2005 President's Message

Debbie Howard
2005 ACCJ President

President's Message

Dear ACCJ Members and Prospective Members:

When two or more perspectives on a topic come together, it doesn't just create lively discussion. It creates opportunity. If you seek such environments as I do, you quickly discover the ACCJ.

I owe a huge thanks to the great majority of ACCJ members, and ACCJ staff, who have shared their perspectives in one ACCJ context or another in ways that have led to the opportunities we realized in 2005. The ACCJ's progress over the past year is thanks to your efforts.

One of our first tasks in 2005 was to refine and strengthen the ACCJ mission statement:

The mission of the ACCJ is to further the development of commerce between the United States of America and Japan, promote the interests of U.S. companies and members, and improve the international business environment in Japan.

These words serve as a clear and easy-to-understand guide to what we do as a business organization. Indeed, they are the foundation of everything that we do at the ACCJ.

While the mission statement is designed to remain relatively constant, we must also be sensitive to change, and ready to change ourselves. So, following our pilot effort in 2004, 2005 has been a year devoted to institutionalizing a regular cycle of surveying our members, analyzing the results, planning based on what we learn, and then executing the plan.

This process has been my vision from the start of my first term, and the Board-level council called the Membership Advisory Council (or MAC), headed, has done an excellent job leading the now bi-annual Member Feedback Survey. Members who took the survey last year planted the seeds for several ideas that took root in 2005.

One was a program series designed to meet the special needs of small business owners and entrepreneurial members, which we did in cooperation with other foreign business chambers. The series - entitled Starting & Running a Business in Japan: Foreign Entrepreneurs Share Their Secrets of Success - sold out, and gave members a chance to hear advice from the experts and learn from their success and failures.

Members also asked for more "skills training" programming, so our Human Resources Management Committee put together their Learning and Development training workshop series facilitated by ACCJ company members who are professional management consultants. The workshop series was so popular that it sold out and had a long waiting list.

We hosted approximately 450 programs in 2005, some in cooperation with other foreign business chambers and business organizations, ranging from small working-group meetings to the spectacular end-of-year Charity Crystal Ball, which raised 13,045,851 yen for charity.

We learned from the Member Feedback Survey that "programs" are one of the key drivers of ACCJ member satisfaction. So, as a way of ensuring that we are continuously improving our ability to deliver high-quality programs, the Programs Development Committee strengthened our post-event survey system by bringing it online so that we can monitor ACCJ member opinions as regards programs more fully and rapidly.

We are in much better touch with ACCJ members overall thanks to such improvements, and the bi-annual Member Feedback Survey going forward will help to ensure that we remain in touch and are able to incorporate member feedback into decision-making at the Board, Committee and staff levels.

To improve institutional knowledge, we made it a priority to set up a process to regularly harvest the best knowledge of our leaders and systematically pass it on to our future leaders. Then Vice President Charles Lake - as head of the board level council called the Internal Affairs Advisory Council (or IAAC) took up the charge, and drove this exercise to remarkably successful results through eight best practices workshops which were attended by over 90% of all ACCJ Committee and Sub-committee leaders.

As part of conducting the workshops, the IAAC, working with the Communications Advisory Council and ACCJ staff, produced a greatly improved "Leadership Guide" that has become the "bible" for new and veteran leaders alike.

In the pages of this report, you will find that many of our committees have been hard at work as agents of change. The ACCJ has a strong process in place to ensure that the most worthy ideas from our committees have the full backing of the ACCJ as an organization, and in 2005, this process resulted in:

• 11 Public Comments
• 9 Viewpoints
• 9 advocacy related press releases
• 2 official letters, and
• 1 white paper.

In the past year, we also raised issues with the Office of Trade and Investment Ombudsman, leading to invitations to meet with OTO experts on the public comment process, the tax treatment of university campuses, and the registration procedures for fleet vehicle owners.

Having representing the ACCJ as president before the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee, and having represented the ACCJ similarly to the Japanese Diet and members of the Cabinet during my terms, I would like to pause and reflect that our influence is made possible by the impeccable reputation we build every year. ACCJ policy positions are backed by the deep knowledge and careful research of our volunteer members, who work very hard to maintain the integrity of the ACCJ.

More than 250 articles appeared in the Japanese and international press regarding the ACCJ and its issues. The ACCJ has become progressively more visible and effective with each passing year. More policy makers are listening, along with the public at large.

In the area of membership, trends over the past two years show stability. We have seen improvements in the number of members signing up under company memberships, and in the ratio of company to individual memberships. We are also moving forward with plans to improve recruiting and member retention.

The Chubu Chapter, reflecting the region's economic strength and some momentum gained from the Aichi Expo, has continued to grow and prosper in its fifth year as young entrepreneurs upgrade from Associate memberships to Company memberships, and globally minded local Japanese companies discover the benefits of joining. The Chubu chapter is also working closely with the Greater Nagoya Initiative - a joint METI/Jetro effort aimed at recruiting foreign investment in the region.

In Kansai, businesses that have responded to opportunities in China have drawn a disproportionate number of their ranks from the Kansai region in the ACCJ's experience. The Chapter has taken several innovative approaches to programming and reaching out to regional Japanese businesses organizations. Importantly, Kansai stayed in the black thanks to expense reductions and solid programming.

In the area of finance, I am pleased to report that the Chamber closed 2005 in healthy financial condition as a result of the dues increase approved in 2004 combined with careful and solid financial management. (See Financials)

I would like to conclude by reporting to you on an area of increasing focus for the ACCJ: charitable giving. I believe this aspect of our organization will become increasingly important in the future since it naturally flows from success and the enhanced visibility of ACCJ member companies in the Japanese market.

We had another stellar year in raising contributions for charity, raising 22,959,091 yen, with more than half coming from the Charity Crystal Ball (see details on the ACCJ's charity fundraising history page). We had our most fabulous Charity Crystal Ball ever in December 2005, and the sense was that it will only be greater from year to year.

Everything I have described in this letter is rooted in the ACCJ's committee structure, and as you can imagine, there is much more to say. To read more about the specific activities of each Committee and Sub-committee in 2005, please click on the links in the right column. Our Committees and Sub-committees are truly the heart of the ACCJ, from which our advocacy and programs are generated.

The people you meet in ACCJ committee meetings and at ACCJ events, where there are always new faces mixed with the familiar, represent more than just potential clients for your business. Above all, they represent ideas--fresh ideas from people who are shaping the business environment now, practical ideas from people whose business processes in many cases are globally recognized as the leading standard, and a diversity of ideas made possible by the interaction of American, Japanese, and increasingly international business cultures nurtured by members of the ACCJ over its 57-year history. This annual report is a hint-a substantial hint-about the possibilities of where all those ideas can lead with you at the center of it all. For each committee, you will find a reference point for ideas that touch on whole worlds of possibilities. Our long-time members know well that it simply takes your variation on these ideas to unlock new potential, whether you have questions, answers, or both. And if you are new to the ACCJ, I am certain you will discover how rewarding participation in the ACCJ can be from the very first event you attend. In closing, I would like to say how grateful I am for the honor of having served as ACCJ President for the past two years. It has been my great pleasure, and I am very appreciative of all the support I received from ACCJ members.

Sincerely,

Debbie Howard
2005 ACCJ President