Hello everyone. This is Takayuki Kondo. I traveled on business to Russia from 4th April to 13th April. Main purpose of the trip is meeting with our customers and market research.
Most of our customers were from the Far East of Russia 4 or 5 years ago. However, we have gained new customers from Siberia and European Russia in the last few years. I mainly visited the new customers this time.
Russia is vast. I traveled 7,260 km in total in this trip. The total length of Japan is about 3, 000 km, so as if I traveled round Japan two and half times. I learned that about 90 percent of the vehicles were left hand drive in the western area such as Moscow though 90 percent of the vehicles were right hand drive in the eastern area. As for tires, studded tires, which are prohibited in Japan, are still used in Russia.
As for sales of used auto parts, it’s well systemized with computer technology. In the largest auto parts sales site in Russia, 915 companies are registered and 68 million auto parts are up for sale.
I felt that many of our Russian customers cared about qualities of engines, and visualization with such computer system led to this trend. I also confirmed that quality engines were sold for about 10 percent higher price. We inspect all engines based on our JRS standard. I was convinced that our way of business fit with the times. I also had a new idea of our KRA system.
Through this trip, I felt importance of “Three Reals Philosophy” (The actual place, the actual part, and the actual situation). There are things that I can understand by going to actual places, and there is information that I can hear from customers on site. I will continue to listen to actual voices of customers and work hard with our staff to be a company which pleases our customers.