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A conversation with Santen’s CIO: What does an IT organisation need to survive and win in the global market? (Part 2)
2023-01-18
In this interview, we have invited Santen’s Corporate Officer, Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Head of Digital & IT Division Minori Hara to discuss Santen’s globalisation initiatives and what IT organisations should do to survive and win in the global market.
In Part 2, we focus on the talent that supports a global IT organization and delve deeper into the attributes and aptitudes that that talent needs.
Participants
Minori Hara
Corporate Officer, Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Head of Digital & IT Division
Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
Minori Hara began his career in the private sector in Japan before then taking up a position at the United Nations. For about 20 years, he was engaged in various IT roles at the UN to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He oversaw IT security strategy and governance at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in India and Switzerland, the UN Headquarters in the US, UN Volunteers in Germany and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria, before becoming the CIO of the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Italy in 2012 and the Deputy CIO of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), also in Italy, in 2017 to promote medium-term IT and digital strategies. Hara joined Santen in 2018 and has been serving in his current position since 2020. He obtained a Master of Engineering at Sophia University and an Executive Master in Management of International Organizations at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Italy. He currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland.
Shingo Arai
Partner, Technology Advisory Service
PwC Consulting LLC
Yasushi Fujita
Partner, Digital Trust
PwC Consulting LLC
*Company names and positions are current as of publication.
From left: Minori Hara, Shingo Arai, Yasushi Fujita
Digital talent as ‘connoisseurs’
Arai:
In Part 1, we talked about how Santen’s IT organization’s structure and its global talent strategy supports the company’s overall globalisation. In Part 2, we would like to hear your view on the digital talent that enables Santen’s digital transformation.
The competition to acquire highly qualified digital talent is fierce everywhere in the world. So-called tech giants are offering astonishingly large amounts of money to attract the best digital talent. What strategy does a business firm need to secure the right people in this domain?
Hara:
When we hear the term ‘digital talent’, we tend to think of people with experience in advanced technologies. You’re definitely correct in that the competition to attract such talent is fierce, but we tend to look for people with different aptitudes from those sought by tech companies.
Santen also needs workers with in-depth knowledge about digital technology and data science, and we need those roles and positions within our company. But we are also a business firm. We are not trying to build a business model that involves securing a great deal of digital talent to develop new digital services and applications in-house and selling them to other companies.
What we need from our digital talent is to act as connoisseurs to identify services and products offered by companies with cutting-edge tech expertise that are suitable for Santen’s operations, and to deploy them within our company. Furthermore, we need people who can suggest how such services and products can be utilised for our innovation and business reforms.
Arai:
As the CIO, what kind of workforce are you looking for?
Hara:
For me, an ideal member of the Digital & IT Division is an advanced user of digital technologies themselves and has unlimited curiosity about new things. They empathise with our company’s vision of the future, apply their curiosity to that vision, and talk passionately about their dreams. They build relationships with various internal and external stakeholders to fulfil their dreams, and carry out their projects by involving their team members, with the company-wide strategy in mind. That would be the ideal employee.
Arai:
As the pace of technological advancement accelerates, with new technology quickly becoming obsolete, the most important thing is to have curiosity about the new and be driven by passion to realise your dream. People who are unable to take the initiative to find a challenge to take on could be left behind.
Corporate Officer, Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Head of Digital & IT Division Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Minori Hara
Partner, Technology Advisory Service PwC Consulting LLC. Shingo Arai
Diversity as the driving force for building a strong organization
Fujita:
Recruiting talent on a global scale will naturally attract people of different backgrounds, thereby creating a diverse organisation. You have worked at the United Nations and other international organisations for 20 years. Are you bringing your UN experience to your current organisational reform?
Hara:
The United Nations is one of the most global work environments, deploying employees to positions according to their aptitude regardless of which country or region they are from. Through my personal experiences, I am fully aware of the benefits of a global work environment that encompasses multiculturalism.
Diversity is the driving force for building a powerful organisation. I joined Santen in 2018 and have since become the company’s CIO. When I asked myself how I could overcome the challenges I faced, my answer was to transform the IT team into a truly diverse and global organization so as to manifest and build upon its latent potential.
Arai:
That inspiration must have led to your bold move to adopt global recruitment and to relocate the Global CIO to Switzerland. What is your current progress regarding the establishment of a diverse organization?
