Archives March 2026

Business Wire India

BI WORLDWIDE, a global leader and India’s foremost, in designing measurable and scalable engagement and loyalty solutions, inspired by behavioural science, has earned the Great Place to Work® Certification™, fifth time in a row. The recognition comes for the period of February 2026 to February 2027, under the mid-size organisations (less than 500 employees) category, and reflects BI WORLDWIDE’s unwavering commitment to creating an employee-first workplace, year after year. 

 

Setting New Benchmarks in Employee Experience

 

BI WORLDWIDE continues to outperform its own benchmarks, with consistently improving Great Place to Work® survey scores, year-on-year. This year, 83% of employees have called the organisation a Great Place to Work®, and an even stronger 85% have expressed a deep emotional connection with its work culture. Moreover, what truly stands out are the positive employee sentiments across key dimensions including – ‘Strong culture of belonging and support’, ‘Approachable, people-centric leadership’, ‘Cross-functional collaboration’, ‘Ownership, trust and autonomy at work’, ‘Meaningful recognition and exceptional employee experience’, ‘Rich learning and growth opportunities’ and ‘Vibrant work culture with fun and celebrations’. These results speak volumes about BI WORLDWIDE’s unique employee value proposition (EVP): ‘Grow and have fun in a culture of innovation and trust’, that its employees strongly stand by and bring to life.

 

Delighted by the recognition, Siddharth Reddy, CEO & Managing Director, BI WORLDWIDE India, remarked, “Winning the Great Place to Work® Certification™ for the 5^th consecutive year is a deeply meaningful milestone for us. As an organisation in the business of inspiring people to deliver results, we realise that exceptional business outcomes begin with an exceptional workplace. This is why we continually invest in creating a truly engaged, intelligent and future-forward workforce. While we celebrate this achievement, we are already looking ahead – to be among the top 100 Great Places to Work® Certified™ organisations in the world. It’s a step forward in strengthening our global leadership in the engagement industry and empowering our people to continue delivering results that matter.”

 

The Certification™ marks BI WORLDWIDE India’s excellence across the 5 dimensions of GPTW®’s pioneering Trust Model^©: Fairness, Credibility, Respect, Pride and Camaraderie, regarded as the global benchmark for assessing employee experience.

 

Vijaya Ganugapati, Director – People & Culture, BI WORLDWIDE India, stated, “At BI WORLDWIDE, building a Great Place to Work® is never a milestone, it’s an ongoing commitment. We believe that when people feel inspired and empowered, they create impact that goes far beyond business outcomes. This belief is what shapes our people practices and the spirit of our incredible people – who show up every day with trust, camaraderie and excellence. Our gratitude goes out equally to our clients and partners for their continued trust and confidence in us. Achievements like these energise us to keep raising the bar on our employee experience and customer excellence – evolving as an employer of choice for top industry talent and continuing to deliver meaningful business results.”

Business Wire India

SIMCON today announced the launch of the Cadmould AI Solver, the world’s first Large Engineering Model for injection moulding. Co-developed with Emmi AI, the new transformer-based architecture delivers simulation results up to 1000 times faster than traditional numerical solvers.

 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318680159/en/

 

 

 

Historically, lengthy computation times have acted as a bottleneck, limiting the number of design variations engineers can practically explore during the development process. The Cadmould AI Solver shatters this barrier by providing engineers with instant feedback on filling pattern, pressure, and temperature in seconds. What once required hours per simulation now takes seconds, enabling engineers to explore orders of magnitude more design alternatives during early development.

 

Crucially, the new AI technology is designed to complement, not replace, traditional numerical solvers. In this new paradigm, engineers use the Cadmould AI Solver in the early stages to rapidly explore the solution space and narrow down the optimal process window. Once the ideal design is identified, the classical numerical solver within Cadmould Flex is used to perform the ultimate, highest-precision validation required for final manufacturing sign-off.

