dts Japan, inc.
Chief Operating Officer: Brian Towne
President: Akifumi Kodama
Location: Tokyo Opera City 39F
3-20-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Foundation: Jan. 2004
URL http://www.dtsjapan.co.jp/
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dts Japan, inc.
Chief Operating Officer: Brian Towne
President: Akifumi Kodama
Location: Tokyo Opera City 39F
3-20-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Foundation: Jan. 2004
URL http://www.dtsjapan.co.jp/
Current Office
Entrance
DTS, headquartered in California, is a pioneer of multichannel audio technologies. Branch offices are located widely in the world such as France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. Over 2 billion audio-visual items with DTS technology are used in the world.
Tokyo Opera City 39F,3-20-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
http://www.dtsjapan.co.jp/company/
Tokyo Opera City is 1 minute walk from Hatsudai station (Keio Line). In this property, about 50 tenants including New National Stadium Japan and concert halls are joined.
DTS started as an audio standard company of a famous movie “Jurassic Park” in 1993. DTS was originally called “Digital Theater Systems”. As our name shows, we started as an audio system company for a theater. To let people enjoy an excitement of movies at their own houses, we also started to create audio system for home theaters, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs. We especially carry large shares of Blue-ray both inside and outside of Japan. However, we will start audio system not only for disc systems but also for cloud systems so that people who enjoy their music and movies outside the house can experience highly qualified entertainment.
Mr. Kodama (President)
Mr. Ito (Marketing Manager)
Digital Poster
Our logo has changed several times. Hopefully you might have seen our past logo at movie theater. It used to be written in white letters with red background. We then added an image of Mobius strip, which represents “a chemical reaction of an entertainment”. We also added a phrase “Digital Entertainment”. We removed this phrase 2 years ago and created current logo. We removed it since we wanted to become a total solution company of every audio system, not only a “Digital Entertainment”. Whenever someone wished to make their “sound” better, we want them to remember about us. Our skills are not about an audio-standard. We, as a total solution company of sound, also make people feel comforts and powers from our sound.
In our marketing poster, we include a word “listen” in our logo, so that people would know that we treat sounds. We want people to just listen to our sound first. When sounds are added to vision, its impression dramatically changes. It is similar to a situation when you cannot smell and cannot enjoy a delicious food. Visual items change its impression by their sounds. We think it is a business chance.
Our foundation was more than 10 years ago. Our first office space was located in Shinonome. It was a liaison office and was like a storehouse. We then moved to Ebisu and started our business as “dts Japan”.We then moved to Ebisu and started our new business as "dts Japan". Now, types of our clients are more varied compared to the past.Therefore, number of our employee, especially for sales staff, is increasing. We used to have only one marketing staff but now we have two.
The main reason is an increase of employee due to a merger with SRS Labs. Also, in past office, it was difficult to communicate across the departments since their floor levels were separated. We had a meeting once in a week but that was not enough.
Before deciding our office, we considered about 20-30 properties. Good point about our current office is that it is directly connected to Hatsudai station. Also, our building, Opera City, is popular and is easy for the clients to visit. Moreover, we wanted to move to a popular building that acts as a land mark.
Also, we wanted an enough room height to make a studio for testing our audio technology. Having a studio to test our system increased number of visitors.Our current office is a good environment for our employees too since we have restaurants and other useful facilities inside the building.
Demo Room
Social Area
Work Space
Conference Room
We concerned about communication between employees. We created a social area where they can eat lunch together and have a meeting. The view from social area is really nice because there are no other high buildings in neighborhood. We chose relatively low desks so that our staffs can see each other and talk without standing. If they want to talk more deeply, they can move to social area or a conference room. We tried to make various ways to have communication among each other.Our staffs seem to like this environment.
Bamboo-like Glasses
The colors and concepts of interiors are based on certain rules. To brand ourselves as a member of the global company DTS, we used the same color with our logo: orange, yellow, white, and black. Other branch companies are doing the same. At the same time, we wanted to include Japanese elements too. Our meeting room is designed to produce Japanese atmosphere, with glasses in bamboo figures and white Japanese gravels.
We started with a movie theater service and are now shifting to home theater services. Presently, it is common to carry music files and movie files outside the house. We have presented our new product DTS Headphone:X in previous exhibition in Las Vegas. A concept of this product is “Home Theater in your Pocket”. You can experience an audio with 11.1 channels in your headphone. This product adds directions and distances to the sound. People who experienced this audio system surprise for its quality. I hope customers to enjoy their sound from smart phones, tablets, and TV with this product. Producing an entertainment modified to the trends is our prospect.
Thank you for finding a great office! Our staffs and clients love it too.
A wonderful view from the office surprised me. Mr. Kodama, Mr. Ito, thank you for answering our interview. It was a pleasure to hear your talk about sounds and audio systems. I am looking forward to enjoy movies with “Headphone:X”!
Interviewer: Kato