As a university professor specializing in business administration, my area of expertise lies in the merchandising of bricks-and-mortar stores, such as department stores, specialty stores, supermarkets, and convenience stores, as well as in e-commerce. FANCL possesses a very strong customer base through its directly managed stores and online and catalogue channels, and its e-commerce site also functions as a communication tool, for example by providing attractive reading content. However, consumers now have more options, such as e-commerce sites other than FANCL’s own, drug stores, and convenience stores, and thus I believe that I can be of assistance in providing suggestions on sales channel strategies. In formulating sales channel strategies, the most important thing is to carefully analyze customer preferences and lifestyles, factors that cannot be fully ascertained through information regarding such attributes as gender and age.
I believe it is necessary to accurately predict customer insights, including what interests and resonates with them and when, and to develop and deploy well-defined measures for each sales channel.

FANCL’s Board of Directors is made up of inside and outside directors and Audit & Supervisory Board members who possess a range of experience and skills. What is particularly worthy of note is that the Company side, including the president, has a strong will to actively reflect the opinions of outside directors and Audit & Supervisory Board members in its management, and lively discussions take place even when formulating medium- to longterm management plans or annual business plans and materiality. FANCL announced its new Medium-Term Management Plan Revitalize 2026 in May 2024. During the formulation process, detailed explanations of progress were provided on multiple occasions by the executive departments, and our opinions as outside directors were fully reflected in the Plan.

FANCL’s strengths are generally thought to lie in the appeal of its products and the power of its brand, but actually the Company possesses robust R&D as well as quality and safety assurance systems, which in turn underpin product appeal and the FANCL brand. The fact that we can truly sense that FANCL is doing something useful for society in eliminating negative experiences, and that the Company has in place a strict quality control system, from the selection of ingredients to after-sales, which allows the Company to then recommend its products to customers with peace of mind, leads to each and every employee taking pride in their work. Ultimately these factors and process contribute to substantial profits. An organization that is imbued with integrity is one that will prove resilient.
In contrast, the challenge lies in how to bring about expansion in FANCL’s overseas business. This is true for many Japanese companies, but the market analyses and particularly the competitive analyses when entering overseas markets tend to be somewhat less detailed when compared with expanding into new areas domestically. To increase the likelihood of success in overseas business, more detailed analyses are essential. At the same time, there is an urgent need to recruit and train personnel with extensive knowledge and expertise in managing local subsidiaries and agencies.
Of course, promoting a human resource strategy of that kind is not so straightforward. I monitor the employment situation of students at my university, and it appears that they are currently in a seller’s market. This is in fact a situation that is expected to continue for some time. Companies that do not offer the prospects and appeal to attract students or people wishing to be hired mid-career will struggle to recruit talent. Even FANCL feels the necessity to promote to an unprecedented extent the future potential and appeal of the Company, such as its high growth potential in the health and beauty market both domestically and overseas, as well as its sustainability initiatives.