In this Page case study, Dan Lochmann, head of Global Communications at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), shares how his team directly applied CommTech practices, principles and tools in order to build a market for MHI abroad in the U.S. and deliver revenue for the company.
To read about how Lochmann progressed from building systemic CommTech to the territory of a pathfinder and what he sees when he looks towards the future, download the full case study.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group (MHI) is a Japanese industrial conglomerate with revenues
of $39 billion. The company’s 81,000 employees work in 300 companies within three groups –
Power Systems; Industry & Infrastructure; and Aircraft, Defense & Space. MHI is well known and
admired in Japan, where it has been an industrial leader for 130 years. But outside the country, it
is largely invisible. The company never built advanced marketing and communications functions,
because it never needed them, with its businesses focused on the Japanese market. “We’re the
biggest company you’ve never heard of,” says Head of Global Communications Dan Lochmann.
“We’ve been here for more than a century, but we haven’t spoken.”
This became an increasing problem as the Japanese economy slowed over the past several decades, while new growth opportunities were rising in Southeast Asia, Europe and especially the U.S. The problem came to a head in 2014, when CEO Shunichi Miyanaga was working on a joint bid with Siemens to buy the gas
turbine and power arms of French energy company Alstom. The bid was won by GE, which mounted an aggressive PR campaign to persuade not just the sellers but the French government and citizens. Miyanaga understood that MHI’s lack of global visibility outside its industry was a severe handicap to further global growth, and decided to rapidly increase awareness outside Japan.