Always Reaching Higher - Yokogawa Centennial Booklet
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Formation of a joint venture in Xian, ChinaYokogawa bought Electrofact, a Dutch company, in 1982Yokogawa Corporation of AmericaYokogawa KeonicsYokogawa Electric Asia48throughout the world.To make this dynamic strategy a success, detailed guidelines needed to be shared among all employees. In October 1973, Yokogawa issued an in-house newsletter describing its policy for managing Group companies outside Japan and urged all employees to understand and follow it.The policy emphasized the “spirit of mutual benet,” under which Japanese employees helped other countries develop and share prots locally. Other major objectives were to train local employees and appoint them to managerial posts for true localization. This covered processes ranging from the machining of parts to their assembly and distribution worldwide in order to secure high quality and add high value. With the spirit of mutual benet, Japanese employees both in and outside Japan overcame many hardships in developing business globally. As a result, Yokogawa earned the trust of local employees and customers and Group companies outside Japan came to operate autonomously.In the late 1970s, Yokogawa entered the non-Japan control market by engaging in the high value-added DCS engineering business on a full-scale basis. However, to win customers’ trust in the control business, it was essential to hire capable local people who were responsible for all operations, from sales and engineering to after-sales services. In addition, it was necessary to establish a system to enable non-Japan Group companies to get support from Yokogawa Electric Corporation. This required a major investment and was a dicult hurdle to overcome.Nevertheless, Yokogawa established its rst non-Japan engineering subsidiary in Singapore in 1986, and then expanded in Southeast Asia and South Asia, followed by other areas.In those days, Japanese engineering companies were entering overseas markets because the Japanese market was stagnant. By working with such companies, Yokogawa also expanded its own business overseas. Moreover, the merger with Hokushin provided many employees who were experienced in international business, while the appreciation of the yen made it easier for Yokogawa to expand abroad. Takashi Yamanaka, who became president of Yokogawa in 1988, also strived to expand outside Japan while strengthening sales organizations in Japan.Japan had enjoyed a thriving economy since 1986, but in early 1990, stock prices began to plunge, followed by land prices, which then hit the real economy hard. The bursting of the bubble economy drove the Japanese economy into a long, dark tunnel that has been called the “two lost decades.”Yokogawa’s History —— Chapter 3Takashi Yamanaka

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