Marketing lecture for future engineers
We gave a marketing lecture for students who are learning to be engineers at the National Institute of Technology Tokyo College.

In May 2019, we conducted a marketing lecture for the students of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National Institute of Technology Tokyo College (Tokyo Kosen).

Tokyo Kosen aims to "foster engineers with creative, practical, and applied skills through an education emphasizing firsthand experience at an early stage." The Department of Mechanical Engineering is fostering creative engineers to design and produce machines. Some of Tokyo Kosen's graduates are even working at Wacom as engineers.

The lecturer was Koji Yano, who is in charge of marketing for creative products in Japan and Asia. Valuing conversations with clients, Wacom produces products and technologies that truly satisfy them. The lecture was accomplished because Wacom agrees with the view of Mr. Hirotaka Tsutsumi, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering that "even engineers need to understand marketing."

The lecture explained the basic approach to making clients happy, based on the indispensable marketing concept of "who is this product/service for, and for what purpose?" The students mentioned, "I want it right now," revealing how we are exposed to marketing efforts by companies everyday. The lecture also discussed ideas regarding Wacom's product promotions. The class was very lively, and everyone actively participated.

As the students engaged in serious discussions, Koji finished his lecture with the hope that "You become engineers who develop products while thinking about making customers happy."

The following is a comment from Associate Professor Tsutsumi.

"This activity was our first collaboration with a company, and it turned to be a good experience. The case study of the pen tablets is reality, unlike usual classroom lectures, and it brought the point of the lecture home to students. I heard from students’ comments such as 'It was stimulating to receive guidance directly from a company's marketing supervisor' and 'It was really interesting to hear that the pen tablets were launched after trial and error.' We will proceed with these sort of activities in the future and strive to provide a quality education."