Metal One Sumisho Tubular Products Co., Ltd.

Metal One Sumisho Tubular Products Co., Ltd., established through the 2019 merger of the domestic steel pipes and piping materials businesses of SUMITOMO CORPORATION Group and Metal One Group, is Japan’s largest domestic trading company specializing in steel pipes. The company established a 2030 long-term growth strategy and a 2021-2023 medium-term business plan as a company-wide vision, and, in terms of business performance, results have been positive amidst a general upswing in the steel products market. Progress on the structural transformation of the business espoused in the company-wide vision, however, has been limited. Additionally, for lack of direct connections between the medium-term business plan and the company’s various business activities, the “genuine integration” the company had intended and formulated as the core of its medium and long-term business strategy, and which would help it form new markets and services through coordination of pre-merger organizations, had only been partially achieved.

Amidst this context, the company sought to build an organization that exercises governance centered on a medium-term business plan that incorporates actions and KPIs that follow from not only the core points of the strategy, but also its feasibility, stepping up from the 2024-2026 medium-term business plan, while also continuing in the direction of the long-term vision aimed at realizing the future vision put forward in the long-term business strategy. The company also involved ABeam Consulting as a partner in formulating its 2024-2026 medium-term business plan with the aim of building and improving structures that could involve sales and non-sales departments in, and drive efforts to address, company-wide challenges such as generating digital service-model business ideas and promoting sustainability.

Through this project, we formed subcommittees and had repeated discussions across divisions at management retreats, reaching a consensus around what the company wants to do, and what it should do, as it pursues leadership transformation.
ABeam Consulting served as a go-between to resolve differences of opinion between divisions and gaps in understanding between management and how things seem on the ground. By establishing the challenges and points of discussion across divisions and by presenting provisional answers to those challenges, for the first time, ABeam managed to create a place for “thinking about the future” across divisions. A key factor in the success of this process was the repeated discussions among teams of not only the core management, consisting of the president, deputy president, heads of division and deputy heads of division, but also the section-head class of next-generation leaders, who participated in the process while constantly envisaging themselves actually carrying out the medium-term business plan being formulated.
Many of the people involved in the process were members of corporate planning teams with experience of working on the ground in each division. The secretarial role of facilitating the overall process was another key. When discussions between divisions stalled or the process of aligning the divisions did not proceed as anticipated, ABeam Consulting, in its facilitating role, managed to move the process of the “division-led medium-term business plan formulation” forward, at times by pushing the process along, and at times by smoothing matters out between the parties.

By working side-by-side with the company to not only formulate strategy, but to also create frameworks and KPIs for management control to achieve the company’s plans and to compile specific action plans that can be put into action at the on-the-ground level, ABeam Consulting has helped realize the formulation of a medium-term business plan that has started to put in place continuous improvement measures since the beginning of the new financial year. Rather than just handing off some framework or designing a plan as a consultant then washing its hands of it, ABeam has taken part in meetings inside each division and worked side by side with the company as a team member to come up with KPIs and action plans.
ABeam has also sought to take renewed stock of the strengths of and challenges facing each division pre-merger, and to develop mutual understanding among them in order to better develop the strategies and measures put forward in the medium-term business plan. We worked tirelessly and uncompromisingly to come up with ideas for what each division could bring to the table to build a competitive edge for the company, or to develop new businesses. Through discussions like these, and through the process of pushing this project forward, ABeam has contributed to further advancing the positive impact of this corporate integration.

We are grateful to ABeam Consulting for partnering with us to provide thoroughgoing support and the exact, right kind of facilitation.
Step by step, but we are putting the medium-term business plan we developed into practice.

Managing Executive Officer, Chief of Corporate Planning Division
Metal One Sumisho Tubular Products Co., Ltd.
Ryuichiro Hirano