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Home / Posts Tagged "fujifilm"

Tag: fujifilm

Why work for a Japanese company? (#1) Corporate Social Responsibility

For most Japanese companies, despite recent changes to corporate governance and the occasional scandal, the main motivation is the long term survival of the firm, not shareholder value maximisation.

Obviously you have to make some money to invest back into the company to survive, but above all longevity means being a good citizen in the environment and communities you operate in. There are some exceptions to this of course, but by and large, Japanese companies are pretty sincere about corporate social responsibility, to the point where I used to joke when I worked in corporate communications in a Japanese IT company, that if we didn’t watch out, our mission statement would be identical to every other Japanese technology company’s mission statement as it could be summarised as “contributing to society through innovation”.

So if you are looking to work for a company that will be supportive of your wish to make a positive contribution to society, then you may find Japanese companies congenial places to work.

Some are more active in CSR than others, so when Toyo Keizai has published its latest rankings by industry, we matched these to our Top 30 Europe, UK and Germany largest Japanese employers rankings and put them in rank order as below.

As Toyo Keizai points out, it is easier for manufacturers to score highly in their CSR rankings, which is why they dominate the top 50 overall, and also why Toyo Keizai publishes rankings by industry, to ensure like for like comparisons are made.  Banking and financial services are not included in their analysis. Toyo Keizai explains its scoring system (in Japanese) here.  It has around 150 criteria, across the categories of diversity (gender, age, disability), environment, corporate governance and social contribution.

  • Fujifilm – #1 overall and #1 in pulp/paper/chemicals
  • Canon #4 overall and #1 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Denso #8 overall and #1 in automotive
  • Ricoh #9 overall and #3 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Konica Minolta #12 overall and #4 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Honda #14 overall and #2 in automotive
  • Nissan #17 overall and #3 in automotive
  • Daiichi Sankyo #25 overall and #1 in pharmaceuticals
  • Toyota #28 overall and #4 in automotive
  • Fujitsu #30 overall and #9 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Astellas #34 overall and #2 in pharmaceuticals
  • Sumitomo Rubber 36th overall and #2 in oil/rubber/glass/ceramics
  • Mitsubishi Corporation #42 overall and #1 among trading companies
  • Lixil 44th overall and #1 in metal products
  • Sony #45 overall and #12 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Nidec #49 overall and #13 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Takeda #50 overall and #4 in pharmaceuticals
  • Sumitomo Electric Industries #52 overall and #2 in metal products
  • Itochu #55 overall and #2 among trading companies
  • Panasonic #57 overall and #15 in electronics and fine engineering
  • NYK #58 overall and #1 in logistics
  • Japan Tobacco 60th overall, 3rd amongst food companies
  • Brother Industries #71 overall and #16 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Sumitomo Corporation – #73 overall and #3 amongst trading companies
  • NTT Data #75 overall and #4 in telecommunications
  • Olympus #84 overall and #17 in electronics and fine engineering
  • Dentsu #95 overall and #2 out of service sector companies
  • Sumitomo Heavy Industries #138 overall and #11 amongst machinery companies
  • Calsonic Kansei #138 overall and #18 in automotive
  • Fast Retailing (Uniqlo) #531 overall and #19 out of 20 amongst retailers

 

 

 

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Top 30 Japanese employers in France -reflecting France’s traditional strengths

Le quatorze juillet seems a good moment to announce our new Top 30 Japanese companies in France.

The total number of employees covered by the 30 largest Japanese employers in France is 35,000 – lower than the totals employed by the Top 30 in Germany (56,000) and the UK (80,000) but the automotive sector is still dominant with nearly half of the Top 30 being automotive or having some automotive business.  Obviously some of the larger employee groups are related to manufacturing workforces – Toyota, JTEKT and NTN for example.

M&A’s have played a part too – NTN, a bearings company, acquired French company SNR Roulements (which was part of the Renault group) in 2006.  Toyota Tsusho acquired CFAO in 2012 – a trading company with over 10,000 employees in Africa.  Fast Retailing added French brands Princesse Tam Tam and Comptoir des Cotonniers to its retail group alongside Uniqlo.

