Annual Report 2025 CEOʼs Message

Lead an unprecedented era of transformation ―

Our society is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, driven by generative AI's rapid and seemingly discontinuous evolution. This is the 19th year since our founding, and we're seeing an unprecedented and dramatic shift in the business environment, unlike anything we've ever experienced.
　Since ChatGPT's launch in 2022, I've been using generative AI in various contexts, and its evolution over the past year has been especially remarkable. For example, I dedicate my mornings to focused thinking. Previously, whenever I have a question about a project, I'd ask employees questions on Slack and use the waiting time to further refine my own ideas. Nowadays, I first turn to AI for any questions that don't require internal company information. AI provides instant answers, after which I can pose follow-up questions. Sometimes, these interactions go so quickly they outpace my own thinking process. This momentum has accelerated even further since we established an environment in which AI can leverage our internal company information. We now have a system that lets us quickly retrieve the information we need and deepen our analysis.
　I could never have imagined such a transformation occurring in just one year. I believe many others feel the same way about the massive changes unfolding right before our eyes. OpenAI founder Sam Altman has stated that AI will be able to solve complex business challenges by 2026, while historian Yuval Noah Harari has said that some of his colleagues now even ask AI what the most interesting research topics are in a given field.^*1 No one can yet predict the ultimate impact that generative AI will have on society. While the uncertainty can be perceived as a potential threat, I'm firmly convinced that this generative AI era represents a tremendous business opportunity for our company.

*1 "Yuval Noah Harari x Hikaru Utada: The Evolution of AI and Creativity" (July 13, 2025, NewsPicks)

Our company sets a new theme at the start of each year. This is more than a mere slogan; it serves to guide the direction of our company-wide efforts and carries great significance within our corporate culture.
　The catalyst for adopting "AI-First" as our 2025 theme was a remark by a U.S. institutional investor during our overseas IR roadshow in the fall of 2024: "2025 will mark the beginning of the AI era." Since we were already using generative AI on a daily basis, my initial thought was, "It feels a little late to call this the start of the AI era." However, the remark prompted me to reflect, and I came to a fresh realization that while generative AI technology has been evolving continuously, we're now witnessing discontinuous shifts, such as costs plummeting to 1/1,000 of their past levels. This realization prompted our decision to champion "AI-First."

　In 2025, we're committed as a company to confronting the evolution and potential of generative AI head-on and translating the commitment into concrete action. To demonstrate this stance, we established our theme after comprehensive discussions within our management team. In past years, I'd deliver a speech on the first business day of the year, aligned with the annual theme. However, in 2025, I kept my remarks brief, and instead, we kicked off the year by having all of our approximately 2,000 employees undergo AI training simultaneously. Starting the year by having all employees engage with AI on the very same day, I believe, embodied "AI-First."
　The results quickly became evident: by May 2025, 99% of our employees were using generative AI. Now, all employees say that using generative AI for work is the new norm. Effective use cases developed in each department are shared at our company-wide meetings held twice a month. This cross-organizational knowledge sharing continues to raise the overall level of AI use across the company.
　In the emerging era of generative AI, organizations can dramatically boost productivity by entrusting AI with tasks it can handle. At Sansan, the widespread adoption of generative AI has prompted us to partially revise our talent recruitment strategy and shift toward limiting the number of new hires. A year ago, I could not have imagined that generative AI's evolution would lead us to make such a decision.

As a leader, I've confronted head-on the question of how to harness generative AI as a business opportunity. In doing so, and revisiting our business model and strengths through this lens, I've come to realize that our company occupies a truly unique position.

　The starting point for a company to fully leverage generative AI is deciding what to train it on and what to have it infer—in other words, what data to provide. Put simply, the most vital first step is to accurately digitize the vast amount of information scattered throughout an organization and then structure that data so it can be used with full context.

　However, in practice, business cards and much of the information generated in business activities—such as meeting notes, contracts, and invoices—tends to be left in analog and unstructured forms. Since our founding, we've continuously challenged ourselves to accurately digitize and structure such information. Our approach is unique in that we don't treat digitization as the end in itself; instead, we've developed a system enabling users to naturally leverage our solutions for efficient daily workflows, resulting in continually accumulating high-quality data. For example, with Sansan, we provide a comprehensive solution—from scanning business cards to digitizing the data and ultimately leveraging it—so that each use helps build the company's data assets.

　While many services are limited to providing either digitization operations or data utilization functions (software), we integrate the two inseparably and deliver them as a single solution. I'm confident that this integrated approach is a core strength for us and, because it will be a foundation for connecting each solution to generative AI, it will become a driver that accelerates our business growth.

