ITOKI CORPORATION (Head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Yoshiro Hirai) signed a basic agreement on October 9th for a business alliance with work style reform consulting company Veldhoen+Company Pty Ltd (Head office: Amsterdam, Netherlands; hereinafter, Veldhoen). Veldhoen is the founder of ABW and has provided ABW implementation consulting to global companies around the world, with its main bases in Europe and Australia. Through this business alliance, ITOKI will utilize its world-leading knowledge of ABW to further strengthen its work style reform consulting business in Japan.

ABW (Activity Based Working) is a way of working that allows people to work "anytime, anywhere, with anyone," and is gaining attention in Japan from the perspective of improving productivity and securing the workforce, which are also the goals of the government's "Work Style Reform." Veldhoen has supported the introduction of ABW in over 300 projects over the past 27 years, and is a rare company in the world that has the know-how to specifically and systematically change employee behavior by combining three pillars: (1) leadership coaching and change management (behavior), (2) physical environment (space), and (3) virtual environment (IT). By combining Veldhoen's know-how, which is of great value to Japanese companies working on work style reform, with ITOKI's office design know-how, we will develop cutting-edge consulting activities that meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of work style reform.

In addition, ITOKI has fully launched a new way of working called "XORK Style" in October 2018, which introduces the idea of ABW and maximizes workers discretion, allowing workers to autonomously design their own work style. In December 2018, we will hold a grand opening of our new head office "ITOKI TOKYO XORK" in Nihonbashi, Tokyo to further accelerate XORK Style. ITOKI TOKYO XORK is the only workplace in Japan that adopts ABW, which was developed together with Veldhoen, as a work style strategy.

We will also systematize the know-how gained from this implementation for the Japanese market, and use this to further strengthen our work style reform consulting business.

Veldhoen is the originator of the ABW concept. It is a leading company in work style strategy consulting and is active as a preferred partner to many global companies such as LEGO, IKEA, VOLVO, and MSD. Since the early 1990s, it has developed a robust methodology for transforming and successfully transforming the way organizations work, from conception to implementation of the overall plan, and has been constantly evolving the way we work today.

Through the introduction of ABW, Veldhoen has helped its clients improve space efficiency, introduce effective IT technology, and balance employee productivity and engagement. In the process, it has also supported leadership, results-based management, organizational transparency, and trust.