As you might expect, food and drink companies also feature – Nippon Suisan acquired Cite Marine, and Suntory has its Orangina Schweppes brands based out of France. Ajinomoto is also headquartered in France for the region.

The other key sector is technology, particularly imaging – Canon, Ricoh,Toshiba, Konica Minolta, Olympus and Fujifilm.  Once again, each country’s historical comparative advantage is clear (cars, food, films for France, engineering for Germany and cars, finance and other services for the UK) showing how trade and integrated markets encourage specialisation.

Rank Company France employees 2016
1 Toyota 3,475
2 Ricoh 3,335
3 JTEKT 3,212
4 NTN 4,200
5 Fast Retailing 2,300
6 Canon 2,077
7 Toshiba 1715
8 Konica Minolta 1,250
9 Bridgestone 1,036
10 Horiba 971
11 Nippon Suisan 911
12 Suntory 900
13 Sanden 850
14 Nissan 800
15 Toyota Tsusho 653
16 Ajinomoto 600
17 Yamaha Motor 571
18 U-Shin 553
19 Fujifilm 550
20 Asahi Glass 550
21 Shiseido 550
22 Amada 519
23 Dentsu 485
24 Toray 456
25 Fujitsu 450
26 Olympus 450
27 Otsuka Pharma 449
28 Toyota Boshoku 440
29 Kubota 353
30 NTT 350
TOTAL 35,011

 

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Japanese automotive companies represent 1/3 of top 30 Japanese employers in the UK

Fujitsu continues to be the largest Japanese employer in the UK despite recent restructuring.  We’ve added Sumitomo Rubber to the list, following its recent acquisition of UK tyre wholesaler and retailer Micheldever.  Along with Kwik Fit, another UK tyre dealer and car servicing company is owned by Itochu at #3, this means that over a third of the companies in the list are automotive or have a substantial automotive component to their business.

We’ve also revised upwards our estimate of the total number of Mitsubishi Corporation employees, having confirmed from various sources that its main subsidiary in the UK, Princes, the foods company, has around 3000 of its 8000 employees in its UK operations.

The top 30 now cover around 80,000 of the 140,000 employees that Japanese companies in the UK employ.  Individual profiles of each company, including trends in employment, regional headquarters, European organisation and CSR and diversity analyses are available – please contact pernilledotrudlinatrudlinconsultingdotcom

Rank Company UK employees 2016
1 Fujitsu 9,905
2 Nissan 7,657
3 Itochu 6,697
4 Honda 4,565
5 Ricoh 3,702
6 Mitsubishi Corp 3,482
7 Hitachi 3,317
8 Toyota 3,233
9 Sony 2,937
10 Canon 2,744
11 Dentsu 2,571
12 Nomura 2,468
13 NSG 2,167
14 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Goup 2,100
15 Denso 1,925
16 NYK Group 1,919
17 Mitsui Sumitomo & Aioi Nissay Dowa 1,867
18 Yazaki 1,846
19 Calsonic Kansei 1,729
20 SoftBank 1,700
21 Sumitomo Rubber 1,574
22 JT Group 1,473
23 Sumitomo Corporation 1,366
24 Fujifilm Holdings 1,292
25 Brother Industries 1,174
26 Olympus 1,157
27 Fast Retailing 1,100
28 Unipres 1,095
29 Konica Minolta 1,055
30 NSK 866
TOTAL 80,683

For more content like this, subscribe to the free Rudlin Consulting Newsletter. 最新の在欧日系企業の状況については無料の月刊Rudlin Consulting ニューズレターにご登録ください。

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Fewer women on the boards of Japanese companies in Europe than in Japan

We’ve revised our Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe again.  Where possible we have updated the number of employees, which means the Suntory Group is now in the Top 30 along with Konica Minolta (and Kao and Daiichi Sankyo are out).  This time we wanted to take a look at the gender and nationality diversity on boards, both in Japan and Europe, and have discovered that there are actually fewer women on the boards of Japanese companies in Europe than in Japan.