 

 

“For decades, the industry has accepted that high-fidelity simulation requires hours of computation,” said Bastiaan Oud, CEO at SIMCON. “By introducing the Cadmould AI Solver, we are giving engineers a high-speed compass to use during the iterative design phase, while Cadmould Flex remains the definitive map for final validation. Together, they create an end-to-end workflow that is both incredibly fast and reliable.”

 

 

Built on a transformer-based neural network architecture and trained on hundreds of terabytes of data, the AI Solver demonstrates true geometric generalization. It accurately predicts complex physical behaviours and filling patterns for new, unseen part topologies without requiring model retraining.

 

 

To mark the milestone, SIMCON has launched a free, interactive research preview accessible directly via web browser.

 

 

Simultaneously, the company is inviting interested practitioners to apply for its Partner Program. Designed for industrial enterprises, the program gives partners priority access to upcoming capabilities – such as shrinkage and warpage prediction – as they become available. Partners benchmark the AI Solver against their own geometries in close exchange with SIMCON’s engineering team, and their feedback directly informs the product roadmap.

 

 

About SIMCON

 

 

SIMCON, founded in Germany, is a software company specializing in injection moulding simulation and optimization solutions. For more than 30 years, SIMCON has been supporting plastics injection moulding leaders globally. SIMCON works with thousands of customers from industries such as the automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics and medical sectors, to improve the cost, quality and speed of their plastics injection moulding projects.

 

 

About EMMI AI

 

 

Emmi AI is building the physics simulation layer for industrial engineering. Founded in 2024, the company develops universally applicable, AI-driven physics simulation Large Engineering Models for manufacturing in aerospace, energy, semiconductors, automotive, and chemicals. Emmi AI is bringing faster iteration into production engineering workflows across Fluid Dynamics, Multiphysics, and Solid State Mechanics.

 

 

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318680159/en/

 

Business Wire India

 

Outlines deeply undervalued Offer and apparent disregard of fundamental safeguards designed to protect MCJ minority shareholders

Encourages shareholders not to tender

 

Maven Investment Partners Ltd. Hong Kong Branch (“Maven”), one of the largest minority shareholders of MCJ Co., Ltd (“MCJ” or the “Company”) with a stake close to 3%, published a letter today addressed to all shareholders of the Company concerning the unfair terms of the tender offer (“Offer”) by BCPE Meta Cayman, L.P. (“Bain”) for MCJ.

 

Maven confirms it has no intention of tendering into the Offer on current terms, which it views as an egregious disregard for fair M&A in Japan and an endeavor to squeeze out minority shareholders at a deep discount to fair value. Maven likewise encourages other shareholders not to tender.

 

 

In addition to the Offer falling unacceptably short of MCJ’s intrinsic value today of more than ¥2,800 per share in Maven’s assessment, the letter also explains Maven’s analysis of fundamental Offer process shortcomings. These include a flawed Special Committee appraisal, major conflict concerns surrounding the independent financial adviser to the Board, the absence of any fairness opinion, alternative valuations or market checks, and a price discovery negotiation with Bain that has all the hallmarks of a superficial box-ticking exercise.

 

 

Maven’s letter can be read here in full:

 

 

To all shareholders of MCJ Co., Ltd.

 

 

We are writing to you on behalf of Maven Investment Partners Ltd, Hong Kong Branch (“we”, “us” or “our”). As one of the largest minority shareholders of MCJ Co., Ltd. (“MCJ” or the “Company”) with a stake close to 3%, we have been carefully reviewing the terms of the proposed tender offer by BCPE Meta Cayman, L.P. (the “Offeror” or “Bain”) for the Company (the “Offer”).

 

 

Based on our discussions with many other minority shareholders of MCJ, we know that a significant number are deeply concerned and extremely disappointed by the apparent disregard of fundamental corporate governance safeguards that are designed to protect MCJ’s minority shareholders in precisely this type of PE-sponsored management buyout. In our opinion, this has underpinned – and resulted in the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) and Special Committee (the “Special Committee”) supporting – a deeply unfair Offer price for the Company’s minority shareholders. In sum, the current Offer represents, in our view, an egregious disregard for fair M&A in Japan and an unfair endeavor to squeeze out minority shareholders at a deep discount to fair value.

