Mitsubishi Logistics will celebrate the 138th anniversary of its founding this April. In the lead-up to this milestone, the company is enhancing its internal development of leaders for transformation as well as professionals who are equipped to embrace new challenges (in the areas of M&A, DX and others) and implement growth strategies.

On April 15, 2024, exactly one year before the 138th anniversary, Mitsubishi Logistics opened the MLC Academy as an “in-house university” for all employees. To date, around 70% of employees have joined the Academy, making it a space that is alive with activity. But for what purpose was the Academy opened? In response to this question, Shinji Kimura, head of the MLC Academy, offered the following explanation:

“In order to achieve the MLC2030 Vision and the Management Plan amid dramatic changes in the external environment, such as the progress of digitalization and globalization, we need to have leaders for transformation as well as professionals who can lead the implementation of M&A, digitalization and growth strategies, in addition to the generalists we have had in the past. In order to develop such personnel in a planned manner on a medium- to long-term basis, we established the MLC Academy as an evolutionary form of our conventional educational system, basing it on the concept of supporting both the business growth of the company and the personal career development of employees. We are thereby providing all employees with an environment where they can learn continuously and autonomously.”

More specifically, the Academy is designed to develop personnel who can implement the new initiatives launched by the company, such as building a system to make effective use of new technologies, collaborating with start-up companies through investment in venture capital, and promoting the use of AI in business operations. Mitsubishi Logistics expects that the development of such personnel will help it generate new innovations in its logistics and real estate businesses.

“In a sense, the logistics and real estate businesses belong to the old economy, and it is difficult to take a new approach to them. In order to break the mold, we need to promote in-house education to develop personnel who can embrace new challenges,” says Mr. Kimura.

The Academy upholds three educational policies. The first policy is: “Promote autonomous learning and career design.” In line with this policy, employees will be encouraged to pursue their own self-development by acquiring new knowledge and skills in an autonomous and ongoing fashion, thereby becoming more adaptable to change. The second policy is: “Provide a practical curriculum.” By offering a curriculum that is designed to promote the accumulation and sharing of the kind of in-house empirical knowledge and expertise that is essential to perform business tasks, the company will help employees acquire the knowledge and skills needed to achieve its business strategy. The third policy is: “Develop next-generation leaders.” Specifically, under this policy, talented individuals who can catalyze change and lead others in embracing new challenges and driving innovation will be developed as the next generation of the company’s business leaders.

The Academy targets all employees and offers a range of courses in its curriculum. Employees can also take multiple courses. As Mr. Kimura explains:

“In addition to traditional job tier-based training, language courses and qualification courses, the Academy offers diverse course content, such as specialized courses, sharing of in-house knowledge by veteran employees, a failure case study course created through employee feedback, cross-industry exchange courses, and dispatch to outside educational facilities.”

The conventional job tier-based training is offered to selected employees, but all other courses are open to the entire workforce and anyone can apply to take them. Moreover, the courses are provided in various formats, including online, in person and in a hybrid format. In principle, all are held during working hours.

“We are not aiming to provide employees with education that is mainly geared toward reskilling, which has been a recent trend in employee education. Instead, the Academy is designed to allow employees to boost their career with the company. They can also attend the Academy as a preparatory step to applying for a transfer to a department where they want to work. We also provide employees approaching retirement age with a course about pursuing a post-retirement career.”

The Academy provides courses targeting two major categories of skills: (1) Skills to boost business growth capacity and (2) Skills to strengthen business foundations (base skills across the company).

The courses aimed at providing skills to boost business growth capacity focus on the knowledge and skills required for business growth and are provided systematically for each of the job tiers and the four types of personnel (Management, Solution, Operation and Innovation), which together comprise the human resource portfolio set for the achievement of the MLC2030 Vision. These courses are mainly conducted by external instructors and educational institutions.

The courses on the skills to strengthen business foundations (base skills across the company) include conventional tier-based courses including those for managers, but they have been revised to ensure that participants can learn the important skills and knowledge necessary for their tier as well as develop internal human networks. Also included in the courses are those on human skills, DX, etc., which target a range of age groups regardless of qualifications and role and are held on topical themes such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and career design in addition to DX. Also on offer are courses on work execution skills in which participants systematically acquire the expertise and in-house empirical knowledge that forms the foundation of business operations, and for which instructors are largely internal personnel selected from each business division.

In addition, the Academy holds correspondence courses, fosters e-learning and sends young employees overseas, while also offering its students opportunities to attend courses provided by the Mitsubishi Marketing Association and other external organizations and implementing joint programs with other companies as necessary. As a result of these efforts, the Academy has garnered high praise within the company since opening its doors in 2024. “Since its opening, the number of courses provided at the Academy has been increasing to give more options to employees so that they can find a course that suits them,” says Susumu Okuda, who works at the Academy’s secretariat. “It is true that we need to develop innovation professionals, as we have a shortage of this type of personnel, but it is also necessary to develop all four types of personnel to help lead the company. We believe that encouraging young employees to attend lots of courses will help raise the personnel level across the entire organization.”

Going forward, the target of the Academy will be expanded to include employees of Group companies. As Mr. Kimura puts it:

“I hope that the courses will lead participants to engage in self-analysis and upgrade their career. We will further expand the scope of our courses while promoting exchange with other industries so that we can develop a future generation of leaders and innovators for our company.”