TOKYO — For Bridgestone Corp., 2020 will mark the beginning of the company's "third foundation," — or Bridgestone 3.0 — as the Tokyo-based company moves to strengthens its focus on "sustainable mobility and advanced solutions."
The launch of Bridgestone 3.0 brings with it a new corporate tag line as well: "Solutions for your journey."
The Japanese company, the world's largest tire and rubber products firm, unveiled its "mid-long term" business strategy, covering 2020-2050, on July 8 in Tokyo.
The new vision calls for Bridgestone to become a leader in sustainable mobility and advanced solutions, while continuing to leverage the unique strengths and breadth of its core tire and rubber businesses.
Prompted by the "deterioration of entire tire industry profit structure," the new strategy offers "bold and radical" responses in anticipation of industry changes, Bridgestone said in an investors' presentation.
The move, it added, is expected to change the group's profit structure and increase the profit potential from automotive industry sales by nearly a quarter to $380 billion by 2035 from $226 billion in 2017.
With the mission of "serving society with superior quality," the blueprint will see Bridgestone providing "social value and customer value as a sustainable solutions company."
As part of this, Bridgestone said it would leverage sustainability "as a competitive advantage and core to all aspects of its business."
In addition, the Japanese group will aim to enhance its solutions business through the group's T&DPaaS (tire and diversified products as a solution) platform, which supports the mobility ecosystem.
This could include transforming the group's services to maintenance-focused from repair; creating value for OEM partners; and shifting to a lease/subscription model.
In addition, the group will reinforce its "real and digital" efforts by creating connected and open systems.
As an ultimate goal, Bridgestone will look to move from a product-orientated business to "creating and selling value as a system."
The company refers to its founding in 1931 and the following five-plus decades as its original foundation, or Bridgestone 1.0.
The group's move towards globalization — characterized by its acquisitions in 1988 of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. and Bandag Inc. in 2007 — represents the second foundation, or Bridgestone 2.0.