India identified as the centerpiece of future for the company: investing Rs. 1,500 crores towards expansion in the next three years
April 30th 2013, India – Panasonic Corporation President Mr. Kazuhiro Tsuga revealed the strategic outlook for the company in Mumbai which encompassed company restructuring plans and the areas which the group will be focusing on going forward. With these changes, the new management system is expected to speed up decision-making and enable business operations from the viewpoint of customers, with divisions handling everything from product development to manufacturing and sales. In this major initiative to reshape the electronics company, he also talked about the new company vision of creating ‘A Better Life, A Better World’. It is a vision that requires the commitment, involvement and collaboration of all the company’s stakeholders.
Identifying India and Brazil as the centerpiece of the future, Mr. Tsuga emphasized on driving growth by B2C businesses and profitability by focusing on B2B business specific to Energy, Security and devices to service the ever growing infrastructure of Indian market. The key strategy for fueling even more aggressive growth in India is to accelerate product developments and business promotion in order to meet the local needs.
Addressing the media, Mr. Kazuhiro Tsuga, President and Member of the Board of Directors, Panasonic Corporation said, “Always making "people" central to our activities, and thereby focusing on "people’s lives," we will continue to provide better living for our customers. This is the unchanging commitment we at Panasonic have had over many years and we are aiming to pursue the concept of "A Better Life a Better World," meeting the needs of each individual customer. We will leverage the strengths that we at Panasonic have long developed, and the strengths of our business partners who have in-depth expertise in each space, and will work to combine these strengths to create new value. As we continue to carry out these activities, we will make a robust recovery as a unique company, a company unlike any other in the world.”
Talking about India he added, “I am highly inspired by India’s vibrant energy and high market potential. As people here are truly committed to the Panasonic business– this has cascaded in our commitment and focus for the region. India is a high growth market for us globally; hence we are planning investment in this region on products, talent, marketing and manufacturing. There will be a sound focus on local manufacturing and expansion of production processes and the company will continue focusing on developing India-specific product innovations as well as Eco and Smart Solutions catering to domestic needs. Despite the consumer durables segment being challenging, Panasonic has successfully made inroads into household in India and with the implementation of the new management plan, we are sure that Panasonic will evenly grow in the enterprise segment as well”.
Pursuing the localization strategy in India, the company believes that business growth, modification of business, people, products and content should satisfy both the language and cultural differences of the targeted market. While working on providing localized products, there is a huge emphasis on local manufacturing going forward to meet up with the competitive Indian market. The philosophy has been to not simply import products from other countries, but should be specially customized for the Indian consumers keeping the local needs and conditions in mind and this has been the purpose of building the Technopark factory in Jhajjar to create products specific to the Indian market. It is this pillar of Localization that the company has done consistently well in the consumer electronics and home appliances segments.
With the government proactive to develop a framework to bring major transformation in the ecosystem to promote local manufacturing, Panasonic is keen to work together with other Indian companies with the aim to fuel the growth process. This coupled with the intent of bringing in Japanese expertise of product development and research is one of the reasons that during his three day visit, Mr. Tsuga also met business heads of Indian conglomerates like The Tata Group and Reliance Industries Limited.
Panasonic India President Mr. Daizo Ito’s vision entails making Panasonic, an Indian company in India and under his aegis and guidance to drive empowerment through localization of Panasonic India’s leadership, for the first time ever the company recently appointed an Indian to lead its consumer durables as well as enterprise business in the country- Mr. Manish Sharma, erstwhile Managing Director of the Consumer Product Division of Panasonic India. This appointment is thus a part of the strategy of localization & empowerment making India a global talent hub whereby some potential executives can take up global leadership roles.
Panasonic in India is tuning itself to this global announcement so as to deliver on the mandate. Having done extremely well in the consumer business, and keeping in line with the new global business plan, Panasonic India now has a renewed focus on the B2B and B2G business. It is aiming of doubling the contribution of B2B segment to Panasonic’s overall revenue by 2015 and will be introducing new product ranges in this segment mainly in the Energy Solutions (products for creating, storing and saving energy), security and surveillance systems andsolutions products and will also be looking at collaborating with Indian enterprises for the same. The company is all geared up to soon enter the IT products segment considering the existing demand and requirement across the diverse population in India.
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