New Hino exec to inject some 'niggle'

Hino Motor Australia’s new Vice President – Brand and Franchise Development, Richard Emery, says his focus will be further honing the Japanese brand’s offering in Australia, and enhancing business practices and processes now, when sales are booming, to ensure the company’s future stability and prosperity.

Mr Emery officially commenced his new role on January 17, marking his entry into the trucking industry after a career in passenger cars that stretches back over 30 years.

A self-proclaimed “second-generation auto guy”, whose parents had car dealerships in Launceston (Tas) and then Ballarat (Vic), his resume spans stints at a wide variety of car brands both here and in the Asia-Pacific region, including time with Mercedes-Benz cars and three-and-a-half years as CEO of Nissan Australia, along with a more recent period of consultancy work.

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Now, relishing the change to the truck sector and keen to apply his extensive experience gleaned in the car industry, Mr Emery says he’ll be targeting the many ways in which incremental progress in many areas can add up to a significant overall gain.

“The fundamentals of the [Hino Motor Sales Australia] business – having a good parent in Hino Motor in Japan, a good product, a good dealer network, and a well-structured and well-established organisation – those things were all ticked off but, conversely, I’m not a babysitter type of person,” Mr Emery told Trucksales at a recent meeting in Melbourne.

“I want to influence and improve, but I’ve also seen things in the business that we can dial up by one per cent that will make a difference to some extent.”

Mr Emery said he will be pushing to move the business ahead in certain areas, perhaps countering some of the inertia inherent in large automotive organisations.

“It’s a Toyota Group sort of attitude,” he said.

“They’re a bit cautious about how they proceed with things, so from me it’s that little one per cent of just edging things up that little bit – putting a bit of niggle into the organisation.

“That’s something I did at Mercedes-Benz and at Nissan – just tweak things up a bit, making sure dealers in particular are focused every day of the week on the things they need to be focused on.”

Hino Australia achieved all-time record sales in 2021, despite the myriad constraints acting upon the industry at present, notably an increase in delivery times. This is more a reflection of the current labour squeeze at the end of the supply chain here in Australia, Mr Emery said, than of sourcing the trucks themselves from Japan.

However, he’s quick to note that amid Hino’s current sales boom, there is no room for complacency.

“In circumstances like we have today you could take your foot off the pedal and relax a little bit,” he said.

“That’s not a good thing because when we come out of this, and we will, the habits we form over this period – and even though some might see some of those habits we want to form as being unnecessary to the end result because we can only sell what we’ve got – in three- or five-years’ time they will pay dividends.

“They’re the sorts of things I’ll be working on, for sure. There’s a saying, ‘You find out who’s naked when the tide goes out’. So when the tide goes out, we want to be ready.”