Hara:
I have made a conscious effort to maintain a good balance in terms of the breakdown of nationalities and the gender balance. For example, the ratio of non-Japanese people among our leadership was less than 15% two years ago, but that percentage has risen to more than 55% today. The ratio of female senior managers in the IT Division (today’s Digital & IT Division) used to be 0% until last year, but has grown to 22% this year. We actively recruit diverse people not only in terms of nationality and gender, but also in terms of academic and work history. Those who have built up careers in non-pharmaceutical industries or under different organisational formats, and those who have engaged in social contribution activities beyond their work framework, can be key players in building a diverse organization. Until now, our diverse leadership team has led the initiative for organisational transformation. Today, we strive to spread the power of diversity to all corners of the Digital & IT Division.
The ideas and perspectives of people from a variety of backgrounds have the potential to drive organisational transformation. At the same time, a company must have the capacity to embrace the imagination and passion of each of its employees. When a diverse, multinational team taps into its strengths and exerts its full potential, it can evolve into an organisation that can flexibly adapt to social changes.
Challenges of running a diverse global organisation
Fujita:
What are the challenges of running a diverse global organisation?
Hara:
One of the challenges we face is how to build relationships among team members who can’t meet face to face, and how to encourage communication among people in different time zones.
In the past, Japanese companies would organise after-work social gatherings to boost a sense of corporate loyalty. But you can’t do that with a global, virtual team that only connects online. We therefore need to explore new ways of building bonds.
Arai:
Even some corporate executives were the frontrunners of promoting remote work in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic are starting to highlight the importance of face-to-face communication. Is there anything Santen is doing to improve communication in the remote-work environment?
Hara:
Our global Digital & IT Division holds a quarterly ‘online town hall meeting’ for all staff members. The Division has around 80 members, spread across nine countries around the world. This event provides them with an opportunity to speak in front of one another to build a sense of unity with their global teammates. Needless to say, we also hold frequent leadership team meetings and function-specific meetings. We make efforts to organise meetings for areas in similar time zones or limit participation to specific functions, to minimise the stress caused by time differences.
What’s important is to form flexible ‘virtual working groups’ that transcend team boundaries to facilitate frequent communication. We find it important to build a sense of solidarity among global colleagues despite the lack of face-to-face connection so that they remain conscious of the fact that they belong to a global corporation.
The Digital & IT Division is also piloting various forms of communication that leverage the latest technology. For example, we use VR smart glasses and virtual office tools to communicate in virtual spaces using avatars. This provides VR realism, helping us to feel as if we are talking face-to-face despite the physical distances between we. We could even bump into one another in a virtual hallway to have a casual chat. This system is still in the trial stages, but the Digital & IT Division intends to lead the way in introducing such platforms with the goal of eventually achieving company-wide deployment.
Fujita:
There are not many business firms that take on such initiatives. Santen is ahead of the times.
Hara:
We hope that by familiarising ourselves with new and diversified technologies, we can also facilitate new ways of collaboration with external business partners.
Yasushi Fujita Partner, Digital Trust PwC Consulting LLC
Expanding collaboration around dreams and visions
Arai:
Speaking with you today has helped me to reconfirm that diversity is one of the greatest strengths a global corporation could have. Many Japanese companies are aware of the need to become more global, but fall short of actually achieving it. But I think that initiatives similar to Sansan’s will be essential to stay competitive in the global market.
Hara:
Our initiatives to become a diverse, global organisation have only just begun. This initiative stems from Santen 2030, a vision developed under the leadership of our CEO in close coordination with many employees.
Santen 2030 is not something that was adopted and announced unilaterally by the CEO. Many of our employees feel a sense of ownership toward Santen 2030, and strive to achieve our goal of using our diversity to boost Santen’s global presence and solving social issues to bring happiness to people as if it were their own personal goal.
Arai:
Employees bring their own passion to your corporate goals to work together to make dreams come true.
Hara:
As I explained earlier, what matters is to collaborate with companies that use the latest technologies to offer exceptional services and products as a way of building the society Santen dreams of.
There is a momentum building to advance this transformation not only within the Digital & IT Division but also across the rest of the company. Diversity has become one of the main pillars of the company’s business management, as Santen recognises the huge potential of diversity in our organization. Of course, challenges lie ahead in our quest for company-wide globalisation and diversity. But I hope Santen will be able to establish a positive cycle in which all employees see such challenges as one of the company’s advantages and exert their full potential. This way, we can truly advance toward ‘Happiness with Vision’ (the creation of a world in which every person can realise their happiest life through the best possible vision experience), which is our principle defined in our long-term vision, Santen 2030. We also wish to actively collaborate with external parties who support our stance in order to widen our global circle of partnerships.
Arai:
Bringing together various people who share the same dream or vision to solve social issues and create a better future. PwC also shares the same vision. We hope to continue support to Santen under this shared vision. Thank you very much for your time today.
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