Suzuki: MOL needs restructuring

Suzuki: MOL needs restructuring    Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, the Japanese shipping and logistics group, will need to be restructured following completion of the current medium term management plan, Kunio Suzuki, president of the Japanese group, told staff in a New Year message.
   The group’s “MOL next” management plan, started in fiscal year 2001, lasts until March.
   Suzuki said that, in the current fiscal year to March 31, Mitsui O.S.K. expects to achieve “almost all of our targets including accumulated goals to strengthen our financial base” set in the plan. “We owe some of our success to favorable conditions in the shipping industry in 2003, but for the most part, it is the result of hard work by employees,” he said.
   “However, our financial strength lags behind some leading companies because of our long-term poor business performance,” Suzuki deplored. He added that Mitsui O.S.K.    is “in urgent need of restructuring, and the “MOL next” management plan was “only a milestone” on the way to the group’s transformation.
   The group aims to build resilient financial strength. Suzuki said that financial strength would allow the group to take on new challenges “such as independently launching large projects that we couldn’t do in the past, and participate aggressively in high-risk, high-return ventures.”
   Mitsui O.S.K. is finalizing a new three-year management plan. Suzuki urged group directors and employees to make “every effort to reach the next milestone — and even higher goals.”
   One of the goals of the management of Mitsui O.S.K. is to ensure that all divisions and group companies communicate more effectively with each other, and implement “disciplined, aggressive business operations,” Suzuki said. Meanwhile, maintaining and enhancing cost reduction and cost competitiveness are “unavoidable issues for any company in any business today,” he added.
   Mitsui O.S.K. aims to expand its core ocean shipping business and related businesses.
   “This doesn’t necessarily mean that we will divide our resources equally among all our business activities,” Suzuki warned. One division may be specially strengthened, while another may be maintaining the status quo while watching for a new opportunity. One division may be partially strengthened through a new tie-up with other groups or companies, while another division may be withdrawing from an unprofitable activity, he said.