Skip to main content

Hitachi
Contact InformationContact Information

Technotalk

The Role of R&D Focusing on Open Innovation and Collaborative Creation

The True Innovation that Digitalization Enables

    Highlight

    The Hitachi Group undertook a major transformation in its research and development style in 2015, moving its focus to customer-driven collaborative research where researchers work in collaboration with customers to gain insight into issues and create solutions. Today, with the wave of digitalization transforming the role of business and society in significant ways, solving the myriad of complex issues facing customers and society demands new ideas and innovations that diverge from the path followed to date. What, then, is needed to give rise to those ideas and innovations? We welcomed CEO Alan Richardson of Cambridge Consultants, a company that has supported a multitude of innovative endeavors as a leading technology consulting firm with a history in the UK and elsewhere, to talk with Norihiro Suzuki, who heads up Hitachi’s 2,700-strong global Research & Development Group.

    PDF Download

    Table of contents

    • The Changing Style of Innovation
    • Requirements for Producing Radical Innovation
    • Incorporating Diverse Viewpoints
    • To Become an Innovation Partner for the IoT Era
    • Sharing Purpose and Value

    Attendee introduction

    Alan Richardson

    • CEO, Cambridge Consultants
    • Alan was appointed Chief Executive Officer in July 2012 - after holding the post of Deputy Chief Executive since January 2007. Since his appointment he has led the company to more than double in size over the last four years and to extend its reach into Asia and the West Coast of the USA. Alan joined Cambridge Consultants in February 1984. Between then and 2002, when he was appointed Chief Technical Officer and earned a seat on the Board, he played a major role in building the company’s business in electromagnetic sensors, becoming Division Manager of the Product Development Business. He restructured the group and grew it to become Cambridge Consultants’ most profitable division. The unit had particular success in exploiting its intellectual property in integrated circuits, radar systems, and optical sensors. Alan graduated with a First Class degree in Mathematics from Churchill College, Cambridge in 1981.
    • He completed an MBA with Distinction in 1998.

    Norihiro Suzuki

    • Vice President and Executive Officer, CTO and General Manager of Research & Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd.
    • Norihiro Suzuki joined Hitachi after earning his master’s degree from the Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo in 1986, and began his career as a researcher in digital image signal processing and embedded software systems. After serving in several management positions where he lead research in IT, he assumed the post of Senior Vice President & CTO of Hitachi America, Ltd. in 2012. He returned to Japan in October 2014 to assume the position of General Manager of the Central Research Laboratory, and also General Manager of the Global Center for Social Innovation from April 2015. He was appointed to his current position as head of the Research & Development Group in April 2016. Mr. Suzuki is also a Vice President and Executive Officer, and CTO of Hitachi, Ltd.
    • Doctor of Engineering.
    • Member of the Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), and IEEE.
    Download Adobe Reader
    In order to read a PDF file, you need to have Adobe® Reader® installed in your computer.

    Related papers

    See more card

    Download Adobe Reader
    In order to read a PDF file, you need to have Adobe® Reader® installed in your computer.