NAME: Atsuo Honda
COMPANY: TOA Electronics
TITLE: President and CEO
BACKGROUND: Beginning his career with TOA Corporation in 1978 as an R&D engineer, Honda has worked in several divisions of the company, gaining expertise in product development, engineering, and production.
THE CHALLENGE: Although TOA offers products at both low and high price points with proportionate feature sets, the company would prefer to concentrate on its line of high-value products, where its advanced engineering can be applied
SCN: What is your position, and what does it entail?
Atsuo Honda: I am responsible for the overall management of TOA Electronics as president and CEO. I was assigned to this position in April.
SCN: How has your background prepared you for your new role?
AH: I began my career with TOA Corporation in 1978 as R&D engineer, responsible for the development of amplifiers, including the U.S. market. Next, I was appointed to the position of manager of voice evacuation systems for the Japanese market. This combined experience helped me gain a significant amount of knowledge in product development and engineering. I was then appointed to president of the TOA factory in Japan where I gained valuable production experience. Most recently, I was responsible for the development of all audio products, as the general manager of Audio Products Division.
I intend to work closely with our parent company, TOA Corporation, in the development of technologically advanced, reliable, and competitively priced new products to help meet U.S. market demands.
SCN: What are your short-and long-term goals?
AH: My short-term goal is to increase sales of TOA audio products and increase visibility of TOA CCTV products in the security industry.
In the long-term, I aim to expand each of our main business categories-audio, intercom, and security-by introducing innovative products and establishing a sales base that can take advantage of the systems integration in all three of these business categories.
SCN: What is the greatest challenge that you face?
AH: We intend to increase the range of digital products that we offer, from input to output audio signals such as mixers, processors, and power amplifiers, based on our legendary DSP and digital power amplifier technology-one of TOA's advanced technological strengths. The digital technology we will develop will not only be applied to larger systems, but smaller amplifiers as well. It is also important for us to improve our speaker systems lineup, which is suitable for a variety of targeted applications.
SCN: Where do you see your market heading?
AH: I don't think that the audio market will drastically expand, but there is a stable demand. There are two types of product demands in the market: products that offer limited features at a low price point, and products that offer high quality and numerous features, and are higher priced. Although TOA offers both, we would prefer to concentrate on our line of high-value products where our advanced engineering can be applied. We will continue to follow market trends such as changing of audio sources and development of new technology. By introducing competitive products and offering better service, we can increase our market share and sales.
As for the security market, social needs will continue to increase, and the market will grow accordingly. This is a very competitive market that moves rapidly in the areas of technology and pricing, and new solutions are constantly being offered by parties from other industries. Therefore, only manufacturers that can be competitive in pricing, engineering, and system proposals can survive in this market. Since TOA can comply with all of these factors, we would like be accepted in this market by proposing innovative solutions with unique products.
SCN: How can systems contractors better position themselves to profit from what TOA has to offer?
