuting. There is also a trend
toward greater employee diversity. Our Group is certainly
headed in that direction. We will be called upon to createa workplace in which everyone can work in comfort
regardless of gender, age, nationality, or other attributes,
and to create an environment where people can continue
to work for the Group even as they act as caregivers forparents or study as mature-age students.
Creating an environment such as this is a challenge
from which we cannot shy away. So how can we ensurethat close communication and productivity are notcompromised when people work from home? We are

Aoyama Zaisan Networks ｜ Integrated Report 2023

13

Top Message Presidentʼs Message
The keys to managing human capital in the Group

WisdomCapacity Interpersonalfor action
skillscurrently discussing various approaches and building
our expertise through a process of trial and error. As wepursue these efforts, we hope to increase diversity in ourwork styles and our workplaces.
— R e c e n t years have seen a growing interest in
human capital management.
In a consulting firm, the source of value is the consultant,
who is, of course, human. They meet with clients, listen
to their problems and concerns, and make optimum
recommendations from the client's point of view. To thisend, interpersonal skills are essential. In simple terms, theseare sincerity, honesty, kindness, empathy, consideration,and gratitude. Combining these interpersonal skills withboth wisdom and capacity for action results in high-level
outcomes. This is our approach.
The importance of interpersonal skills also holds truein other workplaces besides consulting. It is essential
to create a pleasant working environment so that eachindividual can enhance his or her interpersonal skills
and fully demonstrate his or her strengths. A highly
motivated, energetic workplace naturally leads to greater
performance. In this regard, we believe that increasing
employee satisfaction is crucial.
Education and employee satisfaction improve wisdom,
capacity for action, and interpersonal skills. The Group
believes that these two factors are the keys to humancapital management.

Focused measures to strengthen governance andexpand business— W h a t initiatives are you pursuing in terms ofstrengthening governance?
Weestablished
theNominating
Committee,Compensation Council, and Sustainability Committee in2022. Each of these committees continues to become
more active. For example, the flow of initiatives in the14

Aoyama Zaisan Networks ｜ Integrated Report 2023

Sustainability Committee involves summarizing the resultsof discussions held by employee-led subcommittees
and reporting these to the Board of Directors, whichthen approves and implements any measures. Someof the measures discussed by the subcommittee on
work styles have already been approved and entered
the implementation phase. Through this initiative, wehave expanded the mechanism by which opinions andideas, discussed mainly by our front-line members, canreach management. We believe that this has increased
the momentum of improvement for workplaces andoperations within the company.
— W h a t are some particular priority themes for
future business growth?
The most important theme is enhancing the quality
and quantity of our consultants. While it is is important
we ensure the content of various services is even more
attractive, including strategic individualized services, wewill focus on improving our consultants’ interpersonal
skills, wisdom, and capacity for action.
DX is also essential for this purpose. Our goal is tocreate a system that allows us to provide consulting
services via digital platforms. For example, when a client
is considering purchasing real estate, the consultant
consults the database on the spot using a PC or tabletand recommends the optimal plan for the client. This isour vision for the future. This not only increase the value
we deliver to our clients, but also enhance the productivityof our consultants. We may not be able to construct sucha system immediately, but we are moving steadily toward
this vision of the future.
More and more clients are concerned about thesuccession of their assets and businesses. It is our social
responsibility to respond to such concerns to the very bestof our ability. To fully meet this responsibility, we intend
to strengthen our human resource development and DX
initiatives.