MY SUMMER AGENDA / Honda Motor Co. President Takahiro Hachigo / An unknown ... - The Japan News
” When a relatively unknown executive assumed the top management post of Honda Motor Co. , this question was often asked. The personnel change was an upset, with Hachigo taking the post without having acted as president of Honda R&D Co. , a Honda affiliate seen as a gateway to success as president of Honda’s main company. With Honda having had to cope with recalls of its top-selling FIT compact model and others, the firm’s brand image for technology has been impaired. As the new president, Hachigo was entrusted with a mission to develop automobiles full of individuality — something that had been typical for Honda in the past. New top management executives at many companies tend to express intentions to recognize the importance of those at the front line of operations when assuming their posts, but it is not easy for them to put that promise into practice. When he led a team to develop the U. S. Odyssey model, which was launched in 1999 in North America, he saw staff members of various nationalities engage in fierce discussion and create a better product than expected. “I’ll decide the direction based on opinions of other staff, but I’ll leave the exact ways of creating products entirely to the front line,” he said. Honda’s minivan Step WGN, which was put on sale in April, was completed as a result of “trying to develop a technology that other. Source: the-japan-news.com
