Seeing Into The Future

Panasonic Celebrated 100 Years This Year. The Company Celebrated It By Showcasing Its Archaic Products, And Some Futuristic Ones.

- Jayashree Kini Mendes

PANASONIC KNOWS HOW TO GIVE USERS A good time. It has been doing so for 100 years, and says it will continue in this endeavour for years to come. In the last 100 years, the company has always batted for novel products that were little imagined. But its founder Konosuke Matsushita doggedly continued at a time when advances in technology was a little known concept ten decades ago.

Celebrating 100 years is no small feat. At a time when several large companies are finding it difficult to sustain themselves and prefer to merge or sell out, Panasonic Corporation has steadily held onto its own and emerging stronger.

NEW VISTAS

Today, the Corporation, which is one of Japan’s biggest tech giants, is seeking to transform itself from a consumer electronics company to offer new lifestyle and smart products in the future. In November, it kick-started ‘Cross-Value Innovation Forum 2018’ at the Tokyo International Forum, which was the finale to Panasonic’s 100th anniversary exhibition tour that has travelled around the world this year to express gratitude to customers and partners, and to showcase how Panasonic has contributed to the society over the past century. The opening day saw Kazuhiro Tsuga, CEO & president of Panasonic Corporation, deliver a keynote address on ‘Offering new lifestyles toward the next 100 years: How can Panasonic transform itself from a consumer electronics company?’ He said, “Going forward, we intend to offer products and solutions that users will want to continue customising and updating them according to their diverse needs, and not just those we have internally decided are good. In this age, we should be updating our products based on the environment, time and needs.”