Brother UK at your side at 50

Change of this magnitude is nothing new for a company of Brother’s longevity. Formed in 1908 to service and repair imported sewing machines, it has faced many challenges in its 110-year history – the disruption of two world wars, numerous economic crises at home and abroad and unrelenting technological innovation. Thanks to a strong corporate culture, business acumen and, sometimes, simple good fortune, Brother has constantly reinvented itself, adapting its product offering to meet changing market conditions, all the while exploiting new opportunities as they emerge. It is testament to Brother’s enduring capacity both for continuity and renewal that the company still makes sewing machines and that today they account for just 10% of revenue. Toshikazu ‘Terry’ Koike, Chairman of Brother Industries Ltd, has lived with change throughout his professional life. Working for and, ultimately, leading Brother’s US operations from 1981 to 2005, he witnessed the birth of the PC age and quickly recognised the threat that it posed to Brother’s existing business. With 3,000 Brother typewriters deployed in the press room at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, 1984 was a high-water mark for the company’s typewriter business. It was also the year HP introduced its first LaserJet printer – a moment of huge significance not lost on Koike who was instrumental in driving Brother’s transformation into a manufacturer of laser and inkjet desktop printers. Today, Brother’s office printer business is responsible for almost 60% of its income, but now it, too, is under threat from digital transformation and declining paper use. Showing an enduring willingness to meet challenges head-on, one of Koike’s most significant acts as President before moving to his new role of Chairman, was to diversify into the fast growing industrial print sector with the £1 billion acquisition of Domino Printing Sciences. To discuss this and other key moments in Brother’s 110-year history, Kingswood Media Publishing Director Neil Trim visited ‘Terry’ Koike at Brother’s Nagoya HQ. He started by asking about the importance of luck in Brother’s success. The Big Interview Today, businesses across the world are facing an existential crisis brought on by digital transformation, machine learning, AI, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other elements of the fourth industrial revolution. Brother and sewing machines Produced in 1928 by the Yasui brothers, who sought to produce sewing machines domestically, this was the first chain-stitch sewing machine for producing straw hats. It was the first product marketed with the “Brother” brand, which was named after the Yasui brothers’ collaborative effort that realised the production of this sewing machine. Chairman of Brother Industries Ltd – Toshikazu ‘Terry’ Koike Kingswood Media – www.binfo.co.uk 4