KUALA LUMPUR: Panasonic Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a 40%-owned associate of Bursa Malaysia-listed Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Bhd, is targeting sales growth of 5% for its financial year ending March 31, 2018 (FY18), driven by its “shopfront” strategy.
This strategy focuses on the promotion of Panasonic’s products to attract customers, said Panasonic Malaysia managing director Cheng Chee Chung.
“The [shopfront strategy] means that we will pay more attention on how to promote the value of the product via demonstration and promotional activities to explain our products, and closing the deals in the shopfront,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the group’s partnership signing ceremony with Ramco Systems Sdn Bhd yesterday.
“At the same time, we are going to collaborate with corporates, for example in activities such as staff sales for a certain period of time.
“We will also focus on strengthening our product line by introducing new models with better features, but hopefully at a more affordable price as [consumer spending] has tightened,” he added.
Cheng shared that the group is on track to achieve its FY17 sales growth target, which was also at 5%.
“In the beginning of [FY17] the sales of air conditioners and fan products were very good due to the hot weather. We also launched new models for washing machines and improved the line-up of our refrigerators [that helped to ] generate [an] increase in sales,” he said.
Cheng added that the current weak ringgit, which traded at 4.4995 against the US dollar yesterday, does not pose a significant impact to Panasonic Malaysia’s operations.
“At present, approximately 64% of our sales consists of locally [assembled] products.
“Nevertheless, [over 30%] of our products incur import costs, and for those products we may need to increase prices. But overall it won’t affect operations as [our] competitors are facing a similar situation,” he said.
“On the other hand, many of our factories in Malaysia are export-orientated and earning better margins due to the weaker ringgit. So, that balances things out,” he said.
Panasonic’s operations in Malaysia consists of 21 entities. Out of that, the only listed entity of the group is Panasonic Manufacturing, which runs the group’s plant in Shah Alam, Selangor that manufactures electrical home appliances.
Earlier at the event, Panasonic Malaysia signed a multimillion-ringgit partnership with Ramco Systems to overhaul its legacy human resource (HR) and payroll system.
“With this initiative, the role of HR management in the group will evolve from administrative roles to more strategic and business transformation roles by leveraging the reporting and analytical capabilities of the new system,” said Cheng.
The deal sees a new centralised cloud-based system that will consolidate HR and payroll functions for around 20,000 employees in Panasonic’s 21 entities in Malaysia.
Panasonic Manufacturing shares closed down 20 sen or 0.66% yesterday to RM30.20 for a market capitalisation of RM1.84 billion.