Renesas Electronics Sales — the Japan sales division of Renesas — offers products of Renesas and its partner companies and provides a wide span of solutions for meeting the product roadmaps of Japanese customers. It is affiliated with our R&D and product development divisions, as well as with Renesas Solutions Corp., a technology expert. For this article we interviewed Kitano Tetsuro, the president of Renesas Electronics Sales. We said the overall goal of his company is "to be a strong reliable partner that helps its customers find the right business opportunities and succeed in the marketplace."

Edge: Would you please tell us briefly about your business and how it works?

Kitano: Renesas Electronics Sales takes care of the sales of semiconductor products in Japan for Renesas, which does not have an internal sales division as such within the country. Apart from our head office, we have 14 offices and outlets all over Japan. We also have 29 distributors. They are all networked to meet the needs of customers in Japan.

Renesas Electronics Sales also supports Japanese companies that are expanding their businesses abroad. At the moment, many firms are rushing to China to seek business opportunities. We help them set up affiliates in Shanghai and Hong Kong, transfer their production bases to China, and work out their business plans. We are assisted in our efforts by Renesas organizations in America, Europe, and the ASEAN region, which also support Japanese industries.

Edge: Please tell us about the products your company offers

Kitano: Renesas Electronics Sales handles all Renesas-brand products. In addition, we develop and offer board products that are integrated with Renesas semiconductors, thus promoting turnkey solutions that shorten board development time for customers.

We also sell products produced by Renesas Group companies and partners. These include DRAM products by Elpida Memory; small- to-medium-sized TFT LCD panels by Hitachi Displays; and optical pickups and tuners by Hitachi Media Electronics.

Edge: What is the strength of Renesas Electronics Sales?

Kitano: A key strength is the IT network that connects us with our customers throughout Japan. It allows us to determine customers’ needs speedily and offer diversified concepts for solutions in a short period of time.

Another strength of Renesas Electronics Sales — vital, yet inconspicuous — is the trust that exists between our customers and our organization. This is our invaluable intangible treasure. It was cultivated before Renesas was formed by the semiconductor sales subsidiaries of Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. Since the day Renesas was launched, we have been taking good care of the customers of both companies. Perhaps we are taking even better care of them, because synergies discovered between what were previously two different sales networks are already having a positive effect on the unified business we have today.

Edge: What are the main issues your company addresses?

Kitano: In order for our customers to be successful in the marketplace, Renesas Electronics Sales must continuously provide good solutions for them. This is what our business is all about. In particular, we must provide the flexibility needed to incorporate our roadmaps into our customers’ roadmaps. With a keen eye on the future, we have to be able to foresee issues that our customers might encounter in implementing their business plans, then formulate solutions for those issues by applying cutting-edge technologies.

Specifically, we have to do much more than just waiting for customers to make requests. We need to find a way to get a head start on a new trend in order to incorporate it into our business plans. We must ensure that solutions are developed by Renesas that reflect current and future customer needs accurately, and work to help make them available within appropriate time frames. For instance, in the near future Renesas must be able to supply the advanced parts needed for the digital still cameras now being created that will be launched in 2007 and 2008. Looking further ahead, we're working with automotive manufacturers to determine what solutions they will need for the 2010 models they are beginning to design today.

Edge: You mean your organization provides foresight that guides R&D for advanced semiconductor products?

Kitano: Yes, we do. Mitsubishi Electric and Hitachi have research institutes where many semiconductor specialists carry out their studies. Such a R&D force is the backbone of technological realization. What is needed is a strong link between their expertise and foresight for future marketplace trends. As a result, we, as sales representatives of Renesas, constantly seek to improve our techniques for grasping customer needs quickly.

Renesas Electronics Sales has an efficient system for collecting information from our customers and rapidly forwarding their requirements to Renesas. We want to prompt well-formulated strategies so that Renesas can offer our customers a variety of timely, optimized solutions. Our success helps to ensure that our customers see Renesas as their trustworthy partner — one that's capable, reliable, and fully supportive of their efforts to win in the marketplace.

Edge: It isn’t easy to fulfill customers’ requirements swiftly, is it?

Kitano: It is very difficult, indeed. Different customers have different development themes and we have to respond to them simultaneously. Sound relationships with customers are our foundation. Many of those relationships were firmly established when Mitsubishi and Hitachi had their separate semiconductor divisions. Others we have established since Renesas was formed. We nurture all of them constantly and have every confidence in these loyal customers' success.

There is a Japanese word meaning "strong friends." It symbolizes a strong relationship that encourages mutual efforts to stimulate and improve one another. That word also applies to our strategic partnerships. It is Renesas' intention to establish and maintain strong partnerships with our customers.

Edge: What are the support issues that relate to system LSI devices?

Kitano: System LSI is becoming increasingly complex, yet we have to develop new devices in a short period of time. Moreover, we must produce and deliver the requisite semiconductor products precisely when a customer needs them. If we don't, the customer might miss a big business opportunity. A customer normally sets a certain period of time to sell his products so that he can move on to the next level of product development smoothly. There is a "ripe time," a prime market window in the product life cycle that must be met to maximize sales. Our task is to enable customers to capture the business available at the ripe time.

Renesas Electronics Sales incorporates a Renesas semiconductor production schedule into a customer’s sales schedule. This is accomplished through collaborative efforts between the customer and our semiconductor development team, production team, and testing team. Changes and adjustments are made over and over again to make the schedule just right for the customer. Our goal is to deliver semiconductors to the customer in the specified quantity at the specified time.

This process involves a lot of hard work. That is especially true in the fast-growing digital appliance market, where competition is fierce and timing is everything. System LSI is more complicated than ever, yet turnaround is expected to be quicker than ever. To formulate the best possible plan for delivering our products smoothly at the right time, we must get the whole picture, one that combines information about a customer's product development project with data on our semiconductor development project. Because problems are bound to arise during the course of a development project, our sales representatives must be capable of promoting our development project with confidence, while establishing and building a solid, trusting relationship with a customer. That essential skill can be difficult to find and a challenge to nurture. I'm proud that we have many such talented individuals in our organization.

Edge: What are your goals for your company's future development?

Kitano: As an overall goal, I want us to be a strong reliable partner that helps its customers find the right business opportunities and succeed in the marketplace. Beyond that, one thing I would like to improve is the perceived significance of the sales aspect in the semiconductor business. It goes without saying that technological development is vital for the semiconductor industry. What’s not often recognized is that sales has a role perhaps just as important. In my view, "sales" means "business." In order to improve the significance of the sales aspect, we must gain a greater appreciation of all the factors I mentioned earlier.

I also want us to better address all the key "influencers" that play roles of consequence in the selection of semiconductors. For instance, it is not only a manufacturer that selects semiconductors for automotive electric components. The research institute of a car manufacturer has a certain degree of influence over decision making. Likewise, besides the cell-phone manufacturer, a cell-phone provider might get involved in the selection of semiconductors for handsets. Renesas Electronics Sales now engages with these influencers to promote our products, but we can do more in this area.

Furthermore, we, as sales representatives, are responsible for providing a good sales mechanism. Our challenges include creating a new, improved sales business model involving distributors, and making more efficient use of the resources we have to operate our business. In a marketplace that's constantly changing, where trends and movements are three-dimensional, we need to know exactly where to inject our resources to achieve the best results.