　Our culture drives the creation and continual refinement of this unique business model. We are deeply committed to creating new value that does not yet exist in the world. So then, how do we solve the challenges before us and create new value? The foundation for achieving this lies in our deeply rooted culture of proactively posing questions, taking on challenges as professionals, and continuously growing. I take great pride in this culture, which has long underpinned our company's unique position.

Rather than pursuing fleeting growth reliant solely on short-term business trends, we've consistently confronted challenges only we can address, while continually refining the unique value we provide. As a result, we have created new markets in step with social changes and technological advances, and achieved sustainable and robust growth.
　This stance sets us apart from strategies that rely on trends easily swayed by external environments and is a defining characteristic of our growth. We have consistently pursued an approach of "creating waves and not merely riding them," focusing on the unique value only we can deliver. This commitment to challenges is what drives sustained, robust growth and, to that end, we continue to invest in, and take on, new challenges.
　For example, we launched Sansan based on challenges I had personally experienced for many years: the hassle of managing business cards in paper form and the inefficiencies in sales activities caused by a lack of internal information sharing. As a result, we now hold an 84.1%^*2 share of the market we created. We continue to post steady, high-teens revenue growth. The product now has some of the largest-scale ARR^*3 among software in Japan. Bill One has experienced rapid growth, partly supported by external tailwinds, such as the launch of Japan's Invoicing System, revisions to the Electronic Bookkeeping Act, and changes in work styles triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the fundamental source of this growth is solving a universal problem: burdensome invoice processing across paper and digital formats.
　Ensuring security has always been our top priority in sustaining this robust growth. As a provider of software with operations as a core strength, we bear an immense corporate responsibility to ensure that it is operated securely, safely, and correctly. Besides establishing robust organizational structures and rules, we require all employees to acquire Protection of Individual Information Person qualification. We also conduct comprehensive security training, obtain third-party certifications, and implement various technical measures to minimize risks.

*2 Based on Latest Trends in Business Card Management Services in Sales Support DX 2025 (January 2025, survey by Seed Planning, in Japanese)
*3 Annual Recurring Revenue

Looking back on FY2024, net sales increased 27.5% year on year to 43.2 billion yen, while adjusted operating profit^*4 surged 108.0% to 3.5 billion yen. The Eight Business achieved profitability for the full fiscal year. The company-wide adjusted operating profit margin reached a record high of 8.2%, marking a solid start to the first year of our medium-term financial policy.
　However, the feeling that we could have achieved more always outweighs any sense of accomplishment. While Bill One has grown steadily, I feel we could have improved its productivity even further and aimed for greater heights. The same is true for Sansan.

　Over the past year, we've confronted AI head-on, taking a multifaceted approach to growth that includes the development of new solutions and features. I never intended to cut corners. I believe we took solid, forward-looking steps. Even so, I wish we could have achieved even stronger growth.
　For FY2025, as proclaimed in our theme "AI-First," generative AI holds the key. We will leverage AI not only to reduce costs, but, more importantly, to seize vast business opportunities and drive significant sales growth. We will further integrate AI into our products and create new value to build a foundation for sustainable growth. We expect net sales to grow 22.0-25.0% year on year and adjusted operating profit to increase 92.7-143.0%.

*4 Operating profit + share-based payment expenses + expenses arising from business combinations (amortization of goodwill and amortization of intangible assets)

Aim to become business infrastructure ―

Our company is currently in its 4th phase of growth since we were founded. This phase will unquestionably be the stage for generative AI-driven growth. I strongly feel that unprecedented business opportunities are unfolding before us.
　We will leverage generative AI to increase sales while reducing costs, aiming for robust growth driven by both factors.
　While many companies are adopting generative AI to improve operational efficiency and leverage knowledge, most of these approaches are based on a tools-oriented perspective that's focused on how to use generative AI. However, as I noted, any company investing in generative AI or related tools will inevitably confront the challenge of data. High-quality, company-specific data is essential for maximizing generative AI's value.
　As previously mentioned, for example, Sansan has accumulated vast amounts of contact data from business activities for over 18 years. This data includes information such as who contacted whom and when, what conversations took place, and relationships with key individuals by department or position.
　We will fully leverage this foundation so that users feel compelled to connect their own generative AI with Sansan. We will align customer needs with our vision for the future as we aim to create new value, and establish a structure in which companies' AI investments naturally connect with our solutions, transforming this alignment into new revenue streams.

