18 August 2025 – Shinichiro (Shin) Nakamura, the President of one to ONE Holdings, attended the Asia Business School's 10th Anniversary celebration as a Board of Governor at ASB from August 13–15.
One of the milestones of the celebration was the launch of #Ops21: Operations for the 21st Century, a new initiative led by Professor Shardul Phadnis. This initiative brings together global perspectives on how operations must adapt to new realities—sustainability, digitalization, resilience, and human-centric transformation.
Among the powerful insights shared, one that stood out came from Shin Nakamura, who emphasized the power of people in achieving operational excellence. Drawing from his cross-border experience, he observed that while the same systems and processes can be deployed worldwide, performance outcomes often differ dramatically—because of people.
In Japan, where employee tenure is long and churn is minimal, expertise compounds over decades, making teams highly effective. When this expertise is coupled with human-centric, Industry 5.0 systems, it enables:
🔹 Seamless knowledge transfer across generations
🔹 Better decision-making through accumulated experience
🔹 Continuous improvement driven not just by technology, but by people empowered through it
This perspective reinforces a critical truth in operations management: the next frontier is not merely automation or digital transformation, but human-empowered systems where technology amplifies human potential.
It also resonates with the vision of one to ONE Holdings’ partner company, IndustrialML, which is advancing beyond Industry 4.0 implementation to pioneer comprehensive Industry 5.0 systems—building operations that are not only efficient, but also human-centric, adaptive, and sustainable.
The future of operations will belong to organizations that blend technology, process, and people into systems designed for resilience and continuous growth.
o2OG/o2Oh is a local company group led by o2Oh, which originated in Japan and is based in Singapore.