RCF appoints Asia Pacific sales manager
Published: WORSHIP
ASIA PACIFIC: Italian systems manufacturer RCF has appointed Lars Yoshiyama as their new sales manager for the Asian Pacific region.
Before taking on this new position internally, Mr Yoshiyama worked in the European export department where he gained a valuable insight into the RCF philosophy. ‘It’s an exciting challenge for me, as I have been given a lot of encouragement and autonomy by the RCF management team here in Reggio Emilia,’ he enthused. ‘RCF has a very broad catalogue of products and this dynamic region offers many opportunities for growth in various vertical sectors. My experience with projects such as the Juventus football stadium here in Italy allows me to assist our customers in Asia working on similar projects.’
Education clearly is the key to increasing sales for RCF. ‘My primary challenge is to promote the RCF Audio Academy in Asia to our distributors and dealers, particularly in Japan, Korea and China. Once they are up to speed, they will then extend the Academy to their infrastructures of customers such as systems integrators and consultants,’ he stated. ‘Our in house specialists such as acoustic designers are making themselves available for this task, so that we can properly promote products such as the Vertical Steerable Array (VSA). In addition, we are also promoting training videos and social media, where we are encouraging increasing communications with the factory and amongst our distributors.’
Mr Yoshihama, who is German but adopted his Japanese wife’s surname, also recognises the fact that RCF need to strengthen their market position in certain sectors. ‘RCF is a very strong brand in the professional and rental sectors, but is less well known I feel in the fixed installation business. Here you need to apply a more technical approach with documentation. RCF can support its customers directly on their individual projects with design software such as RD Net. Above all, we’re listening to the market and providing customer feedback – this is my role and this is why I am travelling to the region extensively in order to gain a more thorough understanding of our customers’ needs.’
Prior to joining RCF in 2009, Mr Yoshiyama gained six years experience as export executive for TOA Electronics in Hamburg covering the Europe, Africa and Middle East regions.
Mr Yoshihama recently appointed ProAktiv Systems, managed by Singaporean veteran Jimmy Yap, as their exclusive Cambodian distributor.