Yokohama Rubber and NEC Jointly Develop and Deploy Practical DX Leader Development Program

Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. and NEC Corporation have launched an original program jointly developed by the two companies starting in April 2026, based on the results of the practical DX leader development program they have been working on since November 2024.

This program is based on the 'Transformation Promotion Leader Development Support,' one of the comprehensive organizational and talent development services 'BluStellar Academy for DX' provided by NEC, and Yokohama Rubber's talent development needs to promote its DX strategy. It was introduced in November 2024 with the aim of strengthening business skills essential for DX, and has evolved into a program that also aims to strengthen metacognitive skills through trials, aiming to achieve Yokohama Rubber's goal of 'developing 10% of administrative and technical staff into DX leaders by the end of fiscal 2026.'

In parallel with talent development, they are promoting the development of a data utilization infrastructure using the AI data analysis platform 'dotData Product Suite' provided by NEC, realizing a two-pronged approach of 'talent' and 'infrastructure' in DX promotion.

[Background]
In recent years, for companies to promote DX and maintain competitiveness, talent with leadership capable of driving transformation across the organization, not just technical knowledge, has become essential. However, many companies focus on knowledge-acquisition training and face challenges in developing talent with practical skills and the ability to execute organizational transformation.

Yokohama Rubber defined DX talent as business personnel capable of practicing its proprietary AI utilization framework 'HAICoLab,' and focused on developing talent capable of on-site improvement and new planning. On the other hand, NEC provides talent development programs directly linked to practical work based on the practical knowledge accumulated through its own company-wide DX transformation, and this initiative started because both companies' awareness of issues and solutions matched.

[2 Years of Initiatives and Results]
Under the concept of 'HAICoLab,' Yokohama Rubber started a trial of a development program in November 2024, in which three departments—HR, IT, and R&D—collaborated to use a 'DX Canvas' based on NEC's 'Transformation Promotion Leader Development Support,' incorporating Yokohama Rubber's perspectives. By 2025, two phases of the program were completed, creating the following results:
- Acquisition of skills required for DX leaders
- Practice of issue exploration and hypothesis formulation in business
- Cultivation of a DX mindset through presentations attended by management

Based on these results, both companies refined the program through trial and error, evolving it into an original program that can reliably realize results in practical work. Specifically, for the purpose of improving the metacognitive skills necessary for practicing HAICoLab, this program incorporates a process in which participants shake their existing schemas while working with metacognition and an open mind, incorporate insights gained from others' perspectives, and verify DX plans as hypotheses from multiple angles to polish them into more effective ones.

[Features of the Program]
1. Practical-oriented design: Uses an original DX Canvas that incorporates Yokohama Rubber's HAICoLab perspectives based on NEC's proprietary framework 'DX Canvas.'
2. Integration with Yokohama Rubber's education system: Realizes highly effective talent development while improving the efficiency of education investment.
3. Provision of NEC's own DX practical knowledge: Systematizes practical knowledge based on real experience of NEC promoting DX transformation on a company-wide scale.

[Two-pronged Support of 'Talent' and 'Infrastructure']
Yokohama Rubber has adopted the AI data analysis platform 'dotData' as a data utilization infrastructure for practicing HAICoLab, and NEC provides consistent support from introduction to operation. dotData automates 'feature engineering,' which is the most important and difficult part of data analysis, enabling advanced data analysis even by on-site personnel without specialized data science skills. Yokohama Rubber's use of dotData has evolved to a new stage with the introduction of 'dotData Product Suite.'