I'm here at the Sigma head office in Tokyo and I'm with Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki. Mr. Yamaki, thanks so much for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to join me. This building is absolutely beautiful, the attention to detail in the design, every aspect of it is so carefully considered. It's quite a new building, and you had I believe quite a big hand in designing this, both the interior and the exterior.
Yes, actually I had a weekly meeting with the architect who designed this building. It was in the middle of COVID, and during COVID I could not go abroad, I could not make many business trips. So basically I stayed in the office and I could have plenty of time to talk about the concept of the new building or design of the new buildings with architects. So actually I really enjoyed it.
Oh amazing! And the furniture, I heard that you shipped it all in from Italy. Is that true?
Yes, all the furniture is made by an Italian company called Arflex. Our designer Mr. Ichiro Iwasaki is one of the key designers at Arflex, and some of the furniture is actually designed by Mr. Ichiro Iwasaki who designed our cameras and lenses.
Amazing! And the design of this building, the sort of the general feel to me at least feels almost kind of Scandinavian. Is that how you'd say it, or does it feel Japanese to you?
Yes, I was thinking to make it more modern Japanese design, but I see the similarity between Japanese sense of beauty and Scandinavian sense of beauty. So maybe you're all right, you may feel some kind of Scandinavian feeling from this building.
Okay. And of course we're in Tokyo right now, but the factory, the Sigma factory, and we've only got one, it's located about maybe three or four hours drive north of here in a region of Japan called Aizu. And people watching this might have heard 'Made in Aizu' which we use in our marketing. So why is it that the head office is here in Tokyo but the factory is in Aizu?
Actually, when Sigma was founded in 1961, we had a factory in Tokyo. And then in 1968, when I was born, the company moved from the center of Tokyo to suburb of Tokyo, and we still had a factory over there. But during the 60s or 70s, many people moved to Tokyo, so the population of Tokyo was significantly increasing, and there was no space for us to expand the factory. So we decided to relocate the factory somewhere else. And one of the employees at the time, who was actually from Aizu, introduced his hometown to my father. My father visited Aizu and he found it is a lovely area, the beautiful environment, and very nice culture. And he was also impressed by the people's mentality. So then he decided to move the factory over there and expand the plant over there.
I absolutely love Aizu. It's such an amazing part of Japan, and it also has a lot of clean water up there from mountain streams.
As you know, we use a lot of water to polish the glass or to treat the surface of many parts. So we need lots of water. And Aizu, especially the small town our factory is located in called Bandai, is very famous for the very nice clean water. First of all we need plenty of water and it would be great to have clean pure water, but the most important thing is that it influences the people's mentality. Normally such clean pure water is available in the mountainous area where the climate is a little bit severe in winter time. So the people who live in such places have a very disciplined lifestyle, which helps a lot to make the products which require very high precision.
I see, I see. And just to give people watching a feel for what Aizu is like, Tokyo is obviously very busy, it's a big city, the biggest in the world, but Aizu feels very different, doesn't it? How would you, I mean if you were to sum up what Aizu is like as a place, how would you describe it?
Aizu is actually one of the oldest cities in the northern part of Japan. It was kind of one of the capitals in northern part of Japan several hundred years ago. So they have a very good long tradition, they still live up on that tradition which I truly respect. I was born in Tokyo and grew up here, but the mentality, the people's mentality over there in Aizu are quite different from the one in Tokyo. So I think it's a very unique place even in Japan, which still maintains a long tradition.
Now ever since 1961 when your father founded the Sigma Corporation, our lenses have always been made here in Japan. A lot of other photographic companies have shifted out production to China, Vietnam, I guess to save costs. Why is it that a made-in-Japan model is important to you?
Mainly there are two reasons why we still maintain the 100% made-in-Japan policy. First of all, we like to achieve the top or best-of-best quality for all of our products. Not only one product, but all the products we make every day must be top quality. In this case we need very long-experienced workers in Aizu. Some of the employees are third generation, their grandfather and father worked for Sigma and now the grandkid works for us. Such long-experience workers are key to achieve the top quality, best quality of all the products we make every day. So the priority is in quality, that's one of the reasons. Another reason is that Sigma is still a family-owned, private, independent company. So of course increasing the sales or increasing the profit is important, but also we need to take care of the people or employees who work for Sigma. If we offshore the manufacturing site, we need to reduce the number of employees at the factory in Japan, which is not what we like to do. We need to protect the workers' jobs. So we like to take the balance with the company's profit and also social responsibility to the employees and the local society. That's the reason why we still stay in Japan.