Only two out of 19 (10%) of European headquarter boards of Japanese companies have women on them – Astellas and Suntory (the latter including Makiko Ono, an executive in Suntory Japan) and only 3 of the 14 (21%) UK based Japanese companies we looked at (in cases where the European HQ was not in the UK or there were separate European and UK companies in the UK) had women members – Lucite (subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Holding/Mitsubishi Rayon), Komatsu and NTT Data.  Komatsu UK’s female director is Keiko Fujiwara, who is the CEO of Komatsu Europe, in Belgium.  This contrasts with 13 (43%) out of the Top 30 companies’ boards in Japan  having women directors.  In case you were wondering, only 6% of FTSE250 companies have no women on them.

  • 4% of the Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe’s board members in Europe and/or the UK are female
  • 6% of the Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe’s board members in Japan are female
  • 8% of the Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe’s board members in Japan are non-Japanese
  • 16% of the board members of the Top 100 listed Japanese companies in Japan are female
  • 19.6% of FTSE250 board members are female

Around 62% of the members of European and UK boards of of the Top 30 Japanese companies are European, on average.  Companies whose boards in the UK and Europe only had Japanese directors were Toshiba, Fast Retailing (Uniqlo), Fujifilm and Sharp. Sharp and Toshiba’s troubles are well known.  Fast Retailing recently reported struggles in the US market and falling profits in Europe for Uniqlo, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princess Tam Tam. Fujifilm has made a remarkable transformation from a B2C camera film to a B2B imaging company but the last set of quarterly results, issued last month were deemed “mixed”.

(Note: only main boards, not executive or supervisory boards were analysed, and company secretaries were excluded)

The full chart is here (highlighted means “above average) and can be downloaded here :Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe board diversity Nov 3 2015

Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe board diversity Nov 3 2015

 

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Octopus balls to Tokyo – why it matters where your company is from in Japan

Most countries have rival cities – usually the official capital city versus other cities which consider themselves to be the real business, historical or cultural heart of the country – think London versus Manchester or Birmingham, Berlin versus Dusseldorf or Frankfurt, Rome versus Milan, Madrid versus Barcelona.  Japan is no exception and the rivalries go way back into history.

Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan, before Tokyo (or Edo as it was then) began to usurp it in the 17th century.  If you ask Japanese people today about Kyoto, they joke that Kyotoites still think Kyoto is the real capital of Japan, and the Emperor is just temporarily visiting Tokyo (he moved there in 1868, when Tokyo became the official capital) – and will return one day.

Tokyo literally means the Eastern Capital and is part of the Kanto region, where the ruling feudal Tokugawa shogunate was based from the 17th century.  Kanto means East of the Barrier (usually considered to be the Hakone checkpoint) and Kansai – the region where Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto are based – means the West of the Barrier (originally the Osaka Tollgate).

Before Kyoto’s reign as capital for a 1000 years, Nara (also in the Kansai region) was the capital and seat of the Emperor but is now a quiet backwater, more visited by tourists than business people.  Kobe is the other main city in the Kansai region – a port with a strongly cosmopolitan feel and very close to Osaka geographically.  Whilst Kyoto remains aloof and quietly superior (and has some very successful high tech companies of its own such as Kyocera and Nidec), the real battle now in business culture is between Osaka and Tokyo.

Osakans see Tokyo as standardizing, dull and full of bureaucrats and view Osaka (which historically had very few samurai but plenty of merchants) as the real money maker, with vastly superior food.  Many of Japan’s celebrities, comedians and musicians come from the Kansai region too.

So what does this mean for corporate cultures?  Osaka companies often have merchant roots – the joke goes, when you meet an Osakan, you don’t ask “how are you” (ogenki desuka) but “how’s business” (moukarimakka).  To which the correct response is “bochi bochi denna” – a wonderfully vague way of giving nothing away, like saying “plodding along nicely thank you”.  Osaka companies are brash, tough negotiators and mean with the money.  “They’d skin the fleece off a gnat” said one British engineer to me, describing his colleagues in the Osaka HQ of a consumer electronics company.

