Panasonic is to reform its head office and governance as of October 1, to reduce internally focused work and focus on customer needs.

The strategy involves reviewing the mission of the corporate R&D division, transferring “themes” and personnel to their relevant business domains within Panasonic.

Corporate R&D’s new mission will be to create new business and technologies in long-term growth areas and develop uniform technologies across the entire company.

The personnel working on existing business fields will gear their R&D toward midterm business growth. Panasonic recently focused research on OLEDs with Sony, and on flexible electronics with imec.

Additionally, Panasonic is also forming a corporate strategy head office, with about 150 staffs, to oversee midterm strategies and allocate management resources, as well as develop executives and promote cash flow management.

Functions other than the above will be realigned as part of a Professional Business Support Sector. Panasonic will regroup some of the related divisions into single divisions and simplify organizations.

A Group Management Team will evaluate Panasonic’s mid- and long-term strategy and important business moves, with about 10 executives involved. Various meetings will be reorganized as appropriate under this new structure.