While circumstances in the industry have been changing, Panasonic also faces the same “wall” as large companies do. Such challenges were resulted from the difficulty in investing in a new business given the size of the company. Thereby, Panasonic launched a new project called “Game Changer Catapult (GCC)” to overcome the issues with the investment company, contributing to faster decision-making for investments.

Establishment of GCC
In 2016, GCC was established by Panasonic as part of Panasonic Appliances, which is responsible for household electrical appliances. The term “Catapult” in its project’s name means “a stone-shooting device” which refers that GCC is like the tool that transformed business competitions through the technological revolution.

Until today, there have been two competitions for the best concept of the project. The best concept will be selected, implemented in the actual production process and funded for manufacturing and marketing. The prototype of the appliances was showcased at the “South by Southwest” festival, which was the world-class film, music and technology festival in Texas, USA. The major goal of the festival was to seek interested business partners and collaboration among interested universities.

The selected Panasonic appliances for the showcase included a total of four appliances: a movie projector installed as a part of interior decor, a lunch box distributing system installed into office refrigerators, a humanlike rice-ball making artificial intelligence and another appliance, all of which are being considered to be actual products in the near future.

However, in turning the product development into a real business, a crucial challenge is investment plans. Despite Panasonic’s sufficient production capacity, starting a new business is not an easy task. Mr. Masa Fukata, the representative of GCC, commented on the matter that “To entirely make our own decision would delay the product quality assessment procedure. Thus, using external quality control systems would shorten the decision-making process.”

Investment Fund Management
Panasonic decided to establish “BeeEdge” in March by co-investing with a Japanese company using San Francisco, California, USA as the base. It is expected that Mr. Makoto Haruta, the former president of DeNA, would assist in decision-making for the investment as he is not staff at Panasonic.

The mutual investor will not be entitled to the ownership of the product brand; therefore, when the business grows and is profitable to BeeEdge, Panasonic will take over the business. Nonetheless, whether it will be expanded to other companies is yet to be decided.

Towards the Ultimate Benefits
In addition to such plans, Panasonic considers expanding more subsidiaries of Panasonic products. It is not clear whether GCC will succeed in terms of income, yet this trial and error will certainly be beneficial to the company.

Regarding this matter, Mr. Fukata noted that “An important point for us is to discard some traditional ways of work styles and to learn the unknown from the new generation.” He further pointed out that the company should not hold on to its prior success too excessively. Since the establishment of GCC two years ago, it is now Panasonic’s time to launch a new catapult into the market.