Nitto has long been associated with high-performance sports as a provider of the athletic taping used around the world by professionals and amateurs alike. But there’s another reason that makes the ATP tournament sponsorship such a natural fit for Nitto, says company president Hideo Takasaki. “The Nitto ATP Finals are all about finding the best of the best. And at Nitto, we are committed to developing the best for the best—high-end technologies for high-end customers. The drive and skill these elite players bring to their game are an inspiration for us.”

If your aim is to be the best , whether in tennis or business, you better have a clear strategy to get there—and the skills to take you to the top. At Nitto, that strategy is called Global Niche Top, and the technological skills have been honed through more than a century of continuous innovation.

“Global Niche Top is our differentiation strategy for becoming the leader in targeted market segments,” says Takasaki. “We focus on areas where there is change, growth potential, a chance to demonstrate our unique innovations, and few active competitors. Of course, competition always arrives eventually, but we find that by collaborating closely with high-end business partners who demand quality and progression, we can avoid commoditization and maintain leading market positions.”

Sanshin: three pathways to new

Very few companies have been able to remain at the forefront of the industry across multiple generations of customers, management teams, and staff. So, what has driven Nitto’s consistent innovation for more than 100 years, amid astonishing changes in technology and society? The answer lies in Nitto’s Sanshin approach to business evolution.

Sanshin is a Japanese expression that literally means “three new”. It describes Nitto’s methodology of constantly pursuing new applications for existing products, advancing its technology to develop completely new products, and using both these processes to create new demand.

This Sanshin way of thinking has propelled Nitto from its humble beginnings in insulation tape to its current status as a multinational niche leader, with nearly 30,000 employees worldwide and a sophisticated portfolio of operations that continue to grow and cross-pollinate.

“Sanshin is enabled by our relationships with industry-leading customers,” says Takasaki. “These are the companies that push the frontiers, and we can both learn from and contribute to that process.”

Going beyond

Pushing the limits is central to Nitto’s latest mid-term management plan, Nitto Beyond 2023. The concept is to ‘go beyond’ and grow the business with a focus on three domains: Next-generation Mobility, Information Interfaces, and Human Life.

In each of these three domains, Nitto already has robust technologies, manufacturing systems and relationships that can be leveraged both within and between divisions to create new long-term value and drive further success for the Global Niche Top strategy.

In Next-generation Mobility, for example, Nitto is contributing to the rapid progression of vehicle electrification by providing critical products such as isolation materials for motors and sensors, in addition to existing automotive products that enable weight and energy reduction.

“Within Nitto, we reward people who take on challenges of all kinds—people who find new ways forward,” says Takasaki. “This drives our ability to rapidly repurpose and advance our technology, evolve with our customers, and build leadership positions in multiple niches.”

Sustainable innovation—the New Normal?

As societies around the world grapple with defining what the New Normal will be after COVID-19, Nitto is looking to the future with sustainability front and center in its thinking. The company’s aim for 2030 and beyond is to be a high-performance materials innovator that continues to shape the future with the technology needed to realize a truly sustainable environment and society.  

The company is pursuing ESG management to increase enterprise value by both creating economic value and addressing societal issues at every link in the value chain with innovative products and processes in diverse areas. One example is water purification and organic solvent recycling, where Nitto’s membranes are accelerating the drive towards zero industrial waste, using a technology that also has the potential to separate out CO₂ and other gasses.  

“It’s no longer enough for products to be convenient or sophisticated,” explains Takasaki. “We need to build true sustainability into everything we do and sell. Sustainability must become the New Normal, for us and for the world.”