 

 

As things stand, despite raising these concerns with the Board and Special Committee privately, we are yet to receive any response – a troubling indifference to our concerns that only serves to reaffirm our doubts about the integrity of the process and alleged fairness measures, as well as the pressing need for the Company’s minority shareholders to take matters into their own hands to ensure that this wholly inadequate Offer does not succeed at the current Offer price. With that in mind, we do not intend to tender our shares into the Offer at current terms, and we encourage others not to tender.

 

 

1. Significant undervaluation

 

 

At ¥2,200, the proposed Offer price in our view falls woefully short of fair value for minority shareholders and is not commensurate with the quality of the Mouse brand or the strength of the Company’s balance sheet. The currently proposed Offer price seemingly ignores:

 

 

(i) MCJ’s leading market share in built-to-order PCs in Japan with enduring brand loyalty;

 

 

(ii) its uniquely integrated end-to-end value chain in Japan, including distribution partnerships with global brands and chipmakers such as Microsoft and Intel; and

 

 

(iii) the strength of the Company’s balance sheet, which boasts over ¥53BN of cash on hand, and annual free cash flow generation of over ¥13BN over coming years (based on the conservative forecasts of Mizuho Securities Co., Ltd. (“Mizuho Securities”)).

 

 

Notwithstanding MCJ’s operating profit margin of nearly 10%, which is more than twice the average of its regional peers, the ¥2,200 Offer price implies a discounted 7x forward EV/EBITDA (again based on Mizuho Securities’ conservative forecasts). By contrast, comparable regional peers are trading at 9x to 10x forward EV/EBITDA, implying a 30% upside to the current Offer price at a bare minimum. Based on our extensive analysis, with the benefit of international and local professional advisors, we firmly believe that the intrinsic value of MCJ today exceeds ¥2,800 per share.

 

 

2. Lack of independent external advisors to the Special Committee

 

 

A demonstrably robust independent appraisal of the Offer required the Special Committee to obtain independent legal and financial advice. This is an essential feature of any credible special committee process and one specifically foreshadowed in the METI Fair M&A Guidelines¹ (“METI Guidelines”), which explicitly highlight the importance of independent professional advice and potential structural conflicts associated with advice obtained by a board which is liable to prioritise the interests of the acquiring party. Such a risk was always going to be heightened in a management buyout scenario with a Special Committee unable to independently stress-test the strategic narrative and other information fed to it by the Offeror or the Board-selected financial adviser. The fact that the Special Committee operated in such circumstances without any independent professional advice is a glaring and troubling omission that serves to undermine the integrity of the Special Committee’s supposedly independent appraisal of the Offer.

 

 

3. Conflicted financial adviser

 

 

Mizuho Securities, the independent financial adviser and valuation agent appointed by the Board to evaluate the Offer, stands to be paid a contingency fee linked to the successful completion of the Offer. Moreover, a related group company, Mizuho Bank, is financing the Offer. This raises a pressing question: why did the Board, supported by the Special Committee, select Mizuho Securities when multiple other firms and financial institutions without any of the same conflicts were available to take this appointment? The apparent conflict raises the question of whether Mizuho Securities was appointed to critically appraise or facilitate the Offer. The fact that Mizuho Securities relied on unjustifiably conservative assumptions to underpin its DCF analysis – notably, a discount rate range 2-3% too high and exit multiples that were too low based on our analysis for a company with a high-quality brand, operating profit growth and strong free cash flow generation – only serves to reinforce our concerns.

 

 

4. No fairness opinion

 

 

Equally troubling is the absence of any fairness opinion to support the Offer price. The Company’s stated justification appears to be that it gave adequate consideration to the interests of MCJ’s minority shareholders. This is a hollow assertion lacking in credibility, particularly when looked at in the context of the other fundamental shortcomings outlined in this letter, which leaves minority shareholders without the benefit of a critically important fairness measure designed to mitigate structural conflicts of interest and information asymmetries in management buyouts.

