Management

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January 5, 2018

A Happy New Year to you all.

In 2018, both the Japanese economy and the world economy are expected to continue the strong improvement of 2017, though we should remain cautious about geopolitical risks in conducting business. However, full economic revitalization requires the successful implementation of growth strategies and measures to address the declining birth rate and aging population. Accordingly, innovative efforts to address societal issues are likely to accelerate around the world: I think 2018 will be the Year of Innovation.

Amid this business environment, Konica Minolta will strive to anticipate potential problems and present them to customers, in addition to addressing existing problems, and will help customers transform the way they do business by leveraging our long-standing advantages in digital technologies alongside rapidly advancing innovations such as AI, robotics, IoT and Deep Learning. Our eventual goal is to contribute to the evolution of business and social practices and enhance their quality.

Our strong commitment to this goal is reflected in SHINKA 2019, a new three-year Medium Term Business Plan we announced in May 2017, which introduces our vision of becoming a "digital company with insight into implicit challenges" capable of generating new value that will support the evolution of society and will help solve its issues. Progress we made last year in new business areas includes: announcing Workplace Hub, an edge IoT platform for improving work efficiency and supporting the decision-making process by solving work-related problems in real time and on-site through high-speed data collection and analysis; and acquiring Ambry Genetics Corporation and Invicro LLC in the U.S. to prepare for full-scale entry into the precision medicine market to offer medical services tailored to individual patient needs. These examples indicate the critical importance of identifying customer values, improving our proprietary technologies, combining our products and services with cutting-edge digital technologies, and exploring markets through an open ecosystem approach, all for creating new businesses in the future.

If we are to continue growing as a global company, we must remain needed by society. More than 40,000 Konica Minolta employees around the world are committed to leading the global effort to create innovations by transforming the way we act daily, and openly connecting with external companies and people, including customers, suppliers, and business partners, instead of confining ourselves within the Konica Minolta Group.

Lastly, I offer my sincere wishes for your good health and happiness, and would greatly appreciate your continued support for the Konica Minolta Group in 2018.

Shoei Yamana
President and CEO
Konica Minolta, Inc.