And you were saying about being a family business, about how your father founded it in 1961, and it must be very interesting for you to have been with Sigma for so long and seen it right from not quite the start but from very early right through to now. What are your earliest memories of Sigma, and when you were a child do you remember things about it? How many people were working for the company at the time and what was it like back then?
Yeah, actually the company was founded in 1961, but as I said we moved to the new location in 1968 when I was born. And at the time my father built our house on top of the office building. So I knew the company from zero age. My life was always with Sigma and with the employees of Sigma.
And when you think back, was there just maybe 10 people working for Sigma back then, or 20 people, or more than that?
Because at the time we already had a factory on the ground floor, so I don't remember the exact number of employees when I was five. But I do remember maybe when I was seven or eight years old, probably the number of employees was 100 or something. Because at that time my father always told me to take over his business. He always told me to study hard and become a proper president of the company and take over the business. And he always told me that at the time the company had 100 employees, and assuming these people have family, each employee has to take care of the rest of the three family members. So he was always patting my shoulder and said that you have responsibility for 400 people, and so you have to study hard and work hard to become an excellent CEO. That's what I remember.
That makes sense. Well, you've achieved it.
I hope so, but I'm not sure.
So Sigma, I mean because it's got such a long tradition of optical engineering, it's got a lot of heritage to it, the company. But equally Sigma is also a very innovative company, a very forward-looking company. How do those two things balance, having one foot in the past with the tradition and one foot in the future with pushing things forward?
Well, I don't think these two things are kind of trade-off. My father always wished Sigma being an innovative company. Our company newsletter has a strapline which says 'Sigma, the innovative company.' So we always challenge to become an innovative company. So for us, or for me at least, respecting the tradition and trying something new, challenging something new to become innovative, means the same thing.
Since you became CEO of Sigma, which was 12 years ago, so in 2012, you introduced the Global Vision line of lenses, so that's the Art, Contemporary, and Sports lines. And it feels to me that Sigma has changed a lot in that time. How do you see our position in the market now, and is it where you want it to be, or do you see that there's still work to do to get to where you want to be?
Actually, I'm very happy to hear that. We just worked very hard for this 12 years just to make the best products for the customers. And if you feel that Sigma has been changed, that's the result of our effort in this 12 years. I really just want to make the best products that I can be proud of, and I can recommend to our family members or friends or parents with full confidence. This is what I like to achieve. But in the long run, our goal is to become the best brand in the imaging industry. I like to make Sigma the most loved and the most respected brand in this industry. We will continuously work very hard.
Understood. Now in the industry more widely, the general pattern of behavior for photographers is that they buy into a camera system. They'll buy Canon or Nikon or Sony, and then they decide which lenses they want for that system. But increasingly now I've heard of people buying the lenses first. So they decide which lenses they want and then they decide which camera fits on. It's almost like saying 'I want the Sigma 70-200 and then I'll buy a third-party camera to go on it.' Do you see that as a more logical way of thinking for a photographer?
I think it's quite logical. Of course, changing camera body can influence the style of photography or quality of photography. But at the same time, using different type of lens influences the style of photography or quality of photography a lot. These days, especially, we have made many innovations in lenses which make the photography more innovative. So I think it's quite logical for people to choose the lens first and then choose the camera body.
Yeah, I've heard the phrase used a lot which is 'the lens dictates the camera.' I guess because lenses last longer, you can keep them for much longer than you can a camera, because they don't go out.
We believe the lens is a very important asset for photographers. They can use the lenses for a long time.
Sure, sure. So over the last year we've had so many innovative products out. We've had the 28-45, the new 24-70, the 28-105, the 70-200, the 50mm 1.2. How do you decide which lenses to make? Is it a big committee of people that make that decision, or do you kind of make those decisions on your own?
We regularly have product planning meetings. Of course I attend the meeting, and also we have a product planning team, so they also attend, and also some engineers. At the meeting we discuss a lot about the product roadmap. We discuss new products for the next two to three years. Normally I give a lot of ideas because I meet a lot of people in the world, and I always get many requests from photographers or business partners. And then if I'm excited about some of the ideas, I always give the ideas to engineers. Sometimes I come up with ideas by myself, but also our product planning team makes some proposals regarding new products. And also our engineers are so passionate about photography, they are also good photographers, so they also come up with ideas. They ask me to design this kind of lens. So we discuss together and make a product roadmap together.
