ICAPE Group strengthens it’s footing in Japan

While being a European company, ICAPE Group is very much a worldwide organisation with 19 business units over the world. And now the company is responding to increasing demand from the Japanese market by opening a new profit center in Tokyo, led by Olivier Voisin. “With 25+ PCB partner factories and 50 + Technical Parts factories, ICAPE group can propose Printed Circuit Boards and custom-made Technical Parts solutions for OEM and EMS needs in Japan, thanks to our strategic locations in Asia, and especially in China. Our technical expertise, responsiveness as well as competitiveness at the price level, makes us the best strategic partner for Japanese electronics companies,” says Olivier Voisin in a press release. The group’s latest unit has been registered in Japan since July 2020. The Japanese market is very high technology-oriented; and also very challenging. But ICAPE has been present in Japan for more than 13 years via its sales engineers team located in Hong Kong, is ready for the next step, according to Thomas Chea, Vice President Asia of the group. “Japan is a mature market of electronics, and is present on almost all its markets segments. So, the needs range from basic boards to very high end and complicate HDI boards. Customers generally have high expectations in quality and best in class certifications are just standard in Japan. This no surprise when we know that Japan is the world’s third largest automobile manufacturing country and have created many quality management standards, and has the largest electronics goods industry, and is often ranked among the world’s most innovative countries in terms of global patent filings,” Thomas Chea explains. According to Olivier Voisi, the group can already see that Japan is pursuing a new direction of technology and services; “Domestic firms have been facing increasing challenges in terms of internationalization, shifting production and service trends. Today, to stay competitive and guarantee high-quality production, Japanese OEM and EMS companies need to be more cost-effective and have some part of their production manufactured abroad.” He continues, “Japanese clients are now starting to recognize our strength and we already started receiving more and more inquires for supplier partnerships. With this new local Japanese presence, we can better serve our Japanese customers. In addition, we have just started a very unique solution for our Japanese clients who want to visit our partner factories but cannot travel. It is called virtual factory audit. Without leaving Japan, our expert can take our clients to a virtual tour for remote auditing.” The group invests for the future in Japan and the objectives are high. The target is to reach a revenue of USD 5 million within five years.