Tokyo companies are gentlemanly but at the same time highly political.  You need to have a good understanding of their organisation, the factions and the individual relationships to understand how to get things done.  Mitsui and Mitsubishi, both Tokyo based corporate groups, are distinguished by the saying “Mitsui  is people – Mitsubishi is the organisation”.  It’s hard sometimes to understand how exactly this is different, but it seems to boil down to the idea that if an individual is powerful enough at a Mitsui group company, they can get things done, whereas at a Mitsubishi group company, the whole organisation has to support an action.

The other main corporate groups, Sumitomo and Itochu, are Kansai based companies.  Both have strong “mercantile” roots – Sumitomo in metals trading, hard-nut, conservative and domestically focused and Itochu – strong in fashion and consumer goods, and seen as the more maverick, progressive and international in outlook.  The regional cultural differences don’t seem to have been that strong between Sumitomo and Mitsui as various mergers have taken place between their respective member companies, particularly in financial services.   However regional cultural differences have definitely had an impact on Astellas Pharma, the product of a merger between Yamanouchi (Tokyo) and Fujisawa (Osaka).  Apparently many Fujisawa employees were horrified that Yamanouchi was going to be the dominant partner in the merger.  Fujisawa had a strong tradition of innovation and had regarded Yamanouchi as “Mane-nouchi” (Mane = imitation) – a bunch of play-safe Tokyo bureaucrats.

Those who know Japan well will have spotted that there is an important region missing from this analysis – Chubu.  Literally and metaphorically this is the midlands of Japan.  Just like the Midlands in the UK it is the historic heart of the car industry.  Nagoya is the main city, and teased just as Birmingham in the UK is for being ugly and soullessly modern.  The area has the last laugh though, as it is the most wealthy in Japan – thanks to the enduring success of Toyota (so mighty their home town was renamed Toyota City) and its corporate group of suppliers such as Denso.

So, where are the top 30 Japanese companies in Europe from?

Kanto/Tokyo based companies:

• Asahi Glass
• Astellas (but Fujisawa originally Osaka)
• Canon
• Daiichi Sankyoshutterstock_36509791
• Fujifilm
• Fujitsu
• Hitachi
• Honda
• Kao Corporation
• Mitsubishi group
• Mitsui group
• Nissan
• Nomura (but was Osaka originally)
• NTT group
• NYK group
• Olympus
• Ricoh
• Sony
• Toshiba

Kansai based companies:
• Horiba (Kyoto)
• Nidec (Kyoto)
• Nippon Sheet Glass (Sumitomo Group)
• Omron (Kyoto)
• Panasonic (Osaka)
• Sharp (Osaka)
• Sumitomo group (Osaka)
• Takeda Pharma (Osaka)

Chubu based companies:
• Denso
• Seiko Epson
• Toyota

Chugoku (Hiroshima etc) based companies:

• Fast Retailing/Uniqlo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe 2021

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Why everyone loves Nidec’s Nagamori – M&A and ningenryoku

Nidec’s President Shigenobu Nagamori has just been voted the Presidents’ President by other Japanese CEOs in the Nikkei Business magazine.  Nidec, known as Nippon Densan in Japan, is a manufacturer of electric motors found in hard disk drives, household appliances and other equipment.

Around 90% of their 100,000 or so employees are overseas – mostly in ex-Japan Asia, but with nearly 3000 in Europe, they make it into our Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe, nudging out another company that is a quiet Japanese success, Horiba.  See below for the updated chart*.

Nagamori founded the company in 1973 with three colleagues, and has a reputation for being outspoken and unafraid – most recently  hitting the headlines for hiring ex President of Sharp, Mikio Katayama as technology chief, despite his having been pushed aside for his perceived failures there.

Rooting around on the web reveals Nidec feels different from other Japanese companies – for a start many of its Japanese executives in Europe are on LinkedIn.  It is also very transparent and clear about the company and what it stands for (although I am not entirely convinced by the slogan “all for dreams”), and 6 of its 9 strong management team come from other companies.

Nidec decided to focus on the auto industry recently, and to that end acquired the motor and actuator business of the French company Valeo and Italian company ASI, which explains the large number of Italian operations. This talent for M&A was the factor that Nagamori was most highly rated for by his peers, along with the untranslatable “ningenryoku” – literally meaning human strength, skills or ability as opposed to technical skills – perhaps we’d call this leadership, or interpersonal skills, EQ even, in the West.

