News Releases

Toshiba Group to Reevaluate Organizational Structure

-Group-wide Reorganization Promotes Realization of Toshiba Next Plan-
10 Jan, 2019

TOKYO—Toshiba Group has released further details of the group-wide reorganization that it is promoting in fiscal year 2019, under the policies of consolidating business units and simplifying the hierarchy that are part of the Toshiba Next Plan.

On December 26, Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) announced an organizational restructuring to strengthen its battery business and building solutions businesses, and today unveiled further measures to reinforce management structures and accelerate decision making in both Toshiba itself and key group companies.

1. Establishment of New Business Development Office

On January 1, Toshiba established the New Business Development Office within its corporate Strategic Planning Division. The office will advance two complementary functions: accelerate business development with in-house technology assets; and deploy a Corporate Venture Capital (CVC)*1 function that will fund active exploration of external resources, intelligence and expert views.

The business development function will propose business hypotheses for solving social issues, and use the lean startup method*2 to carry repeated testing and verification toward swiftly developing new businesses.

The CVC function manages a 10-billion yen CVC fund secured in the Toshiba Next Plan for the five years from fiscal year 2019. This will be channeled into investments in start-ups in Japan and overseas in fields where synergies can be realized with the Group’s growth businesses, such as energy, logistics and the life sciences, and also in venture capital organizations with experience in those sectors.

By effectively managing these functions, the new office will explore external technology assets, intelligence and expert views that Toshiba has not accessed before, and aims to create promising businesses through open innovation that promotes synergies with the company’s technology assets.

2. Reorganization and consolidation of business units in key group companies

In implementing the Toshiba Next Plan policy of consolidating business units, Toshiba’s four key group companies will introduce measures to reinforce their management structures on April 1, 2019. Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation has already taken an important step in this direction by setting up a new organization to promote digital transformation on January 1.

Further details on each key group company can be found below.

Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation
Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation’s new Digital Transformation Business Design Project Team brings together resources from each of the company’s divisions and will promote accelerated progress in businesses related to digital transformation. The new project team will report directly to the President and CEO of the company.

This move is in line with Toshiba Group’s goal of becoming one of the world’s leading cyber physical systems (CPS) companies, able to collect data from the physical world for analysis in the cyber world of digital technology, and then to use it to create value through a constant feedback loop between the two. Other key group companies will also advance the fusion of cyber and physical technologies to create new business model and work with business partners to contribute solutions to solve social issues.

On April 1, Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation will consolidate its Nuclear Energy Systems & Services Division and Thermal & Hydro Power Systems & Services Division into a new Power Systems Division, and its current Transmission & Distribution Systems Division and Energy Aggregation Division will be folded into a new Grid Aggregation Division.

The businesses operated by the Power Systems Division and the Grid Aggregation Division bear large social responsibilities in energy infrastructure: the Power Systems Division supports power generation; the Grid Aggregation Division supports the transmission, storage and smart use of energy. Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation will develop new services and build new business domains through their consolidation, strengthen the management structure and support more agile decision making.

Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation
Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation will consolidate its Water & Environment Systems Division and Social Systems Division into a new Social Systems Division. The two divisions already share basic technologies, sales and field service resources, and the consolidation will optimize the management structure and business execution.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation
Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation will consolidate its Mixed Signal IC Division and Logic LSI Division to form a new System Devices Division. The consolidation will bring together the analog and digital System LSI technologies that the two divisions have respectively cultivated. The company will reinforce management by sharing and reallocating development resources, so strengthening a focus business, and promote more efficient use of common functions.

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation
Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation will consolidate its Government & Public Corporation Solutions Division and Industrial Solutions Division into the ICT Solutions Division. With this reinforced management structure and through more focused decision-making, the company will make more effective use of resources for AI and IoT, and promote advances in CPS and digital transformation.

3. Reorganization and closing of Materials & Devices Division

Toshiba will transfer the businesses, manufacturing operations and affiliated group companies operated by the Materials & Devices Division to related parts of the Group, aiming to strengthen their operation and ensure speedy decision-making. Toshiba will use the Group’s management resources to expand the businesses now managed by the division. With these measures, Toshiba will close down the current division.  

 

Note:
*1: CVC is a corporate fund for investing in or supporting start-ups that seeks to secure synergies between Toshiba's existing businesses and innovative companies with unique technologies and ideas. It is part of Toshiba’s approach to open innovation.
*2: Lean start up is a methodology for identifying and testing market and customer needs by repeatedly constructing and testing business hypotheses for short periods with minimal investments