Manish Sharma, Chairman and CEO of Panasonic India named the series’s Transformation of Panasonic India’, reveals the history of the company and talks about the various development opportunities for the future. Sharma has held many management roles supervising different objectives of the business since joining in 2008.
1972 officially Panasonic came to India .but it was started in 1994 when the foreign direct investment regulations were moderate that Panasonic became a wholly-owned subsidiary in India. Panasonic made several investments at that time and was a strong player until around 2000. Then Panasonic decided to change some businesses around consumer appliances and mobile phones globally. Some of these products were popular in India.
Rejoining Panasonic in India produce revenue ten times more than in 2007 and at the time, the majority of business was coming from televisions. Looking back from their re-entry in 2008, he divides these 13 years into three different phases and laid under the direction of their Chairman Daizo Ito san.
The first phase between 2008 and 2011 was about to breaks the re-entry barriers and challenges to satisfy the stakeholders. Now Panasonic is serious about the Indian market. The second challenge was Panasonic initially known as a mom-and-pop brand but 65% of the Indian population is below the age of 35. So, they had to dislocate themselves to become a household brand with a youthful image.
For the first three years they did huge marketing, regular meetings with their business partners showcasing their products and values through these kinds of activities, the brand grew aggressively both on reputation and revenue.
Then the next stage was about establishing supply chain regulations in the country. They expanded manufacturing in the country and set up three factories in 2012. And establish distribution in line with increasing our reach into the country.
Then the last phase was about innovating products and solutions, which are customized for the Indian market. They needed to customize products and have developed a lot of products customized for the Indian market – a series of televisions called ‘Sound for India’ was developed. There was also a dedicated product which they designed in collaboration with Japan’s R&D team called ‘Cube Air Conditioners‘.
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