 

 

5. Inadequate price negotiation

 

 

The Board noticeably failed to extract an appropriate uplift to the Offer price initially presented in a “negotiation” which has all the hallmarks of a superficial box-ticking exercise. In particular, faced with Bain’s refusal on 3 February 2026 to accommodate the Special Committee’s request to increase the proposed price at that point of ¥2,200 in the interests of the Company’s minority shareholders, the Special Committee seemingly capitulated the following day and accepted a price it considered inadequate (and one dissenting member has asserted was inadequate, which is a highly unusual occurrence for the Japanese market) without explanation. In the absence of obtaining independent financial or legal advice or any fairness opinion, such a rapid change in position was inappropriate and belies the idea that the Offer price was the best price achievable through a proper arms-length and robust negotiation. The only appropriate course of action in circumstances where a further price increase cannot be secured from the Offeror is, in our view, for the Board and Special Committee to recommend against shareholders tendering into the Offer.

 

 

6. No market checks

 

 

Moreover, without any active market checks or alternative valuations, the Board and Special Committee were left without the benefit of essential pricing benchmarks, whether for negotiation leverage or to ensure fairness ultimately for minority shareholders. Such checks were even more indispensable for safeguarding the integrity of the deal with a controlling shareholder rolling into the buy-out, thereby seriously weakening or eliminating in practice any competitive market tension for, or competing strategic interest in, the Company that could otherwise have helped to establish a market benchmark.

 

 

Such a catalogue of shortcomings is inexcusable and, in our view, calls into question the manner in which the members of the Board and Special Committee conducted discussions with the Offeror and ultimately came to support a deal which disregards corporate governance norms and represents poor value for minority shareholders.

 

 

We reiterate our urgent call on the Board and Special Committee to uphold their duties to, and prevent an unfair and egregious outcome for, minority shareholders, by immediately withdrawing their recommendation for shareholders to tender into the Offer unless and until the Offer price is increased to a level that is fair and reasonable from the perspective of minority shareholders.

 

 

Each shareholder has a decisive role in determining the outcome of this transaction and protecting their own interests and the interests of minority shareholders as a whole by rejecting the Offer and not tendering unless the terms are improved to reflect fair value for minority shareholders.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Manuel Schlabbers
Portfolio Manager and Head of Trading APAC

 

 

Joon Ho Choi
Portfolio Manager

 

 

About Maven Investments

 

 

Maven is a market-leading proprietary trading and investment firm, allocating internal capital between discretionary, systematic and market-making strategies. The firm was established over a decade ago and, with offices today in the United States, Europe and Asia, has developed into a leading market participant across multiple geographies and asset classes.

 

 

DISCLAIMER

 

 

This press release and letter (“Document”) has been issued by Maven Investment Partners Ltd, Hong Kong Branch (“Maven”). The Document is for discussion and informational purposes only. The views expressed herein represent the opinions of Maven as of the date hereof. Maven reserves the right to change or modify any of its opinions expressed herein at any time and for any reason and expressly disclaims any obligation to correct, update or revise the information contained herein or to otherwise provide any additional materials. Nothing within this Document promotes, or is intended to promote, and may not be construed as promoting, Maven.

 

 

All of the information contained herein is based on publicly available information with respect to MCJ Co., Ltd. (the “Company”), including public announcements, filings and disclosures made by the Company and other sources, including information derived or obtained from filings with regulatory authorities and from third parties, as well as Maven’s analysis of such publicly available information. Maven has relied upon and assumed, without independent verification, the completeness and accuracy of all information and data available from public sources, and no representation or warranty is made that any such data or information is accurate. Maven recognises that there may be confidential or otherwise non-public information with respect to the Company that could lead the Company or others to disagree with Maven’s conclusions, and could also alter the opinions of Maven were such information known to it.

