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First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your continued support.

This July of 2025 marks 40 years since I first launched my business. Over these four decades, the business environment has changed dramatically. In such a rapidly evolving era, I am constantly aware of the risks of remaining within the same business domain, and I manage our operations with this awareness in mind. Some businesses remain essential to society, while others lose value over time. To continue delivering value to society, we must continually evolve and reshape ourselves.
In the past, we aspired to become a company with 100 billion yen in revenue and 10 billion yen in ordinary profit, and we established a long-term vision toward that goal. However, we have concluded that achieving this target within the next two to three years will be difficult. I deeply regret not meeting the expectations of our shareholders. Although we responded to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid digital transformation, the advancement of generative AI, demographic shifts such as a declining birthrate and aging population, and other unforeseen changes in our business environment, we were ultimately unable to stay ahead. As a result, we have decided to revise our vision and formulate a new plan.

The staffing industry in Japan emerged in the aftermath of the oil crisis during a time of labor surplus. It is a business model that balances corporate demand with the supply of workers — a balance that cannot be achieved without a stable labor supply. Ideally, staffing should provide highly skilled professionals who work for a limited time in exchange for high compensation. However, in Japan, this model did not take hold. Regular employees are considered superior, and temporary staffing workers are treated as “non-regular” employees. The Japanese staffing model has depended on the existence of people who want to become regular employees but have no choice but to work in temporary positions. Today, this foundational premise is beginning to collapse.
As a result, staffing agencies are raising wages to secure talent and passing those increases on to clients through higher staffing fees. Such clients are reconsidering whether such fees are worth paying, and are increasingly opting to hire contract or regular employees directly. Coupled with anticipated labor shortages, this trend is accelerating. I believe the traditional Japanese staffing model will eventually become unsustainable. The fact that some of our industry peers are shifting to recruitment services and job advertisement platforms is a sign of this transformation.

A similar structural shift is also taking place in the CRO industry. Traditionally, many CRO operations have involved procedural tasks outsourced by pharmaceutical companies, and much of the work has been labor-intensive. However, with the advancement of digital transformation (DX) and the adoption of AI, it is likely that pharmaceutical companies will increasingly reduce their reliance on CROs. As a result, CROs will not only be required to improve operational efficiency, but also to fundamentally restructure their business models to remain competitive.

In response to these circumstances, we have two key directions for the future of our business. The first is to continue delivering value to our clients through the staffing business. Unlike intermediaries, we provide “job support” services — proactively monitoring client satisfaction and offering support to temporary staffing staff throughout their assignments. We believe this job support provides significant value to both clients and temporary staffing staff.
In order to sustain the business under conditions of declining profitability, we must redefine our operating framework. By shifting intermediary functions to a digital platform, we can reduce SG&A expenses and reallocate resources to ensure fair compensation for those who choose to work in temporary positions. We aim to establish a new service model that combines platform-based operations with human-centered services such as job support, thereby delivering continuous value.

In May 2025, we launched a new centralized staffing management service, marking a new challenge for our Staffing business. This initiative aims to provide a more convenient service offering to clients who do not currently use our staffing services for science-related research positions. Our group company NEZOT Co., Ltd. developed the “doco1” system, which is operated by DOCO1 Co., Ltd., also a member of our group. By offering a new type of service to the traditional staffing market, we aim to further cultivate new business opportunities. Through the continued provision of valuable staffing solutions, we intend to differentiate ourselves from competitors and, ultimately, transition out of the current highly competitive environment. Our goal is to build a new business model that can once again deliver high profit margins.

The second direction is a shift in our core business domain.
We have experienced significant growth through such a shift — specifically, from administrative to scientific staffing. Our success in scientific staffing was not solely due to tapping into a new market; it was also rooted in the strengths we developed during our administrative staffing days, including our approach to client interviews, candidate selection, and support systems. These strengths became the foundation for our next phase of growth.
This time, we are planning an even more transformative shift. Rather than remaining in the staffing domain, we are aiming to become a platform-based business company and generate revenue through platform services. Our experience developing “doconico” and “doco1” in-house gives us a strong foundation of internal planning and development capabilities, which we will leverage as we transition to a new business domain. As with our previous transformation, we will use the strengths we have built as a lever for our next leap forward.

Navigating the continuation of our business in a rapidly changing environment and a major shift to a new business domain requires accepting a period of slower growth and reduced earnings. We may not meet shareholder expectations in the short term. While I remain committed to growing our business, there are inevitably moments when progress toward growth slows. Let me be clear: we have not abandoned our vision of becoming a ¥100 billion company. We simply ask for your patience and long-term perspective as we work toward realizing the results of our business transformation.

In conducting our business, it is essential to consider the interests of all our stakeholders — clients, temporary staff, CRO professionals, employees, business partners, local communities, and shareholders. Corporate value should not be measured solely by market capitalization; it must also reflect profitability, safety, productivity, growth potential, market share as a proxy for customer satisfaction, and non-financial factors. As we reach our 40th year, I am reaffirming these beliefs and reflecting deeply on their importance. With this mindset, we will continue moving forward, and I would like to ask for your continued understanding and further support.