CEO's message
Today’s social, economic and political aspects are very complex and are progressing at a speed that is unprecedented since year 2000.
The speed has accelerated even more so since 2020, which makes it all the more riskier to delay all major decisions and actions.
Media Gain has been engaging in Japan, Asia, U.S. and European territories as strategic advisor in strategic planning, design and investigation and execution, as well as providing policy support to the political, business and bureaucratic leaders for the past 30 years.
Since 1999, major deals include business revitalization and reconstruction, M&A, HTOB, etc. cases as well as Governance issues and risk response which gives us hands-on participation in various fields of business, providing us the opportunity to engage in supporting further transformation and growth.
We are engaged in providing each individual client and deals as we question ourselves as to ‘what is crucial to have as the core for adaptive capabilities for change’ that could contribute to transformation of our country.
With Covid behind us today, the important societal theme is the inarguable ‘Governance.’
Responding to ‘Governance’ by corporations and organizations requires constant re-examination otherwise it may have immediate risk impediments.
There are new movements springing up which are ‘ESG’ and ‘SDGs.’
ESG under the UN PRI-Principles for Responsible Investment designated in 2006 are based on 6 investment principles where Japan has over 100 and globally 4500 companies who have put their signatures.
Whether these two movements are truly the essence of today’s age and sustainable future are questionable. We must be watchful and thoroughly ascertain where it is headed towards.
An issue for Japan is the new trend for transformation and putting its pivot into ‘Intelligence’ to engage and act upon it however this could only be seen on the surface, and reality is very much left to status quo. At the same time, the issue still lies in the fact that there are sincere weaknesses in the lack of ascertainment towards what is booming movement in the U.S. and European front.
As stated above, Japanese corporations in comparison to other corporates in the capitalistic world, its views and agility in altering decision-making action, lacks judgement towards bargaining and very slow to come by. Further against phenomenon that occurs as a boom, indiscriminate following of such often becomes the trend.
With such issues being at the core, corporates are still increasingly launching into ‘the Global South’ which we could say are the blue ocean. We see many cases where Japanese companies are not able to resolve many of their challenges. Unless you have positive Intelligence backed decision, it is hard to act, and these delays happening in each of the respective countries show almost a lap behind in reality.
I have found that in some of the companies’ cases where I have given advise that in some instance they miss the appropriate timing and succumb to a state of subordination. Truly a very disappointing situation.
Root causes for those challenges lies in the fact that the company tends to internally process many of the organizational conditions and awareness at bay.
In corporate behavior, with the institutionalization of governance and compliance, we see positive steps in the last decade. However, lack of resources to apply the necessary Intelligence activities, no appreciation, misunderstanding are leading to increase in ostensible behavioral cases.
Media Gain is always ahead of the business environmental change, providing recommendation for behavioral activities and support at the business level to make it possible for clients to be in synch with mobile and fluid situations and diversification.
We Media Gain strive to further strengthen our capabilities in the four pillars of ‘Intelligence,’ ‘Strengthening Governance,’ ‘Risk Management’ and ‘Strategic Marketing,’ so as to provide useful advice and to serve our clients.
Katsumasa Ogawa
CEO and President