 

 

Save for the historical information in this Document, the information and opinions set out herein constitute forward-looking statements, including projections and estimates prepared with regard to, among other things, the value of the Company’s securities, debt or any other related financial instruments that are based upon or relate to the value of securities of the Company (collectively, “Company Securities”), the Company’s anticipated operating performance, general economic and market conditions and other future events. You should be aware that all forward-looking statements, estimates and projections are inherently uncertain and subject to significant economic, competitive, and other uncertainties and contingencies and have been included solely for illustrative purposes. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the estimates, projections and forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as a representation as to future results or that the objectives and strategic initiatives expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements will be achieved. Actual results may differ materially from the information contained herein due to reasons that may or may not be foreseeable. There can be no assurance that the Company Securities will trade at the prices that may be implied herein, and there can be no assurance that any estimate, projection or assumption herein is, or will be proven, correct. Maven will not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to disclose the results of any revisions that may be made to any forward-looking statements herein to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

 

 

No express or implied representation, warranty or undertaking is given and no responsibility or liability or duty of care is or will be accepted by Maven, its affiliates or any of its or their directors, employees, agents, officers, or advisors (each a “Maven Person”) concerning: (a) this Document and its contents, including whether the information and opinions contained herein (whether obtained or derived from the Company, any third party source or otherwise) are complete, reliable, accurate, fair, or current; (b) the provision of any further information, whether by way of update to the information and opinions contained in this Document or otherwise to the recipient after the date of this Document; or (c) that Maven’s investment objectives or processes will or are likely to be successful or achieved or that Maven’s investments will make any profit or will not sustain losses. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Maven and all Maven Persons expressly disclaim any and all liability based, in whole or in part, on such information, errors therein or omissions therefrom. To the fullest extent permitted by law, none of the Maven Persons will be responsible for any losses, whether direct, indirect or consequential, including damages, loss of profits, claims, costs or expenses relating to or arising from the recipient’s or any person’s reliance on this Document.

 

 

Maven has an investment in the Company. Accordingly, Maven may have conflicts of interest and this Document should not be regarded as impartial. Nothing in this Document should be taken as any indication of Maven’s current or future trading or voting intentions which may change at any time. Maven reserves the right to change such intentions at any time notwithstanding any statements in this Document. To the extent that Maven discloses information about its position or economic interest in any Company Securities in this Document, it is subject to change, and Maven expressly disclaims any obligation to update such information.

 

 

No agreement, commitment, understanding or other legal relationship exists or may be deemed to exist between or among Maven and any other person by virtue of furnishing this Document. Maven is not acting for or on behalf of, and is not providing any advice or service to, any recipient of this Document. Maven is not responsible to any person for providing advice in relation to the subject matter of this Document. Before determining on any course of action, any recipient should consider any associated risks and consequences and consult with its own independent advisors as it deems necessary.

 

 

Maven has not sought or obtained consent from any third party to use any statements or information contained herein. Any such statements or information should not be viewed as indicating the support of such third party for the views expressed herein. All registered or unregistered trademarks and trade names referred to herein are the exclusive property of their respective owners.

 

 

Maven plans to review its investments in the Company on an ongoing basis and, depending on various factors, including without limitation, overall market conditions, the outcome of any discussions with the Company, the Company’s strategic direction and financial position, other investment opportunities available to Maven, and the availability of Company Securities at prices that would make the purchase or sale of Company Securities commercially reasonable, desirable or possible, Maven may from time to time (in the open market or in private transactions, including since the inception of Maven’s position) buy, sell, cover, hedge or otherwise change the form or substance of any of its investments (including Company Securities) to any degree in any manner permitted by law and expressly disclaims any obligation to notify others of any such changes. Maven also reserves the right to take any actions in respect of its investments in the Company as it may deem appropriate.

