I will now take some time to discuss our achievements during the three years of the previous Medium Term Business Plan. During the previous Medium Term Business Plan, we made our preparations. The focus of our preparations was in core technologies, strengthening molecular imaging technology as one of the strengths of Konica Minolta. In addition, we obtained through M&A various technologies in the areas of intelligent network cameras (that is to say, technology whereby in situations such as edge- and distributed computing the camera itself performs simulations and processing without sending the information to the data center), medical imaging platforms, visual surface inspection and digital decorative printing.
Among our customer base, we acquired more than 30 IT service and marketing service companies in the major countries. We believe that the acquisition of human resources very knowledgeable in workflows for individual industries will, without doubt, become necessary over the next three years, and so we prepared these also.
From another perspective, for the past three years we have been strengthening open innovation through our Business Innovation Centers (BIC). A representative example of the results of this initiative is the Workplace Hub edge IoT platform that was announced in March of this year. It is this strength that enabled a new IoT platform such as this to originate not in Japan but overseas, and to be launched by overseas personnel, as well as the agile R&D structure that we have put in place and our alliances with global partners such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and SAP. This strength that we have acquired over the past three years can be used as a kind of "template" to move forward with our business in future.
Leveraging such preparations as these, we will turn Konica Minolta into a cluster of high-margin businesses over the coming three years. By combining our strengths with these preparations and leveraging the results, we plan to be able to compete even in the age of IoT, building barriers to entry for other companies, focusing on areas that will lead to high profits, and fighting in ways that will allow us to achieve "genre-top" status even in an era when solutions have become dominant.
Among our customer base, we acquired more than 30 IT service and marketing service companies in the major countries. We believe that the acquisition of human resources very knowledgeable in workflows for individual industries will, without doubt, become necessary over the next three years, and so we prepared these also.
From another perspective, for the past three years we have been strengthening open innovation through our Business Innovation Centers (BIC). A representative example of the results of this initiative is the Workplace Hub edge IoT platform that was announced in March of this year. It is this strength that enabled a new IoT platform such as this to originate not in Japan but overseas, and to be launched by overseas personnel, as well as the agile R&D structure that we have put in place and our alliances with global partners such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and SAP. This strength that we have acquired over the past three years can be used as a kind of "template" to move forward with our business in future.
Leveraging such preparations as these, we will turn Konica Minolta into a cluster of high-margin businesses over the coming three years. By combining our strengths with these preparations and leveraging the results, we plan to be able to compete even in the age of IoT, building barriers to entry for other companies, focusing on areas that will lead to high profits, and fighting in ways that will allow us to achieve "genre-top" status even in an era when solutions have become dominant.