Nidec’s Japanese roots are still obvious though –  “Employment stability based on sustainable business growth” is cited as its top management creed.

Other Top 30 Best Presidents whose companies are also in the Top 30 in Europe are Akio Toyoda (Toyota) at #3, Shigetaka Komori (Fujifilm) at #5, Hiroaki Nakanishi (Hitachi) at #15, Kazuhiro Tsuga (Panasonic) at #17=, Yoshimitsu Kobayashi (Mitsubishi Chemical Holding) #17=, Carlos Ghosn (Nissan) at #17= and Fujio Mitarai (Canon) at #30

*Seven years on, Nidec now employs over 13,000 people in Europe.  Our latest Top 30 Japanese employers in Europe is here:

Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe 2021

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Reputation and rankings fall for most Japanese companies – Reptrak 2013

Just as with RepTrak 2012, Canon and Sony continue to be the only two Japanese companies in the Global Top Ten, with Sony falling from #2 to #6 and Canon up one place from #9 to #8. Apple and Volkswagen have dropped out of the top 10, with Rolex and Nestle replacing them.

The survey is based on 55,000 interviews with consumers in 15 countries, for 100 companies who have above average reputation in their home market 2006-2012, a global footprint in production/distribution and a high familiarity with consumers in 15 countries.  Companies are scored on responses as to whether the consumer would buy the product, recommend the product, welcome in their community, would work for, would invest in the company.

Canon and Sony have both maintained their RepTrak Pulse Score at the same level as 2012, but all other Japanese companies have seen their scores fall from last years’ levels. Yet again Sony gets all its love from Europe.  Asian consumers favour BMW, Microsoft, Rolex, Disney and Apple.

There are twelve more Japanese companies outside the top ten:

  • Bridgestone is at #28 (up from #34, but actual RepTrak Pulse Score is down from 73.35 to 71.88)
  • Panasonic #32 (down from #14)
  • Honda #35 (down from #22)
  • Nintendo #36 (down from #32)
  • Toyota #37 (same as 2012)
  • Toshiba #55 (down from #52)
  • Fujifilm #59 (down from #43)
  • Sharp #73 (down from #68)
  • Nissan #83 (down from #62)  Biggest fall in rank and score.
  • Suzuki Motor #85 (up from #88 but RepTrak Pulse Score has fallen from 67.34 to 65.53)
  • Hitachi #89 (down from #79)
  • Fujitsu #96 (down from #85)

 

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Japanese Industrial Policy redux

I expect we’re going to see a lot more of these kind of announcements under the new Abe government: “Japan To Push Low-Cost Satellite Launches“($) (I bet this was a civil service/private sector plan put on the back burner under the DPJ, who did not like funding these kinds of big technology plans) and “Government Eyes Public Funds to Aid Manufacturing“($) (government plans to buy and lease back old plant to Japanese companies, so they can invest the money freed up in R&D or capital equipment – not exactly a market centric solution.)

My old mentor, Yorihiko Kojima, (now chairman of Mitsubishi Corporation)’s name keeps cropping up too.  He’s in the frame for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce top job apparently, and (as  detailed in a more than usually revealing article from the Nikkei) is part of the Sakura-kai, of top executives from Fujifilm, Mitsubishi Heavy, JR, Hitachi etc that had met with Abe or his advisors at least three times last year.  Under the previous Abe government, there was a predecessor group,’Kisetsu no kai’ mainly of people who had been at Tokyo University together, including former LDP politician  Kaoru Yosano.  And I well remember from  my Mitsubishi days that Abe’s older brother sat just around the corner on my floor in the Tokyo HQ, running the beer team I think.

It’s easy to see this as  reactionary old cronies getting together, reforming the Iron Triangle, I suppose, but if Kojima-san himself is anything to go by, there could well be some progressive influences coming to the fore too.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the announcements about getting more women into government and the LDP leadership didn’t have some private sector urging behind it from people like Kojima-san, and I wonder if there might be some more progressive, immigration and globalization friendly policies being tested out soon too.

 

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Last updated by Pernille Rudlin at 2021-10-13.

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