Ken-ichi Inouye joined SRI Japan in August 1980, in the early years of this office, as a business development manager. Since he came from Hokushin Electric, the third largest instrument manufacturer in Japan at that time, the projects he developed mostly contributed to the revenue of the Advanced Technology Division, the commercial sector of the Engineering Group. The projects he sold were unusually large, such as an early commercial project he developed for $3 million.
Ken Inouye had the skills needed to make prospective clients rely on the quality of the innovative technologies developed by SRI. He built up firm and continuing relationships with many major Japanese manufacturers. His most notable contribution to SRI was building a firm business relation between SRI and the Japanese electric appliances/electronic devices industry including companies such as Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sharp. Through his efforts, managers of many Japanese companies in this industry drew on the research capabilities of SRI, and they are still bringing many repeated projects to SRI today, even after Inouye’s retirement. That is one of his lasting contributions to SRI.
Another of Ken Inouye’s lasting contributions to SRI was his ability to bring license fee benefits to SRI based on technology development projects. For example, SRI still receives license fee revenue from the PCB removal technology by thermal cracking, which was developed for and transferred to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
When the David Sarnoff Research Center joined SRI, Ken Inouye organized seminars to present Sarnoff’s capability by bringing speakers to many prospective clients, together with visual panels that demonstrated Sarnoff’s activity. These seminars resulted in appreciable sales of Sarnoff projects to Japanese industry. Sharp was one of the clients that awarded large contracts for many years. Because of the success of these seminars, SRI Japan still relies on the seminar arrangement as a powerful tool for promotion.
These continued strong relations with Japanese industry, the continued benefits of licensing fees, and innovative marketing techniques constitute Ken Inouye’s legacy to SRI.