Meet HCME President Takaharu Ikeda

Hitachi Construction Machinery (Europe) NV’s (HCME) President Ikeda has offered insight into his first year in this important role – and his goals for the company moving forward. Ikeda-san was appointed as both HCME President and Chairman of the Management Board back in April 2021. He had worked with HCM across Asia and North America for almost 40 years prior to this move and has an Economics degree from Keio University.

A brand in demand

As European demand for construction equipment rose by 35% in the year Ikeda-san took over the Presidency, HCME’s focus was to grow its market share across the continent. With the boom that followed the pandemic, he was keen that HCM in Japan was able to meet the production demands for Europe and become a key player in this competitive market.

Ikeda-san believes that “Europe is a very advanced market with its off-highway machine emissions regulations and embrace of machine ICT [information communication technology] solution”. He adds: “I want HCME to be seen in the European market as the number one reliable and high-quality equipment solutions supplier.”

Focussing on the little things

President Ikeda is focussed on supplying smaller, hybrid power machines to the dealers and customers in Europe, in the short term. A sustainable focus is key to this strategy, as well as reducing purchase costs: “Hitachi Construction Machinery is carrying out research into hydrogen engines. And our hybrid and battery-powered machines also represent our contribution to reducing the carbon footprint of our wheeled loaders and crawler excavators.”

And plans were immediately put into place for the customer-facing side of the company too: “When I arrived at HCME, I wanted to expand our parts and servicing, and rental businesses. Both of those businesses can give our customers a lifetime relationship with us, lower their machine life-cycle costs and give us sustainability in what can be a fluctuating market.”

Europe-centric

In 2021, Ikeda-san’s first goal was to alter production within Europe, to meet demand and focus more on machine assembly and production efficiency. Because of these changes, European orders for medium and large excavators are now supplied by HCM in Japan.

The HCME President has already taken huge strides to modernise HCME’s function within the European market and has even more ambitions for the next few years. He opts for a hands-on approach to management and says: “I enjoy all aspects of the business, including discussing with our engineers what kind of issues they have, the machine development processes required, and exactly what kind of machines our customers need.”

If you’ve enjoyed this insight, you can read President Ikeda’s full interview with Aggregates Business here: www.aggbusiness.com/feature/ready-boom-time.