Episode 20 Establishment of our head office

Half of our employees were women
Made efforts to create a safe workplace　
Attracting the best talent from Kansai and Shikoku

With the success of “Ichitaro,” the company began to add more and more employees. Since there was no longer a building in Tokushima City that could accommodate all of our employees, we decided to build our own building. That was in 1987.

We decided to locate our head office in Okinohama Higashi, Tokushima City. However, since that building was soon going to be filled with employees, we decided to buy a neighboring field and build a second building there while the head office was being constructed. The concept of the head office buildings was to create a “resort office”. The average age of JustSystems employees remained young, in the 20s, and I wanted to preserve the friendly atmosphere.

The company canteen on the top floor was designed to look like a fashionable café terrace that employees would want to use for meetings, rather than a “dining hall” atmosphere.

In consideration of employees who go home late at night, the head office buildings were lit up even at midnight. At the time, many employees commuted by private car, so the idea was to somewhat brighten their spirits when they left the office after a day’s work, rather than to have them trudge along in pitch-darkness.

Half of JustSystems’ employees were women. This was very unusual at the time, but the reason was simple and clear. There were many talented women, as was the case with Managing Director Hatsuko.

Therefore, we decided to set up a day-care center next to the head office. As president, I also served as its director. Marriages between two employees of the company were common. We wanted to create a comfortable place for children so that female employees could concentrate on their work in peace. Every year on Christmas Day, I dressed up as Santa Claus and gave gifts to the children. I wanted them to think, “Mom and Dad work for a good company.”

As the company grew, I was often asked why we did not advance to Tokyo. Perhaps because I am originally from Ehime, people thought there was no reason for me to stick to Tokushima. Perhaps the fact that I gave myself over to work and rarely attended gatherings of the local business community and other groups may also have been a reason for them to think so.

For me, the most important reason was that many of our employees have the foundations of their living based in Tokushima, and I could not easily force them to change their lives there. If I were to add one more reason, having the company’s base in Tokushima gave us an advantage in terms of securing human resources. Although our company has made a name for itself with Ichitaro, if we were to advance to Tokyo, we would be just one of many startups. However, here in Tokushima, we can attract the best talent from Kansai and Shikoku. We thought this would have a tremendous effect.

In particular, Ichitaro’s lifeline was ATOK, a dictionary function for kana-kanji conversion. Consideration should be given to changing the order in which conversion candidates are displayed according to context, even for characters with the same reading. At that time, artificial intelligence (AI) as we know it today did not exist. Therefore, such meticulous work still relied heavily on the sensitivity of women.

Around this time, our company also began to receive more media coverage. Nevertheless, nothing has changed in the lives of Hatsuko and me. According to Hatsuko, my hobbies change one after another in a short period of time. One time I was obsessed with shoes, and the next time I was obsessed with collecting watches. But the one thing that has never changed is my love of cars.

My favorites, among others, are Honda cars. When I just started my career, I used to love my small car, Civic. And when I became able to afford it, I got NSX, a supercar. I have always admired Honda’s founder, Mr. Soichiro Honda, as a company owner, although I have never met him. Honda has always valued “identity” ever since Mr. Honda was active in the company and engaged in management himself. I also wanted JustSystems, which Hatsuko and I established together, to be such a company, no matter how big it grew.

I had a strong preference for the design of
our head office building (in 1989).