Takeuchi: From World First to World Leader

By June 20, 2017Older Posts, News

Clay EubankTakeuchi was built on innovation more than 50 years ago in Japan, and that commitment continues today with five group companies worldwide (Japan, U.S., U.K., France and China). Now, all of these locations are working together through a single global vision: strengthening the Takeuchi brand.

Each Takeuchi location has the responsibility of operating and conducting business in their own region. However, in 2016 it was decided the U.S. operations would take on training and marketing global initiatives in order to build upon the already well-known Takeuchi brand.

History of Innovation

Our global initiative is, in part, Takeuchi tying back to its roots. Our innovative home office has a proud history. And it all started with one concept that changed the landscape of the construction industry: the TB1000 compact excavator.

Before this machine, site developers used pickaxes and shovels to dig house foundations. Takeuchi founder, Mr. Akio Takeuchi, knew this process needed to be mechanized, so he went to work designing the world’s first excavator in 1970. This concept not only put Takeuchi on the map, but also led to one of the highest growth product segments ever introduced in the compact equipment market.

Over a decade later, Takeuchi had another major announcement: the first compact track loader (CTL). The CTL was created due to a major drawback with skid steer loaders (SSL). SSLs were not only unable to work in the rain, but potentially up to a week afterwards, creating downtime and lost profit. With a better footing compared to the rubber tires on an SSL, the tracks on CTLs allowed them to work through storms. Today, CTL sales have surpassed SSLs.

From World First to World Leader

For many years, “Those in the Know, Know Takeuchi” was our U.S. tagline. With the new structure in place, we adopted a new Global tagline, “From World First to World Leader.” This aligns better as we move forward as a company.

To move forward as a world leader, we first established a new global website (in addition to our U.S. website, not a replacement). The site helps promote our presence as well as add consistency across the globe. You can also find our corporate video “Takeuchi’s Story, History through Evolution” that features great footage of our machines and an interview with Mr. Takeuchi himself. It shows how “From World First to World Leader” came to be.

With the Customer in Mind

How does our global initiative impact you, the customer? On the surface everything will appear the same as it has been. But, internally we are making Takeuchi more fluid as a company. This helps our customers not only in the U.S., but also worldwide on a few different levels.

For one, bringing the subsidiaries and the home office’s synergies together makes us even stronger. In addition, new ideas will be on the table like what we recently introduced with hybrid and electric technology at CONEXPO-CON/AGG.

Takeuchi was established by coming up with out-of-the-box solutions for customers. Our initiative is only going to further this for years to come. We thank you for your continued support and we’re excited to start this new chapter with you alongside us.

Welcome to Takeuchi 2.0.

—Clay Eubanks, president of Takeuchi-US