Shiseido Cerebrates the Cornerstone Laying of Its New Innovation Center, “Global Innovation Center” at Minato Mirai 21 in Yokohama

YOKOHAMA, Japan – October 24, 2016 – Shiseido Company, Limited. held the cornerstone laying ceremony of the Global Innovation Center (GIC) at Minato Mirai 21 area to celebrate the start of construction.
GIC is designed to create innovations through communication with various people including consumers, while serving as the basic research base that underpins Shiseido’s future growth and acting as the company’s new global innovation hub of R＆D functions around the world. Unprecedented in its open style of research and development and the world-largest level in scale as cosmetics research facility*, GIC is slated to start operation at the end of 2018.
In May this year, Shiseido Americas Innovation Center was expanded and re-opened, and China Innovation Center (Shanghai branch) will be expanded in November 2016. Through these and other initiatives Shiseido will upgrade its nine innovation centers located in five countries worldwide and pursue further value creation in close interaction with local consumers.
*The world-largest level in headcount as a single research and development facility for cosmetics (beauty care).

Shiseido Global Innovation Center (image)

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Shiseido’s Global R＆D sites

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New value creation at GIC

Shiseido Research Center celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, counting from the establishment of a former research facility, the testing room. Shiseido has successfully developed a number of high-quality products through advanced dermatology research and formulation technologies. However, the cosmetic market has reached a high overall level in the recent years, resulting in fierce competition in the market. Amid this situation, we felt the necessity of creating a new value of “fusion and innovation” through integrating various knowledge and expertise as well as communicating with diverse people. This is how Shiseido can continue shining over the next 100 years, and we will rely on GIC to accomplish this goal.
In addition to creating this new research environment, Shiseido has already started taking various measures including the reform of its R＆D intangibles such as the work styles of researchers that create a fusion of expertise through interacting with peer researchers and consumers, and applying the know-hows of both internal and external R＆D sites. We will promote this work style reform and apply the outcomes to the design of new office areas and labs to establish a perfect research facility delivering superb results.

Groundbreaking Ceremony

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Kagamiwari

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Concept of GIC

1. Urban open lab
Creating value through direct exchange with active consumers
2. Integration of versatile expertise
Creation of new value through encounters with cutting-edge research facilities and other industries, such as logistics
3. Global innovation hub
Broadcasting value through centralization of technical information and consumer information from around the world, as well as its global utilization

Open Communication Space

GIC will be acting as the cutting-edge research facility and Shiseido’s global innovation hub, but it will also spare its first and second floors to offer an open communication space where consumers can get inspired by beauty.
The first floor will provide a place for co-creation of wide varieties of beauty together with customers. It will consist of three communication areas, namely, Beauty Bar, which will offer an opportunity to actually try Shiseido cosmetic products and communicate with the researchers, Active Beauty Station, aimed at customers who seek active beauty through activities centering on running, and Deli ＆ Café, which will offer healthy menus that are created being inspired by the research on beauty and dieting. (All names are tentative.)
The second floor will host a comprehensive museum promoting “visual inspiration” and introducing the corporate culture of Shiseido that has more than 140 years of history. That will include a presentation space on the beauty of the future and a library with thousands of books and visual contents regarding beauty. The facility will be available to tourists and general public in Yokohama as well as the researchers, who will be able to immerse themselves into Shiseido’s history at any time and come up with new discoveries.
These open communication spaces are produced by Mr. Kundo Koyama (Orange and Partners) and designed by Mr. Naoki Sato (nendo).

Beauty Bar (image)

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Deli ＆ Café (image)

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GIC Details

[Location]　2-52 Takashima 1-chome, Nishi-ku, and ten additional parcels of land in 56-2, Minato Mirai 21 area Yokohama-shi
[Site area] 7,023m2 (commercial zone: floor area ratio of 800% and building coverage ratio of 80%)
[Overview of the building] 16 floors above ground and 1 floor below ground (steel-framed reinforced concrete construction (CFT), total floor space of 58,231m2, building height of 76.91m)
[Total construction cost] 30–40 billion JPY (estimate), 6.83 billion JPY of which is the land acquisition cost