Sep 28, 2020 (Nikkei) - Growing numbers of Tokyo-based companies are considering relocating some of their functions to other parts of Japan, spurred by a desire to minimize risks in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Half of Japan's listed companies are concentrated in the capital, but teleworking, which has become common due to the COVID-19 outbreak, presents an opportunity for these companies to escape Tokyo's congestion and seek better living environments for their employees.
"The pandemic gave us a final push to go ahead with this reform across the company," said Kaori Takahashi, an executive corporate officer with Information Development, part of Tokyo-based system development company ID Group.
The company in late August announced it would gradually transfer a part of its headquarters functions to its office in Yonago, a city in the western prefecture of Tottori. The move starts in October.
The new office will house a cloud center as well as departments such as sales administration and human resources. The company wants to increase the number of employees at the office from 11 to nearly 50 through 2025, and to eventually have 100 people in Yonago.
ID Group had already created rules for teleworking but found it difficult to change the habits of its engineers, who normally stay at the offices of its clients.
Having its largest foreign subsidiaries in Wuhan, the Chinese city of 11 million that was first struck by the virus and then endured more than two months of a strict lockdown, "made us realize the lack of resilience that comes from accumulating various functions in a single location," Takahashi said, adding that the situation forced the company to think more about the possibility of a similar emergency in Tokyo.
Japan faces not only an increasing number of super typhoons but also the risk of a mega earthquake in the coming decades. The Kanto region, which includes Greater Tokyo, is not immune to big temblors. If one were to rip into the capital, its cluster of corporations could be crippled.