In our previous Annual Report, I indicated our vision for the company of 100 years from now, being a company with overwhelming originality and an unmistakable presence in our field while maintaining our relative position as a listed company and IT company. However, I now feel that we've entered an era in which it's difficult to predict how society will change from now, even just 3 years ahead not to mention a hundred years due to the evolution of generative AI.
　For instance, by simply extrapolating from the changes happening before us, it's highly likely that AI will take over knowledge-based tasks that junior employees currently perform. The traditional career path, through which junior employees gain experience and grow into senior roles, may be disrupted, which raises concerns about the hollowing out of organizational structures. This could become a factor that fundamentally changes future organizational design and social structures.
　There was a saying that "Software is eating the world." Today, I feel that we're truly entering an era in which "AI is eating the world," with every domain being absorbed by AI. Beyond this shift, greater society may transform in ways no one can predict, to the point where even capitalism, business activity's very premise, may no longer exist.
　Amid these changes, the importance of data remains constant. Even when querying generative AI, answers based on a company's own proprietary data are far more valuable than those derived from general information. Providing this proprietary data in a valuable form is precisely our role as a company aiming to be business infrastructure. We will refine unique data into a usable form, deliver it more precisely, and strengthen its added value, as we continue to create new value that can change the world. To that end, we will persistently build on our innovations.

In an era of rapid change, guiding principles anchor our actions. To keep these principles unwavering, our corporate philosophy and culture are of utmost importance.
　While a company's corporate philosophy is ultimately defined under management's responsibility, what truly matters is the process of embedding it as company-wide culture and nurturing it over time, rather than unilaterally imposing it. This is why we've held many discussions on our MVV (Mission, Vision, and Values) since our founding. Beginning in 2024, we've also held discussions about our purpose, making a significant investment of over 5,000 total hours over more than a year through intensive, layer-by-layer dialogues with all employees, management, and Executive Committee members. We regard our discussions about our purpose as an initiative for sharing enduring values, precisely because the future has become increasingly uncertain. This sustained dialogue gives us the ability to reconsider and reinterpret our values and purpose, lays the groundwork for a culture that is uniquely ours, and provides a foundation for succession in an unpredictable era.
　This culture fosters quick decision-making and unwavering guiding principles in action. It also ensures that we do not pursue new businesses or solutions merely to capitalize on fleeting business trends. Instead, we are committed to creating unique value, turning it into business, and expanding it as solutions. We are steadfast in this commitment. Our strength lies in how our commitment to creating unique value and our steadfastness permeate the entire organization as a natural part of our culture.

My foremost mission as CEO is to consistently and powerfully articulate the mission and vision that serve as our guiding principles, and to continue to drive the company's growth. I also serve as Chairperson of the Kamiyama Marugoto College of Design, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, which we established in Kamiyama, Tokushima Prefecture. Leading this school has led me to reflect on how school management differs from corporate management, which is grounded in capitalism. While education's outcomes are not easily visible, corporate management, despite differences in business models, can be compared using common metrics such as sales, profit, and market capitalization, giving it a certain clarity. That's precisely why it is my responsibility to consistently demonstrate results.
　To that end, I dedicate time each morning to focus my thoughts, pinpoint the most critical issues and strategic agenda items of the day, and clarify what must be done. Consistently addressing even small tasks gradually accumulates into significant results. As CEO, my primary mission is to continually build on this accumulation and ensure the company's sustained growth.

As the material issue owner for the key area, "Conserve the Environment Through Business," looking back on our initiatives over the past year, we can say that progress has been made in both addressing climate change and using natural capital efficiently.
　The digitization of business cards, invoices, and contracts through our solutions directly reduces environmental impact by lowering the use of paper resources. This shows that our business growth itself directly contributes to solving society's sustainability challenges and is our largest environmental contribution.
　In terms of addressing climate change, we made further progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions in FY2024 by relocating our head office to a building powered by renewable energy. Additionally, through the Scan for Trees project—which plants trees in areas in need when the number of business cards, invoices, and other documents digitized through our solutions reaches the equivalent of what can be produced from one tree—we planted more than 20,000 trees as of June 2025.

Growing our business and heightening corporate value is the most meaningful way to return value to our stakeholders. For participants in the capital markets, in the full-year results for FY2024, we organized and disclosed our current approach in line with the Tokyo Stock Exchange guidance on "Action to Implement Management that is Conscious of Cost of Capital and Stock Price." I use the evaluations and feedback from the capital markets, obtained through dialogue with institutional investors in Japan and abroad, as a reference for my management decisions. Just as a sitting prime minister doesn't ignore approval ratings, I always keep our share price in mind. I check it without fail, like taking my temperature every day.
　Our solutions are growing even more important as AI continues to evolve. To ensure that we fully seize this great opportunity, we will continue to take proactive steps to drive growth. We sincerely ask all our stakeholders for their continued support.

Representative Director, CEO, CPO
Chika Terada