Honda Malaysia has named Toichi Ishiyama as its new managing director and chief executive officer, replacing Katsuto Hayashi, who assumed the role for one and a half years. Ishiyama-san will officially assume office on November 1, 2017, where he will relinquish his current role as president and CEO of Honda Atlas Cars in Pakistan.
With a career in Honda that spans 25 years, Ishiyama-san has served various roles in countries like Japan, USA, Thailand, China and Pakistan. The 48-year-old brings with him more than 20 years of experience in researching markets and product planning to continue Honda Malaysia’s strong momentum.
This year, the company is aiming to hit its target of 100,000 units in sales, and Ishiyama-san believes the strategy put in place by his predecessor will be a successful one. Under Hayashi-san’s leadership, Honda Malaysia has strengthened its position as the number one manufacturer in the non-national segment and number two in overall total industry volume (TIV).
The company’s strong performance includes having the highest-ever domestic market share in Malaysia as well as the largest (within each country) among all of Honda’s global operations – a feat recorded in January 2017, at 19.2%. More recently, the company achieved the highest local market share in its history in March 2017, at 20.5%.
During Hayashi-san’s tenure, models like the tenth-generation Civic, fifth-generation CR-V, BR-V as well as the refreshed Jazz and City, were introduced the Malaysians. The last two models were made available with the Sport Hybrid i-DCD system, making Malaysia the only country outside of Japan to offer the hybrid powertrain. Coming soon will be the fifth-generation Civic Type R, with order books now open for the fastest front-wheel-drive car on the Nurburgring.
Hayashi-san will move on from Malaysia too begin his new role as the general manager of Overseas Operation Division (Americas) and Regional Operation (North America) at Honda in Japan. We at paultan.org wish him all the best.
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Not to forget, Honda is now ranked bottom last in JD power. Honda owners clearly not happy with the way Honda treated it’s customers. Unlike Toyota, who is ranked no 1 in customer satisfaction for 2 years in a row.
If not actions taken now, things can go for the worse.
The wind is shifting back from H to T again…
Number One in terms of sales and market share in bolehland but built quality and aftersales still like garbage compared to other Jap competitors.
Honda is truly a polarizing Japanese brand with excellent and shitbox products rolled into one.
Malaysians in general are forever blinded by their powerful Big H branding.
Kudos to HM Jepunis mgmt! Banzai!
It’s all very well to sell more cars. However Honda Malaysia has failed miserably in terms of after sales service. The whole experience of owning a Honda is ruined as soon as you enter a (Penang) Honda Service Centre. The reception staff are inefficient, they do not smile and keep you on edge. When you highlight an issue (car fault) to be looked into, they ignore it. The service is over priced for what you get. And oh yes, the waiting room is 3rd world, inferior coffee/tea machine. Let’s hope the new CEO can fix it before it fixes him. Take care, the competition is going to eat Honda up for breakfast. Wait till 2019.
Neutral
how to smile when work pressure is high.
Honda has one of the worst after sales service. Not to mention the amount of cabin rattling and poor use of plastics.My new CRV has 2 different grades of plastics, front door is soft touch while the back door is horrible hard scratchy plastics.
Congratulations Hayashi-san. Indeed a well deserved promotion. No mean feat to achieve what you have done here in Malaysia in such a short span of time.
I foresee a high flyer in you and wish you the best of luck in your future career prospects. It would not surprise me should you end up being a very senior executive someday in the future.
Remember us Malaysians fondly and do come back to visit.
Toyota SA so desperate spewing hatred here.
Malu betul