A happy new year! I would like to greet you all by saying a few words under the title theme.

For CSK Group, the preceding year was a year of grave loss, during which Isao Okawa, the founder, passed away. Since then, the primary issue for us at CSK Group has been to discover how we can overcome the loss of Okawa and create a new CSK Group while, at the same time, successfully continuing the spirit of foundation that he established.

Sluggish business conditions persist in Japan, and the repercussions from the terrorist attacks in the United States last September are casting a shadow over the world economy. Despite this harsh environment, the performance of CSK Group has been growing steadily, with IT services for businesses as the primary driver. One major factor for the robust performance of our IT services is the increasing awareness of the importance of IT investments in industry. In order to remain competitive, companies have been continuing to invest heavily to prepare themselves for e-business and to outsource their IT processes for higher efficiency. Along with promoting our core services, we embarked during the latter half of last year upon an extensive project to reorganize the group companies with a view to solidify the foundation of CSK Group in a new era. We started the President Liaison Board organized by the presidents of the group companies in order for them to share business policies. We also formed a business evaluation team named "Team CSK" that operates across the boundaries of the group companies to work out actions, enabling us to address proactively any problems that may occur at under-performing group companies.

Turning our eyes to trends in the IT service industry, we saw during last year a number of Japan's leading hardware manufacturers announce their plans for full-scale entry into the IT service provision market. With this as an impetus, it can be said that the market, in particular the system integration sector, entered the age of mass competition, in which large companies compete fiercely for a greater share of pie. Toward the aim of becoming the No. 1 e-service provider, we at CSK Group are offering a full-line of services that range across many different sectors from consulting and system integration, through systems operations, to business process outsourcing. Under the intensifying competition mentioned above, we will work to differentiate ourselves more clearly from our competitors by enhancing our productivity and efficiency while increasing our focus on providing services more closely tailored to customer needs.

In the Internet age, or the e-business age, it goes without saying that companies are required to achieve highly efficient business operation by transforming into a high-velocity enterprise. However, a quest for efficiency and excessive emphasis on mechanical civilization, or a ritualistic drive toward IT, are two sides of the same coin, which may lead to certain social strains. The Internet age, I believe, is a time in which respect for humanity is all the more important for all of us to maintain. I always say to our employees: the business of CSK Group to support our customers' e-business will be able to truly deserve the name of "e-service excellency" only when it is offered through people's "careful attention" fused with "efficiency." Under the policy of "People are all," we at CSK Group support self-education efforts by our employees and treat them with even greater respect, with the ultimate aim of providing high-level consulting, system integration, systems operations, and BPO service.

By seeking true group synergy toward the common end of becoming the No.1 e-service provider, we will henceforth attempt to create high added value of the group as a whole. For this, we will take several different approaches to the achievement of greater differentiation. These approaches will include not only improving the performance of CSK itself, the core company of CSK Group, but also clarifying the roles and strengths of the individual group companies. For example, we will help some group companies achieve higher profitability through the BPO business by allowing them to exploit opportunities generated by the system integration service that CSK offers. We may also encourage others to establish new strengths by adding to systems integration their solution offerings in the new areas of BPO that are promising.

Finally, I will conclude this greeting by seeking your kind and continued support and guidance during the new year.