Expansions into Growth Businesses

We will pursue breakthroughs for the entire Group by actively engaging in M&A and new business creation, while steadily growing each of our core businesses.

We plan to use the co-creation synergy between our Group companies to expand our areas of support.
In addition to Softel Inc. on the back end, newly acquired SOLAIRO, INC. links options and tools to "futureshop" to provide new, more convenient solutions to handle diverse client needs.
Beyond growth, we aim to develop together with society as an incubation platform that creates new value.

Expanding our Range of Business Operations

Expanding target area through enhanced capabilities

• Expansion into the food industry
• Expansion of business into the OMO area

Leveraging our Customer Success know-how to expand the scope of our support business

• Expansion of alliance business with e-commerce related support services
• Entering the e-commerce consulting business by utilizing multi-channel data

New business areas

• Live commerce that brings about fan marketing
• Expansion of platform business

Expanding Target Area through Enhanced Capabilities

Expansion into the food industry

The areas in which "futureshop" shines are: apparel, fashion, interiors, sundries, and jewelry.
The high degree of freedom for expression and ease of content management, have driven its growth so far.
Going forward, we will continue to earn revenue through stable client growth. And we plan to expand our field of business into the commercial areas of food and sweets, which saw the greatest growth during the pandemic, through updates and enhanced capabilities.

Expansion of business into the OMO area

Moreover, while the sharp acceleration of market participation in e-commerce that we saw during the pandemic has gradually abated, the OMO area has expanded and grown.
OMO stands for "Online Merges with Offline." For instance, futureshop has developed a product called Omni-channel which is enjoying steady growth in subscribers.
For details about Omni-channel, see Our Business.

Leveraging Our Customer Success Know-how to Expand the Scope of Our Support Business

Expansion of alliance business with e-commerce related support services

We will respond to the needs we have gathered through Customer Success by connecting futureshop to a wide range of platforms.
Thus far, we have expanded our alliance into a variety of fields including settlement, client experience improvements, CS, and logistic functions.
Beyond these are social media, influencers, VTubers, and VR/AR. With live commerce, we utilize a Virtual Human (VH) to expand the potential for sales activity support.
Hereafter, we plan to support growth in various areas by ascertaining needs and trends with a support system that delivers a high degree of client satisfaction.

Entering the e-commerce consulting business by utilizing multi-channel data

Linking "futureshop" and "Commerce Connect" enables us to collect data not just from our own e-commerce sites, but from major e-commerce malls as well. By analyzing this multi-channel data from many perspectives, we will implement more comprehensive marketing support and consulting for e-commerce strategies. These include "optimizing dynamic pricing according to trends in each mall", "promotions that effectively increase ROI", and "optimization of MD strategies".

Financial Strategy

Targets for Year Ending March 31, 2027

The growth of the e-commerce market in Japan accelerated sharply due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. After that, even though this growth has moderately slowed as economic activity has normalized since FY2022, the market continues to grow steadily.
Japan's e-commerce market, which is the area in which our Group does business, is expected to grow at an average of 10.3% between 2023 and 2027. This growth is also projected to be sustainable.
In light of these market trends and business strategies, we announced the following targets in our Medium-term Management Plan for the fiscal year ending in March 2024.

Maximizing Corporate Value

Our target value for maximizing corporate value is an ROE of 20%. We have established three policies for achieving this.

1. Shareholder Returns

   We aim for a dividend payout ratio of 30% or more. In addition, we aim to implement share buybacks in a flexible manner. We will also maximize shareholder returns by actively investing retained earnings and cash into growth, and by accelerating EPS growth over the medium-to-long term.

   

2. Capital Structure

   Our policy is to build an optimal capital structure for enhancing business growth and corporate value.

3. Growth Investments

   We divide our core businesses and our new businesses, and will invest in expanding the functions, products, and business areas of our core businesses based on human resource investments.
   We plan to actively and strategically implement new businesses to maximize corporate value and achieve our target of 20% ROE.

Cumulative Cash Allocation 2025 – 2027

* This page is qualitative information about our medium-term management strategy at this point in time, and is not intended as a promise to achieve the objectives therein.

Challenges to Address

1. Increasing the Number of Adopting Companies

   We see expanding the range of highly versatile designs for small and medium-sized businesses in Japan, and providing services that allow them to lean into their own strengths, as key. And we are striving to increase the number of companies which adopt and continue to use our solutions, by continuously developing additional features and new services in accordance with user needs.

2. Boosting Revenue Per User

   In addition to developing new products such as "commerce creator", we intend to work to increase revenue per user by using API integration to cross-sell related solutions and providing development options that allow a high degree of development flexibility for a user’s own business.

3. Recruitment

   We consider it a necessity to secure first-rate personnel, including engineers and sales staff. Going forward, we will work to strengthen recruiting by giving prospects confidence in our company. We will make this possible by striving to use expanded revenue to increase our brand recognition and improve our financial foundation. We will also conduct training within the Group to cultivate the kind of personnel we need.

4. Enhancing Group Governance and Business Management Systems

   As the company which oversees business management for the Group, we will take the lead in strengthening governance and ensuring adequate management oversight of each operating company, while still maintaining the business management independence of each. In doing so, the entire Group will work as one to improve shareholder value and implement our management strategy.

5. Seeking Synergy Within the Group

   We hold strategy meetings to promote joint-ownership of our strategy, have begun providing Group solutions for users through each Group company, and plan to pursue greater synergy between Group companies with a focus on cross-selling Group products.

6. Strengthening our Compliance Framework

   We take the lead in uncovering compliance issues and matters of concern within our Group, and hold regular meetings of the Compliance Committee to consider countermeasures.

Evolution as a Platform and Support for
Growth of Everyone Concerned

Our policy is to evolve our own platform and support the growth of those involved in e-commerce, by expanding our business in the e-commerce sphere.