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Duskin, in pursuit of our long-term strategy, ONE DUSKIN, has committed itself to a multitude of initiatives. The Direct Selling Group has offered rental services of mats and mops as well as professional cleaning and technical services, and the Food Group has developed food businesses including Mister Donut. In a rapidly changing society, we experienced steady growth. This has been made possible precisely because we — the franchisor and franchisees — are strongly united in business operation.
Society is changing rapidly: we have seen a declining birthrate and an aging population. Against this backdrop, we launched a new Purpose and Vision to aim for further sustainable growth. The Purpose is defined as "Building a happy and fulfilling future while staying attuned to people and society," and the Vision as "Spreading smiles that connect people to people, to society, and to the future." The Purpose states why we exist and the Vision states where we are headed. We created the statements after repeated discussions between our senior management and a project team consisting of mid-level employees who will be future leaders.
During the discussions, we explored thoroughly our reasons for working for Duskin. It is none other than these mid-level employees, major contributors to the series of project, who have taken the lead in verbalizing their own ideas, opinions, and thoughts as well as reasons for our existence to devise the Purpose and Vision and then instilling them within the entire group. After that, the project members defined our Value, which states how we operate, as "Let your heart drive you forward!" To fulfill our Purpose and Vision, they have created a long-term strategy: Do-Connect. We are currently working hard to translate the new strategy into specific actions.
We have formulated the long-term strategy Do-Connect, looking ahead to the next 10 years. "Connect" means to join or be joined with something else and "Do" expresses our strong commitment to accomplish the connection. As people connect online more regularly, opportunities for face-to-face connection are decreasing, and this trend is expected to accelerate. As a company operating franchise businesses rooted in local communities, Duskin is determined to take one step further from the ONE DUSKIN strategy and to focus our efforts to connect people to people, to society, and to the future.
In recent years, we have seen fast-moving changes in society, including the COVID-19 pandemic fueled changes, digital technology innovation, rising raw material costs and minimum wage hikes as well as the increasing number of the elderly population. We expect our society will continue to change constantly over a shorter term.
In order to respond to changes under any circumstances, we will commit to three EXcellence goals of the new long-term strategy: EXplore new business, EXpand to related businesses and EXcel in our existing businesses. Duskin, as the franchisor, is responsible for growing existing businesses and creating value. Also, speed and flexibility are essential to achieve these goals. We therefore will focus on developing employees who actively take on challenges and we will transform our corporate culture to support them.
After the celebration of Duskin's 60th anniversary, we have established a new Purpose and Vision to move forward into the next decade. At the core of these concepts is our corporate philosophy. Our corporate philosophy has remained unchanged since our founding.
Our unswerving philosophy — to sow the seeds of joy for people and society, and to unify business and morals as we aim to enhance both economic and social value — this philosophy we will continue to share with our franchisees and employees while challenging ourselves to create value with our new long-term strategy: Do-Connect.
November 2024