2019_2q_omron_e

27/42 IAB: Expanding Automation Centers, Hiring Ses

As I touched upon earlier, in order to provide our revolutionary applications to our customers, we are expanding our network of Automation Centers and adding sales engineers. The key point for these revolutionary applications is that we are collaborating and jointly investing with our customers through open innovation. The venue for our collaborations with our customers is our Automation Centers. In FY2016, we had 8 Automation Centers but we aim to have 35 around the globe by the end of FY2018. As of the end of H1, we had already established 30. Through this we will accelerate our efforts to pursue open innovation alongside our customers to create value. In addition, we are increasing the number of sales engineers. We are hiring individuals with extensive hands-on experience in manufacturing processes, a deep understanding of our customers’ needs and the ability to develop solutions. We aim to increase the number of sales engineers on staff by 20% from FY2016. By achieving this goal, we will have more than 1,000 sales engineers working with our customers globally on daily basis to resolve their challenges. We aim to develop a robust foundation that will allow us to contribute to providing solutions to the issues our customers face. This will drive continued growth for the IAB business.