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Naoki Urushibata
CEO and President
SEEMS CORPORATION
I lost my sister due to a cancer.
The experience made me to start the fragrance business. It was about a decade ago when my second sister died of rectum cancer after two and a half years of fighting against the disease. One day, while holding her in my arms to take care of her, I noticed her body smell changed to something like greens of early spring.
When I was a mere kid, I was suffered from a serious heart disease and was on the verge of death. I had congenital abnormal color sensations. Due to such reasons or not, my olfactory function was very sensitive. ‘Had her cancer emitted a special smell, her cancer would have been detected while in its early stage and she would have survived till date,’ I strongly felt so.
Earning money is important. More than that, I wanted to help people and the society through business. So I decided to turn my company over to others and established a company, the forerunner of SEEMS CORPORATION.
I purely wanted to help people and the society.
Without encountering with my excellent technical staff, my wish would end up with just a dream. In this sense, I should appreciate and thank all of my staff for their decision to join my small company by believing that fragrance business would grow in the future.
The first product my company released to the market is a ‘lemon-fragrance’ strap for a mobile phone. The strap tells people with hearing disorder of an incoming of a mail using fragrance. Following to the strap, my company made a great success in business by merchandising other products as well, such as a mobile phone strap with a character and concert goods of various idol groups. However, I was not satisfied with the success; I wanted to make a greater success.
We, at SEEMS, are determined to produce more useful products in the field of environmental improvement, medical care and security to contribute to the society.
Commitment to MOT (Management of Technology)
I am particularly committed to MOT. It is said that MOT started in the United States when people involved in the Apollo Program invented managing technologies to make the large-scale project a success.
I believed it best to introduce the MOT for a venture company such as my company that has limited financial and human resources to realize a great dream. No great ideas and technologies will be meaningless if they are not accepted to the market in a form of products. In order to timely release products at a price affordable to users, it is essential for the company to have excellent production technologies and facilities.
Reckless pursuit of a dream by our own efforts would just lead us to a ‘valley of death.’
‘The Management Principles of the U.S. Marines’ and ‘Fabless Company’
How to avoid plummeting into the ‘valley of death’ that all founders of a venture company are likely to face with? I chose to introduce the ‘Management Principles of the U.S. Marines’ and to be a ‘fabless company.’ The former is to ‘transfer decision-making authorities to field staff’ and to ‘instruct targets to be achieved to staff members, but not to tell them how to do it.’ The latter refers to a company that doesn’t possess any manufacturing facilities, but outsources production to other manufacturers.
We, at SEEMS, are cooperating with universities and research institutes in and out of Japan to conduct numerous projects. In promoting the MOT which utilizes technologies at maximum as the sole management resource, I am strongly confident that the two wheels of ‘the Management Principles of the U.S. Marines’ and ‘Fabless Company’ are the must in order to expand a business into an industry by climbing up the ladder of a technological seeds into research and development and into production. I believe that the success of our hit products derived from such a management strategy of us.
Challenges to Unknown Fragrances
It is said that we have 20,000 to 30,000 genes; 3 genes are related to visual sensation and 5 genes to taste sensation, while 500 to 700 genes are associated to olfactory sensation or 2% of the entire genes we have, according to Dr. Akikazu Takada, Professor Emeritus, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine. This typically represents the importance of olfactory sensation for us.
Among the five sensations of seeing, listening, touching, smelling and tasting, seeing and listening, or visual images and music have been frequently studied with a great result. However, in terms of olfactory sensation, digitalization of olfactory information greatly lags behind. When my sister got a cancer, I read and studied numerous articles in and out of Japan and visited a number of experts in the world. As a result, I found that the olfactory sensation had long been a target of research in the world, though Japan did lag behind it.
I learned the existence of biomimetics as an academic domain during my research and study. I still maintain good friendship with people and research networks encountered then. They are irreplaceable ‘fragrances’ of my sister left to me.
‘Consistent’ Management based on CSR
We, at SEEMS, have established unique technologies including long-term preserving of fragrances and extraction of natural fragrances which are outclassing others. However, in terms of the entire fragrance technology, we are still at the first corner of a field track.
After my starting the business, it was scientifically demonstrated that a cancer has a smell peculiar to it. If the smell can be digitized, a slight change in body odor can be detected and a cancer can be found at its early stage. Many cancers are potentially curable completely when they are found and treated at their early stage. If you don’t have a medical check up, cancers will grow to an incurable level. This trend seems to be particularly observed in women. If cancers can be detected by body odor, many precious lives must be saved.
We, at SEEMS, supports the ‘Pink Ribbon Campaign’ that appeals the importance of ‘early finding, early diagnosing and early treatment of breast cancer,’ and take part in various events. Today, compliance is a word many industries in Japan speak loudly. CSR is one of the founding philosophies of our company and we will pursue consistent, honest and sincere corporate management in the future to come.
SEEMS is Born as a Living Entity.
Biomimetics stands on an idea that the world is a great living entity that is designed. I believe that a company is a living entity as well. Unless it changes and is reborn continuously, no companies can survive, I believe.
In October 2006, I took off the clothes of a company ‘Pixen’ and put on a new clothes, ‘SEEMS.’ SEEMS refers to Scents Energy for Environment, Medical and Security. It also means ‘to appear to be something’ which is also a concept of biomimetics. I sincerely ask all of you for your help and assistance to us in the future.