 

 

This Document is for informational and reference purposes only, and does not constitute (i) any action constituting “investment advisory business” as defined in Article 28, Paragraph 3, Item 1 of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law of Japan (the “FIEL”); (ii) any action constituting “investment management business” as defined in Article 28, Paragraph 4 of the FIEL; (iii) any form of financial promotion, investment advice, or investment research or any investment recommendation; (iv) an offer or invitation to buy or sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell or to otherwise engage in any investment business or provide or receive any investment services in respect of, any security or other financial instrument and no legal relations shall be created by its issue; or (v) financial promotion, investment advice or an inducement or encouragement to participate in any product, offering or investment. No information contained herein should be construed as a recommendation by Maven. In making this Document publicly available, Maven does not intend the Document to form the basis of any investment decision or as suggesting an investment strategy. Any reference to Maven’s research and analysis process is incidental to the presentation of Maven’s views in respect of the Company. This Document is not (and may not be construed to be) legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice. Each recipient should consult their own legal counsel and tax and financial advisers as to legal and other matters concerning the information contained herein. All investments involve risk, including the risk of total loss. This Document does not purport to be all-inclusive or to contain all of the information that may be relevant to an evaluation of the Company, Company Securities or the matters described herein.

 

 

1The “Fair M&A Guidelines – Enhancing Corporate Value and Securing Shareholders’ Interests” published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on 28 June 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318221306/en/

 

Business Wire India

Vercel, the agentic infrastructure company, today announced the appointment of Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of industry-defining open source tools including Terraform and Vagrant, to its board of directors. Hashimoto brings a rare combination of developer community credibility, open source leadership, and company-building experience at scale.

 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318957008/en/

 

 

 

Hashimoto co-founded HashiCorp in 2012, where he served as a principal architect and engineering leader behind some of the most widely adopted infrastructure tools in the world. Terraform, which he created, has become the de facto standard for infrastructure-as-code and is used by organizations of every scale, including Vercel itself. IBM acquired HashiCorp in 2024 in a transaction valued at approximately $6.4 billion. After departing HashiCorp, Hashimoto launched Ghostty, a GPU-accelerated, platform-native terminal emulator that quickly became a market leader among AI developers since its public release in December 2024.

 

“Mitchell is inimitable as an advisor: he’s built tools that nearly every developer uses, grown a company to a multi-billion dollar outcome, and then stepped back into the arena as a builder,” said Guillermo Rauch, founder and CEO of Vercel. “He has been a Vercel customer and Next.js user since our earliest days. There aren’t many people who understand our mission more, and we’re honored to have him on the board.”

 

 

Hashimoto also cited his long personal history with Vercel’s products as a key reason for joining the board. He joins at a moment of significant momentum for Vercel, following its $300 million Series F fundraise at a $9.3 billion valuation, and as reflected in the company’s $340M GAAP Revenue run-rate and 84% YoY growth.

 

 

“Vercel checks every box for what I care most about: a powerful developer presence, industry-defining products, and a team building for our agentic future,” said Hashimoto. “I’ve watched Vercel grow from the perspective of a founder, an engineer, and a customer, and I’m excited to help in every way I can as they build the agentic infrastructure for frontends, backends, and agents.”

 

 

Hashimoto is one of the most recognized figures in the open source community, consistently ranked among the most active contributors on GitHub globally over more than a decade. His work has shaped how developers build, deploy, and operate software at every layer of the stack. He has also been a committed advocate for open source sustainability, making significant philanthropic contributions to projects including the Zig programming language.

 

 

“Mitchell understands something that is easy to say but hard to actually do: winning developers means earning their trust over many years through great software,” said Tom Occhino, Chief Product Officer at Vercel. “He built the tools that helped define modern infrastructure by making them genuinely excellent, not by locking anyone in. That philosophy is deeply aligned with how we think about Vercel’s role in the ecosystem.”

 

 

Hashimoto joins a distinguished group of board members and advisors supporting Vercel’s mission to enable the world to build with the speed, security, and scalability required to win with AI, including Stripe CFO Steffan Tomlinson and Susan St. Ledger, former President of Worldwide Field Operations at HashiCorp.

