SATO To Expand With New Regional Headquarters
CHARLOTTE, N.C.—SATO, a leader in the automatic identification and data collection (AIDC) industry and the barcode printing, labeling, and EPC/RFID solutions, announced the establishment of three headquarters: SATO International Asia-Pacific, SATO International Europe, and SATO International America, effective as of April 1, 2007.
SATO acquired L’Etiquetage Rationnel S.A. in France in 2004, and the former METO BCS businesses from Checkpoint Systems, Inc. and Walker Datavision in New Zealand, both in 2006. Under SATO International, 17 subsidiaries do business in 22 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
Three regional headquarters have been set up. The three appointed regional heads, who are directors of their respective subsidiaries, have been promoted from within the SATO Group. They will develop a structure to manage and advise not only their country, but also regionally so that the subsidiaries and regional headquarters are in sync. They will help cascade down corporate policies, set sales strategies by region, provide marketing, technical and production support, and guide business administration.
“SATO has already declared its commitment to achieving consolidated sales of 150 billion yen by year 2015 based on the ‘DCS (Data Collection Systems) & Labeling Worldwide’ business model. It is essential, at this stage of our international expansion, that our GMCs (Group Member Companies) have the self-organization capabilities to achieve the corporate goals; they will have to set goals, and formulate and implement strategies to achieve them,” said Toshihiro Waki, managing director of SATO International.
Regional Headquarters are located in Singapore, Belgium and the United States, and are headed by Lim Yee, Dave Joyce, and Mike Fowler, all of them members of the SATO International board of directors.
