Foresight and persistence have paid off in Georgia. Started by then governor Jimmy Carter before he was elected to the White House, the state deepened its connections with Japan through the promotion of its extensive assets, business-friendly policies, highly-skilled workforce, all of which appealed to Japanese expatriate communities on both sides.
For 50 years, a rising number of Japanese companies, like YKK, TOTO and Mitsubishi Electric, have selected Georgia as their second home, convinced that the state had the right mix of conditions to ensure success.
“We’ve hit our revenue and profitability targets and last year, we exceeded them dramatically. It was a year in which we grew 34% and saw our market share expand. We’ve built tremendous momentum coming into this year. It’s been a good run and the acceleration seems to continue,” said Mark Kuntz, CEO at Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US, a joint venture set up in 2018 between Mitsubishi Electric and Trane Technologies.
It was an “extremely successful” joint venture, according to Kuntz, who pointed out that Trane had the extensive distribution network needed by Mitsubishi Electric to bring its products to homes and commercial spaces but lacked Mitsubishi Electric’s technological expertise in manufacturing heat pumps.
While around half of Mitsubishi Electric’s products find their way into residences spaces through its contractor network, the other half reaches commercial projects, from small office spaces to high-rise buildings because of Trane’s well developed network of engineers and developers of large-scale projects.
“We have tremendous growth potential here. It’s a large proportion and it’s the one with the largest opportunity to grow even bigger,” Kuntz said.
