Co-creation is more important than ever. That's because the focus of Hitachi's business is shifting from just selling products to creating value for the customer. We are creating new value by sharing issues and visions with customers and partners, designing business models, and realizing them through verification and simulation. This co-creation process which includes methodologies and tools, has been systemized under what we call "NEXPERIENCE." Through NEXPERIENCE, we can deliver real-world solutions that resolve the real challenges faced by our customers.
　What allows us to do this, and I believe that this is one of Hitachi's strengths, is how our designers and researchers work together. In 2015, I established the Global Center for Social Innovation (CSI). CSI consists of designers and researchers; designers who are not only experts in product and service design, but as important, skilled in ethnography. The co-creation process includes communication with customers to extract the real issues faced by our customers. So, the main mission of the designer is this kind of extracting process, something they are well equipped to do. Researchers and engineers tend to focus on specific technical problems or requirements while a designer focuses on the experience; what the customer feels are the issues, then delve deeper, how this will be experienced by their customers, etc. This kind of process is pretty important for co-creation and is also the strength of Hitachi's co-creation.