 

 

About Vercel

 

 

Vercel is the agentic infrastructure for every app and agent. As the team behind AI SDK, Next.js, and v0, Vercel is the platform where humans and agents build and deploy software, while infrastructure improves it autonomously. To ship for the AI-native web, visit vercel.com

 

 

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318957008/en/

 

Business Wire India

NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business and technology services, today announced the success of its “AI Consumers” proof of concept (PoC) for a makeup brand operated by Kao Corporation, a leading Japanese consumer goods company and a major global cosmetics and personal care manufacturer. The PoC assessed the feasibility of using AI models to simulate the behavioral characteristics of consumers and develop personas to aid product development research.

 

As consumer values and purchasing behaviors continue to shift, it has become increasingly important for marketing departments to rapidly and accurately capture the evolving needs of their customers. However, in conventional product development research processes, significant time and costs are required for research design, respondent recruitment, fieldwork and analysis. Within limited development timelines, it is difficult to sufficiently deepen research data or validate hypotheses.

 

For Kao’s makeup brand, which launches new products each season, shortening the product development cycle has been a critical requirement. Against this backdrop, NTT DATA utilized its marketing AI agent service, in combination with Kao’s accumulated consumer research, purchase and social media data, to create multiple AI Consumers and an AI interviewer for use in product development research.

 

While remaining consistent with insights gained through traditional research methods, the PoC demonstrated that AI‑driven research could potentially shorten the timeline from 1.5 months to just 0.5 days—a 99% reduction—delivering significant efficiency gains and enabling a more advanced consumer‑insight process. It also reduced the operational workload involved in respondent recruitment and survey execution.

 

“In recent years, consumer trends have shifted from traditional quarterly and monthly cycles to a weekly cycle. For consumer brands, responding to these rapidly changing trends with a high level of agility is critical to business growth,” said Mizuho Mitake, Head of Second Industry Business Sector, Japan, NTT DATA*.

 

“This PoC has demonstrated that AI can achieve significant gains in speed in the product development process while ensuring quality equal to or even exceeding that of human output. NTT DATA will expand the application of these results beyond product development into marketing operations.”

 

*Mizuho Mitake leads commercial strategy, sales, and consulting across Consumer Retail (including vertically integrated retail, grocery & convenience), Real Estate, Food, Beverage, Alcohol & Tobacco, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Materials, and Integrated Energy in Japan.

 

NTT DATA promotes both proactive AI adoption and responsible governance to drive transformation in clients’ businesses as well as our own business. For clients, NTT DATA aims to realize “Smart AI Agent®”, in which AI agents autonomously extract, organize, and execute tasks in response to user instructions.

 

Within our own business, NTT DATA is accelerating dramatic improvements in software development productivity, AI literacy and practical skills development. Through these initiatives, NTT DATA seeks to advance AI-native business process transformation, address social challenges such as labor shortages, and enable a world in which people can focus on higher value-added activities.

 

About NTT DATA

 

NTT DATA is a $30+ billion business and technology services leader, serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We are committed to accelerating client success and positively impacting society through responsible innovation. We are one of the world’s leading AI and digital infrastructure providers, with unmatched capabilities in enterprise-scale AI, cloud, security, connectivity, data centers and application services. Our consulting and industry solutions help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future. As a Global Top Employer, we have experts in more than 70 countries. We also offer clients access to a robust ecosystem of innovation centers as well as established and start-up partners. NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, which invests over $3 billion each year in R&D.

 

Visit us at nttdata.com

 

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318834433/en/

 

Business Wire India

The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) wishes to reiterate that its appeal was never aimed at contesting the sporting merit or performance of the teams involved in this tournament, but solely to ensure the proper enforcement of competition regulations.

 

The federation reaffirms its commitment to respecting the regulations, ensuring the clarity of the competitive framework and maintaining the stability of African football competitions.

 

 

The Federation also wishes to commend all the nations that participated in this year’s edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), which served as a significant moment for African football.

 

 

The FRMF will issue a more comprehensive official statement in the coming days after a scheduled meeting of its governing bodies.

 

 

Source: AETOSWire

 

 

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318763307/en/