Announcement of Business Alliance between Uhuru and Hitachi Transport System

Hitachi Transport System, Ltd. (“Hitachi Transport”, headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Yasuo Nakatani) and Uhuru Corporation (“Uhuru”, headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Takashi Sonoda) hereby announce that the two companies have entered into a business alliance agreement aiming to strengthen logistics using technologies such as AI and IoT and to realize innovation by co-creation with various partners from beyond existing business and industry boundaries.

1. Reason and Purpose of the Business Alliance

Due to the advancement of globalization and expansion of the EC market, the accompanying increase in the level and diversity of customers’ needs are leading to higher expectation towards logistics companies. On the other hand, the environment surrounding the logistics industry faces a major transition period, with manpower shortage caused by declining birth rate and aging society. Under such circumstances, Hitachi Transport has been expanding its core business, 3PL (a comprehensive service in which a company’s logistics operation is entrusted to Hitachi Transport). At the same time, Hitachi Transport is promoting a new business concept, “LOGISTEED”, with the aim to expand the domain of co-creation beyond the existing business and industry boundaries and to bring about innovation.

*The concept of LOGISTEED consists of five elements; LOGISTICS, Exceed, Proceed, Succeed and Speed, all of which are essential for ushering logistics into a new business domain.

By providing an IoT solution, enebular®, that enables the development and operation of products and services that utilize IoT, Uhuru provides an environment where the entire IoT stack, from edge devices to cloud, can be utilized. By creating applications and solutions for clients in their IoT businesses and by making data utilization easier by seamless system integration, Uhuru continues its effort to bring about digital transformation at its clients and in society.

The two companies join hands and will work together with co-creation partners in various lines of business and industries to advance beyond the traditional area of logistics, overcome existing problems, and to carry out innovation as platformers that contribute to society by generating new markets.

2. Content of the Business Alliance

The main contents of this alliance are as follows:
(1) Intellectual Property strategy
Mutually providing knowledge and know-how on patent practice, jointly formulating and applying for patents, etc.
(2) Formation of business ecosystem
Formulation of a model partners can adopt for co-creation and formation of ecosystem in the alliance domain
(3) Joint PR and marketing activities
Jointly planning and implementing or PR, partner events and market seminars, etc.

3. Future Perspective

Through this alliance, we will promote optimization and automation of the supply chain as a whole, as well as creating an open platform that offers new value and services by utilizing all kinds of data generated in the process. Any additional information worthy of notice will be disclosed without delay.
*All names of companies, products and services mentioned in this news release are trademarks or registered trademarks of Uhuru Corporation or the respective companies or organizations.