Hiroshi Kobayashi acts as Managing Director for SEKISUI Europe B.V. (SEBV) since the beginning of 2018. We met him at his office in Roermond, Netherlands, to talk about his plans, his tasks and the future of SEKISUI’s business in Europe.
Working for a global company like SEKISUI has a lot of advantages. There are subsidiaries all over the world and you can roll out businesses internationally. But that comes with some issues: how to communicate correctly with employees of different countries? How to translate guidance from the parent company correctly? And how to act the right way in everyday international business?
SEKISUI is expanding its production capacities for laminated glass films in the automotive sector at its Dutch sites in Geleen and Roermond. A total of 155 million euros will be invested in the construction activities, which started on April 3, 2018 with a ground-breaking ceremony.
From October 2017 to February 2018, the Japanese SEKISUI Safety Group carried out safety audits at 6 European production sites in order to further improve the safety of European employees in the workplace.
SEKISUI QESH Managers are responsible for plant development in terms of Quality, Environment, Safety and Health. In February, the “E” was the most important letter on their agenda. They met for the third time in Spain at SEKISUI Specialty Chemicals to learn from Japanese colleagues about the current environmental plans and how to implement them.
On 23 December – just before Christmas – SEKISUI S-Lec celebrated its 20th anniversary in Efteling, the largest theme park in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in Europe.
Every year at the beginning of spring, the cherry blossoms turn Japan upside down for a few weeks. While the whole country transforms into a pink-white sea of cherry blossoms, the Japanese celebrate the blooming with their families, friends and colleagues in the open air with a so-called Hanami.
Overall, there are three important things, if you are working in an intercultural environment like a European SEKISUI company. First of all, you must have business skills to represent your position. Then, you need local language skills and of course English language skills to understand your co-workers. And last but not least, you should own intercultural communication skills to interact successfully with everyone you’ll meet in your business. But how do you get these skills?
