Research & Development

Kao’s R&D aims to do more than simply improve product performance and quality. Our goal is to create the value that consumers, customers, and society truly need through our unique technologies. To achieve this, Kao places particular emphasis on combining Technology-Out and Precision Market-In. Technology-Out is an approach that generates new mechanisms through fundamental research, while Precision Market-In focuses on defining the value that consumers and customers truly seek.
By moving back and forth between these two approaches, Kao develops distinctive solutions and implements them as products, services, and solutions that are needed around the world.

This value creation is supported by the two complementary pillars: fundamental technology research and product development research. Fundamental technology research seeks to deeply understand the essential nature of materials, phenomena, and people, while continuously creating and refining Kao’s unique core technologies. Product development research draws on deep understanding and insights into consumers and society to connect these technologies to products and services and create new value. Importantly, these two areas do not operate independently; they continuously interact and reinforce one another.

One of Kao’s strengths is its ability to link and evolve the core technologies generated through this cycle across businesses and product categories. At the center of these capabilities is Precision Interface Control Technology, which creates value across a wide range of fields, including cleansing, the delivery of care ingredients, modification of fiber surfaces, and semiconductor manufacturing processes. Kao further redesigns and implements these technologies in ways that reflect local lifestyles, usage conditions, and social issues. This ability to adapt and deliver technology in the most appropriate form for each market is a key element of Kao’s research strategy for driving global growth.

Based on consumer research that seeks to deeply understand the lives and needs of consumers around the world, we advance product design and applied technology development.

To create products that deliver truly meaningful value, we pursue advanced research across a wide range of fields to uncover the fundamental mechanisms of materials and phenomena.