What led your organization to launch this project?

Mr. Ogawa Our group consists of three businesses—Plant Engineering, Logistics, and Operational Support. By organically integrating these businesses, we have established a unique business model that is rarely seen anywhere in the world.
In terms of overseas operations, we established our first Southeast Asian subsidiary in 1971. Since then, we have continued expanding mainly across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America. Today, we operate 41 overseas subsidiaries, including in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and Oman), and one representative office. We drive our business worldwide and globally.
As we expand our business globally, it has become essential to approach not only Japanese‑affiliated companies but also non‑Japanese companies. As a result, transforming ourselves into a truly global company has become unavoidable.
Although we are still in the process of this transformation, over the past decade our business scale has tripled and both our workforce and global locations have expanded significantly.
In line with this rapid growth, it has become essential not only to maintain the quality of our talent but also to continuously develop national employees who can compete in local markets and work across countries and subsidiaries.
Historically, our overseas operations have been driven primarily by Japanese expatriates. However, the number of national employees capable of independently leading business operations remains limited. While developing such national talent is essential, it has also become clear that we do not currently have enough Japanese employees capable of mentoring and developing them.
Each business division had its own frameworks for career development and talent training for Japanese employees. However, these frameworks lacked a clear perspective for developing globally capable talent. Therefore, we recognized the growing need to design, implement, and operate such a perspective across divisions.

What type of project did you initiate?

Mr. Ogawa Our objective was to incorporate a global talent development perspective into the annual career development processes already operated by each business division. Through this process, we aimed to identify specific employees or employee groups and begin concrete development initiatives.
To achieve this, we first conducted a current‑state analysis to visualize how each business division manages its career development processes. We also interviewed around 20 key employees—from younger staff to experienced veterans—to understand their career aspirations, particularly their perspectives toward global careers. These insights were reflected in the project deliverables.
Based on the analysis, we developed a definition of global talent, defined the competencies required, created career paths for each business division, and designed a training framework and detailed syllabi for global talent development.
Following completion, adjustments were made in response to changes in our business environment and discussions with each division. Our internal team is currently moving toward implementation.

Why did you choose TMHR for this project?

Mr. Ogawa One major factor was TMHR’s extensive experience in talent management within overseas subsidiaries. They have been directly involved in many projects on site, and particularly in the area of talent development they have experience not only in designing systems but also delivering training programs locally. This ability to support both planning and execution was a key reason for our decision.
Many consultants are strong in planning and design but leave implementation entirely to the client. TMHR, however, supports implementation, operational assistance, and follow‑up through hands‑on involvement. For us, given our limited resources and experience in this field, that provided significant reassurance.
Another factor was their deep understanding of industries such as logistics and engineering, which are central to our business. Because our business structure is quite complex, it was essential that the project be managed in a way that fully understood this complexity while preserving the strengths of each business unit. TMHR’s experience and insight were an excellent match for our needs.

What were the most difficult aspects of advancing the project?

Mr. Ogawa As mentioned earlier, the three business divisions have completely different business characteristics. While the core concept of developing globally capable employees needed to be consistent, the development schemes themselves had to be designed differently to suit each division’s business model.
At the same time, from the perspective of the Overseas Business Division, we needed to establish common expectations and competency levels for global talent, as well as reach agreement with each division regarding talent scale and development timelines aligned with mid‑ to long‑term management strategy. Achieving this alignment was one of the most challenging aspects.
Another challenge was that our existing development frameworks were already highly detailed, specifying the skills, experience, and certifications required for each job category. We therefore aimed to leverage those existing systems as much as possible while adding the global talent development perspective on top, enabling smooth implementation without compromising requirements for domestic talent development.
While our internal team handled coordination with each business division, TMHR helped ensure that the deliverables reflected a well‑balanced integration of both perspectives—the priorities of each division and those of the Overseas Business Division.

Many companies struggle with how to globalize their Japanese workforce as your company has. What advice would you give to such organizations?

Mr. Ogawa As Japan’s economic growth slows, many Japanese companies are seeking further growth overseas. As a result, many companies focus on developing and utilizing national talent.
However, despite our long history and scale, the development of national talent has not progressed as much as we would like. Japanese employees still play the central role in driving our overseas business.
Ideally, we want to globalize Japanese employees who already understand our domestic operations and ways of working. However, we often hear from other companies facing the same challenge: progress in developing such talent tends to be slow.
There are many possible approaches. Some companies introduce strong company‑wide systems and centralized operations. For organizations like ours, where each business division independently drives different businesses, it may be more practical not to drastically change existing talent development systems. Instead, clearly presenting career paths for global talent and building shared expectations between the company and employees can be an effective approach, while gradually adding the necessary development initiatives.
Although this approach requires time for coordination, it allows implementation without creating risk for core business operations or resistance within the organization, making it a realistic solution.
That said, designing such systems requires specialized expertise and practical experience in global environments. There are limits to what can be achieved internally. Therefore, it is often most effective to rely on consultants or external experts to design the system while managing internal alignment within the company.
TMHR possesses deep expertise and experience in global HR and talent management system design. In addition, they demonstrated a strong understanding of our business—particularly the operational aspects of our work—which made them an ideal partner for this project.