Hello everyone, it has been a long time.
I have been agonizing over how to start this piece since yesterday, unable to even sleep properly, because it has been so long since I last took up my pen. This is Tanaka.
I imagine that the long-standing pandemic has placed a great burden of inconvenience on all of you. With the recent news of a new variant, many of you are likely feeling increased anxiety about what will happen amidst the hustle and bustle of this year-end season. My staff and I have reaffirmed that in these extraordinary times, the most important thing is to join forces and steadily continue with basic preventative measures such as washing hands, gargling, and wearing masks.
On a different note, as of today, December 1st, Circles has reached its 15th anniversary since its founding. I am sincerely grateful, as this could only have been achieved through the support of our customers, our playmates, the companies we work with, the retail shops, and most importantly, the Circles family, including our employees and their families.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude.
Thank you all so, so much.
I hope to charge ahead into the next 5 or 10 years with the help of many people both here in Japan and around the world, and I ask for your continued guidance, encouragement, and support.
For me personally, these past two non-ordinary years have felt like time moving at an astonishing speed compared to what we used to call "normal." I have spent much of that time trying to strip away the unnecessary parts of my own thinking—constantly oscillating between anxiety and hope amidst the swirling information society—and striving to consolidate our corporate philosophy as carefully as possible. I have continued to contemplate the structures, methods, philosophies, and ideas behind the role Circles Company should play moving forward, what we truly want to do, our "Circles-esque" approach to society, and—to borrow from the Millennium Falcon talk in a blog post a staff member recently wrote—how we can turn Circles Company into a perpetual institution, which has been my greatest goal since the founding.
Below, I would like to present our Circles 100-Year Vision to you all.
It is a long read, but I would be honored if those with the time would take a look.
Circles 100-Year Vision
On Our Purpose
We at Circles believe that we should be an organization with firm independence, not easily swayed by fads or trends. Careful consideration in all things is the source of our decision-making. Based on every experience gained from our daily work, we constantly reflect on our actions and words, and this reflection becomes fuel for our next steps. We also recognize that creating new products, services, and processes requires a great deal of patience and tireless effort.
On Service and Manufacturing
At Circles, we are always conscious of the necessity for high quality within ourselves. We understand that we are supported by society and gain its favor through repetitive cycles of high-quality service based on experienced knowledge, craftsmanship, and the selection of impeccable materials and products.
Furthermore, our uncompromising standards for our own work support our sustainable corporate activities. We believe it is our mission to use that strong passion as a driving force to constantly provide creative and elegant solutions to society.
On Social Contribution
At Circles, we strive daily to practice genuine goodwill. To put social contribution into practice, we start with our employees and extend our support activities to the local community, region, and nation. We fulfill our responsibilities to our local and global communities by sharing our knowledge, perspectives, and philosophy with society.
On Bicycles
Our starting point at Circles began with a passion for bicycles. We respect the adventurous spirit of cyclists around the world and want to remain their companions forever. While we embrace the strong will and inherent competitiveness that many cyclists have to exceed their current abilities, we consider the results of the personal efforts of individuals—famous or unknown—to be of equal value to victories on an international level.
We make it our practice to prove our existence in society by keeping the bicycle—the source of "Jiten-ryoku" (the power to never stop, creating momentum by continuing to learn from daily repetition and keeping one's limbs in motion)—as our central axis, while equally celebrating the diverse range of activities that spread throughout society.
Thank you very much for reading this long piece to the end.
In addition, I have written this on the blog once before, but I would like to state it again here. This is a fact I feel in my daily life. It is something I believe has been true from the past and will remain true into the future: Japan is a bicycle kingdom that the world should be proud of. However, this is not because of the use of bicycles as sports activities—which many of the readers of this blog enjoy—or because of our world-renowned manufacturing prowess based on technology, but rather due to the sheer fact of how many Japanese people use bicycles in their daily lives. And most of those bicycle users are unequivocally women. From daily shopping to picking up and dropping off children, and from commuting to school to work, so many women use bicycles in their lives that, in these days when genderless equality is constantly being questioned, I truly believe Japan is far ahead in terms of bicycle utilization. Just imagining those female cyclists, who know the convenience of bicycles firsthand and use them as essential tools, starting to enjoy special moments using the bicycle as a "fun tool" outside of their daily routines makes my heart race.
Since our founding, Circles has been asked to repair everyday bicycles and utility bikes almost daily. When new employees join Circles, they first start training in a pit dedicated to these utility bikes. I hope that they will learn the philosophy, ideas, and ideals that Circles should aim for through the actual events that occur on that floor. And among many ideas, there is one thing I want them to learn and implement above all else: clearly distinguishing between what must be done and what one wants to do, and I hope they will think daily about how they can achieve those things through their own power. I want our new staff to firmly feel and think about the main use of the bicycle—a useful tool in Japanese society—and nurture the realization of their dreams beyond that with their own strength. I call this power that never stops—learned from the repetition of daily life and keeping one's limbs in motion—"Jiten-ryoku" (Cycling Power).
I deeply believe that the entire Circles Company team managed to survive these past two non-ordinary years by each exercising the Jiten-ryoku they began to cultivate. But our dreams are still big, the road ahead is long, and in order to lead Japan to become the world's number one cycling nation, I hope for the continued support of all cyclists and thrill-seekers in Japan and, indeed, the whole world.
Circles believes in the bicycle and everything associated with it.
Circles Co., Ltd.
CEO Shinya Tanaka
