Yanmar relocates marine recreational HQ to Europe

In a double break with traditional Japanese business practices, Yanmar Marine International commenced the relocation of its marine recreational engine business headquarters from Osaka, Japan to Almere in the Netherlands, and has recruited young Japanese businesswoman, Shiori Nagata, as its first president, with effect from 1^st January this year.

About 40km to the east of Amsterdam, Almere has been home to Yanmar Europe B.V. since 1988, when it opened a new distribution hub serving the many market sectors for Yanmar diesel engines including Russia, Europa and Africa. Final assembly of marine diesel engines up to 260mhp, in the Yanmar range which extends to 480mph, is also carried out there. However, the Dutch business unit has now also become the administrative, sales and marketing headquarters for its global marine business.

Shiori Nagata, who has been appointed to head the business, joins Yanmar following a career in management consultancy and business leadership. According to Yanmar, in her new role she has been assigned the task of globally reorganising the marine recreational division, Yanmar Marine International, and managing its transition from a product-oriented company to one that's market-driven.

She commented, "My current assignment is to revitalise Yanmar’s marine recreational business, double its sales and establish the Yanmar brand globally."

Part of this, she added, is "to help change Yanmar’s corporate culture and way of thinking, making it faster, more effective, proactive, innovative and creative and thus turning Yanmar into a leading global company.

“My challenge is to ensure that we leverage our standing in the market by getting up closer to the needs of our OEM and end-user customers so that we respond quickly to their demands and be ahead of the curve as new market trends develop. Until recently, that approach has not always been the way with Japanese manufacturers, who in the past have tended to be more remote from their customers and delegate market interaction to their distributors."

For more information on the company, visit Yanmar.