Tokyo, Japan, December 19, 2013 – SATO, a leader in barcode printing, labeling, and EPC/RFID solutions, announced today the appointment of Mr. Haruhiko Kitamura to the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO).

As CIO, Mr. Kitamura will be responsible for overseeing the planning and deployment of enterprise IT resources to support SATO’s business operations in driving excellent outcomes for the Group and its customers. His primary task will be to lead a company-wide revamp of the Group’s IT systems, together with the implementation of other BPR initiatives with the aim of streamlining business processes, increasing employee productivity and improving service quality. Mr. Kitamura will also head efforts to anticipate trends in the market with regards to new technology such as IoT, M2M, Ubiquitous Computing, and Big Data, and ensure that the Group leverages these trends with strategic IT planning and investments to develop new businesses.

“To create the best value for our customers and deliver the highest returns to our stakeholders, SATO must take bold measures to raise the efficiency of its business processes,” said Kaz Matsuyama, President & CEO of SATO Holdings Corporation. “I believe that Mr. Kitamura, with his highly impressive background in IT, business optimization and project management, will be instrumental in reshaping SATO’s information technology and network infrastructure to achieve the optimization of group operations, one of the core strategies in our medium to long-term business plan.”

Mr. Kitamura brings extensive professional experience accumulated over 20 years in the manufacturing/SCM industry, and 10 years in IT service management and application development at some of the world’s leading companies. Early in his career, Mr. Kitamura worked at Apple Inc., Japan, where he successfully implemented CELL production to raise productivity. Later, he served as COO at Shell Services International (part of Royal Dutch Shell) where he was integral in implementing and executing ITIL-based system operations using SLA frameworks. More recently, he served as IT Director and Shared Service CIO at Johnson & Johnson Japan where he was involved with establishing GxP regulations for the organization.

“I’m excited to be joining SATO Group and I look forward to helping expand its position in the global market,” added Mr. Kitamura. “I hope to develop our IT team’s skills and competency to make them more effective for our business, and to establish SATO’s IT as a professional, customer-oriented, innovative and future-focused force within the company, able to lead and implement SATO’s technological initiatives as the organization positions itself for further growth and profitability.”