In March 1979, the Osaka/Tokyo overseas departments and the China trade promotion office were merged into the newly established overseas division. By centralizing overseas development, which had previously been handled by different sales divisions, the company sought to rationalize operations and improve sales efficiency, and to promote internationalization by stimulating overseas activities through broad cooperation within the company.
Up to that point, local subsidiaries had been established in Singapore (1976) and New York (1978), followed by representative offices in Beijing (1980), Guangzhou, and Tianjin (1981) in China. (Please refer to the April, July, and October issues of Inaho in 2021)
Afterwards, the company continued to expand its overseas offices to San Francisco, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Hong Kong, and actively promoted overseas expansion, seeking new themes and projects in collaboration with each sales team.
In the late 1980s, the yen appreciated sharply, and Japanese manufacturers shifted production to Southeast Asia and built new overseas plants one after another, expanding business opportunities for our company.
From April 1990, in order to strengthen its functions, the overseas division was divided into groups by product instead of by region. In the fiscal year ended March 1991, 13 years after its establishment, imports and exports totaled approximately 27 billion yen, accounting for more than 10% of total company sales. At this point, the company had 27 overseas offices in 12 countries.
In October 1997, the overseas business structure was reorganized. The overseas division was dissolved, and a new international division was established. In 1999, each sales division was reorganized to conduct import/export business, and the following year, the international division was transformed into the overseas management office, which was responsible for the overall management of these operations.
As overseas expansion became a regular occurrence and the boundary between domestic and overseas business gradually disappeared, we came into contact with the domestic bases of our clients. At the same time, we have established a business style of responding to customer needs by quickly ascertaining overseas information through close collaboration with each overseas base. In particular, the plastics division, which has expanded the production of resin compounds locally overseas, has further accelerated its internationalization by having a wealth of information on overseas markets, resulting in a significant contribution to the expansion of its business.
