Case Study: ANCA Pty Ltd

Australian companies dealing with Japanese markets

Contributed by JETRO Japan

ANCA Pty Ltd is a developer and manufacturer of tool and cutter grinders. The company markets and sells its machines - which are used in the high-precision grinding of cutting tools and other complex components used in a variety of industries - in North America, Europe, and Asia.

In 1974 two engineers, Pat Boland and Pat McCluskey, established ANCA as a venture company in a Melbourne suburb. The firm's innovative tool and cutter grinders rely on CNC, or computer numerical control, allowing for easy computerised use.

Their high precision and versatility are prized by clients like Boeing, Caterpillar, DaimlerChrysler, General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Samsung and Volvo. The company has grown to become one of Australia's leading international firms.

With subsidiaries in Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and other major countries, ANCA currently has a strong presence in Europe and North America. Its activities in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, however, were until recently supervised primarily from the head office in Melbourne. This changed when ANCA set up a branch in China in 2004 and then established a Japanese office in Owari-asahi City, Aichi Prefecture, in March 2006.

According to Japan office representative and technical sales - application manager Tomoaki Fukuda, "China and Japan are our most important and promising bases in the Asia-Pacific region."

In recent years, Japanese client needs have grown more sophisticated and diverse, and manufacturers of machinery including tool and cutter grinders have been pressed to improve the precision of their products. ANCA's technological development capabilities allow it to meet these demands with versatile machines suitable for regrinding and other tasks. It also possesses the advanced, specialised knowledge required to create and alter machine programming to match clients' orders.

ANCA relied on a Japanese trading company to import, sell, and provide maintenance for its products in Japan. However, this has led to a previously unfilled gap in customer needs for high-level application support. "We were always sending a technician from the head office in Melbourne to conduct training or product demonstrations," Mr Fukuda said.

ANCA decided to establish a base for its Japanese operations and to station experienced technicians in Japan so it could more swiftly respond to clients' needs and improve customer satisfaction. "Japanese clients require high technological standards, and meeting their strict demands keeps us sharp," Mr Fukuda said. As ANCA builds up its business in Japan, the company as a whole benefits from the improvements made in technological development and customer satisfaction.

The company consulted the JETRO Melbourne office and decided to make use of JETRO's assistance scheme. "JETRO offers a very complete package of support for establishing a company in Japan," Mr Fukuda said.

In addition, the benefits offered through the Greater Nagoya Initiative - an effort jointly sponsored by JETRO and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry to bring businesses to Nagoya and the surrounding prefectures of Aichi, Gifu, and Mie - appealed to ANCA as it considered possible sites for its Japan office. Mr Fukuda adds: "Co-operation with the JETRO office in Nagoya went very smoothly and they have been most thorough and kind in all they've done for us."
The company chose Aichi Prefecture as the location for its Japan office because of the strategic location. "As the base of operations for one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers, the Nagoya area is home to a number of parts manufacturers that use technologically advanced metal moulds, and many of our clients are located here, Mr Fukuda said. "And since we have customers all over the country, Nagoya's location in central Japan makes it easy to attend to all of them in a timely manner."

ANCA is continuing to rely on the Japanese trading firm to handle sales. The Australian company's Japan office will complement this by focusing on pre and post-sales application support to meet each customer's needs. Last year the firm sold 20 machines in Japan and its goal for the current fiscal year is to increase that number by 30 percent. "Although one machine can cost more than 50 million yen, recently we've seen an increase in the number of inquiries from small and medium-sized operations," Mr Fukuda said. "There's quite a lot of information being exchanged among these smaller machine tool makers through union organisations and the like, and awareness of our company's brand is slowly spreading via word of mouth."

Looking to the future, ANCA is considering applying its expertise in CNC tool and cutter grinding in new areas such as the development of artificial human joints. In addition to addressing growing needs in the medical field, ANCA plans to aggressively pursue new markets throughout Japan.

For more information on ANCA visit
http://www.anca.com/