We interviewed with a speaker of the 2022 Hiroshima Business Forum for Global Peace, Mr. INOUE Takashi, President and CEO, LIFULL Co., Ltd.; Representative Director, Next Wisdom Foundation; Representative Director, PEACE DAY Foundation; Representative Director, Nasucon Valley Council; Councilor, Well-being for Planet Earth Foundation; Director, Japan Association of New Economy

1 About your Company’s line of business

As an entrepreneur, you set up LIFULL Co., Ltd., which has established a business that provides online real estate information services, thereby creating many jobs and employment opportunities through effective use of digital technology. Would you please give us a brief explanation about your Company’s line of business and how the Company has developed so far?

When I began working at a company that I joined as a new graduate, I felt an “information asymmetry” in the real estate industry. This led me to the desire to mitigate this asymmetry, inspiring me to launch HOME’S (now “LIFULL HOME’S”), a website for real estate and housing information, with the aim of establishing a real estate infrastructure using the Internet. I am proud to say that the website has grown to be one of the largest of its kind in Japan. We are now operating as the LIFULL Group to realize its corporate message, “Make every Life Full,” from which its name derives, through the provision of various life-related services not only in the real estate area, but also many other fields, including regional revitalization, nursing care, moving, and crowdfunding services. We are committed to resolving social issues through our businesses.

2 Initiatives related to your remarks at the session

In this forum, you took part in the session on the theme “Human resources development to secure innovation-based economic growth and employment in the midst of global economic instability.” During the session, you talked about “LIFULL University” and the New SWITCH Business Idea Program, as examples of specific initiatives undertaken by your Company. Could you tell me more concretely about successful cases involving these two initiatives?

LIFULL University is our corporate university program that helps employees learn business skills. Roughly 80% of these seminars are taught by employee volunteers, who work to impart skills that they have acquired to their coworkers. Our human resource development policy attaches the greatest importance to “intrinsic motivation” and defines supporting employees to realize their ideal state as the best way to enhance their motivation. LIFULL also uses a “career design sheet,” a format to help employees think about their own career. We hold LIFULL University seminars that enable employees to acquire not only the skills necessary for their current jobs but also skills that they are interested in, in order to support individual employees in developing their career or changing their future career path within the Company. In addition, to act as instructors of these seminars, employee volunteers are required to relearn their skills before teaching other employees, by systematizing their own experiences and knowledge, which provides them with opportunities to reinforce their skills and organize their know-how.

 

The SWITCH is a system that invites all employees to present proposals for new businesses. Recently, we have been receiving 150 proposals a year. LIFULL is a company that strives to resolve social issues though its business activities. An example of a proposed idea that has actually been launched as a business is LIFULL Nursing Care, which is operated by LIFULL senior Co., Ltd. There are many people who are perplexed about how to find nursing care facilities that are suitable for their needs. To help these people, LIFULL Nursing Care offers a special care facility web searching service. A concierge service is also available at its call center. In fact, when I myself used the service on behalf of my father, LIFULL senior’s staff members gave useful advice, telling us about a hospital that is good at caring for my father’s chronic disease as well as a related facility that operates 24 hours a day and is only five minutes from my parents’ house. Employees of LIFULL senior are equipped with knowledge required to care for individual users. Moreover, since the operating company has established a user support system and coordinates with relevant medical institutions, it is ready to provide a substantial suite of services that satisfy its customers.

 

Another example is LIFULL Storage, which is currently run by LIFULL SPACE Co., Ltd. This is a search website for rental storage space, offering services in response to the needs of people who want to temporarily store their furniture, personal belongings, etc. in close vicinity, when moving to a new home. The LIFULL Storage business originated from a proposal made by a first-year employee who had joined the Company as a new graduate. Only six months after its launch, the business achieved profitability on a single month basis.

3 Background of making “World peace and the well-being of humanity” your motto

During the session, you said, “My vision in life is to contribute to realizing world peace and the well-being of humanity.” How and why have you come to embrace such a vision?

 

During the session, you said, “My vision in life is to contribute to realizing world peace and the well-being of humanity.” How and why have you come to embrace such a vision?

At age 32, I talked with an ex-coworker, with whom I had joined Recruit Co., Ltd. at the same time and who was then president of a venture business, about our future dreams and visions while drinking. He then said “My dream is to help realize world peace,” in advance of me. I felt this idea was very cool, because at that time I was wondering what was the highest level of “altruism,” which we had adopted as our corporate credo. Adding the “well-being of humanity” to “world peace,” I have upheld this vision to the present day.

Thus far, I have set up “Well-being for Planet Earth,” a public interest incorporated foundation that conducts research into well-being, and “PEACE DAY,” a general incorporated association that works to promote the International Day of Peace (or World Peace Day), established by the United Nations. The International Day of Peace is celebrated annually on September 21. If only we could achieve a war-free world just for one day, such peaceful conditions could be gradually extended to two days, three days, one week and then one year, during which the world would enjoy enduring peace. I believe that we can create a peaceful world proactively and by choice, rather than by chance. Although the International Day of Peace is now recognized by nearly 2 billion people around the world, it is still little known in Japan. The PEACE DAY Foundation strives to promote World Peace Day by hosting festivals and events. Its events alone attract an estimated 10,000 participants each year. Through its networking, the Foundation aims to encourage practical activities and movements that involve at least one million people in Japan, by reminding them of the vital importance of peace and urging them to take action on their own initiative. I would like to realize the first world peace by establishing a society where 4 billion people at the base of the pyramid (BoP) can live independently by the time I turn 75 years old (in 21 years’ time), and the second world peace by establishing a society where there is no conflict among nations by the time I turn 100 years old (in 46 years’ time).

 

INOUE Takashi
President and CEO, LIFULL Co.,Ltd.