Chronicles of Suzhou Kubotas 25th Anniversary
In 2023, the agricultural machinery industry entered a new stage of "National IV", and Suzhou Jiubaotian celebrated its 25th anniversary of entrepreneurship. Let's bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, and be grateful for the past. In 2023, what memorable moments did Kubota have? Let's look back together.
At the beginning of 2023, the product series of "new power, new technology, and new appearance" will be launched in the national market. The new product not only meets the "National IV" emission standards, but also integrates more electronic control technology, significantly improving the reliability and operational comfort of the product, demonstrating the responsibility and strength of frontline agricultural machinery brands.
In April 2023, Suzhou Kubota released the KA series high-speed rice transplanter with greater power, larger body, and more electronic control functions, which is lightweight and precise in operation, and operates with high quality and efficiency. Especially with the newly added U-turn function, when the machine turns around in the field, it only needs to turn the steering wheel to achieve the opening/closing of the planting clutch, the lifting/lowering of the seedling platform, the retraction/lowering of the marking rod, automatic alignment, and start transplanting, greatly simplifying the operation and reducing labor intensity, providing more possibilities for unmanned field transplanting.
In December 2023, the EX118M-S and EX118MQ-S track fully fed harvesters were upgraded and released. The upgraded versions of EX118M-S and EX118MQ-S crawler fully fed harvesters have been optimized in structure, resulting in reduced body length, significantly improved wear resistance, and structural strength. By matching a reinforced gearbox with a 45CC high-capacity HST, the driving speed can reach 2.58m/s, and the feeding amount has also jumped to 6.5kg/s. The addition of a one key positioning function for the header allows for the setting of the reel and header height in advance. When turning in the field, the reel and header can be raised/lowered by pressing the button on the multifunctional handle with one key, reducing the user's work intensity and effectively ensuring the work effect.
In order to convey brand value, enhance channel strength, and enhance user experience, we collaborate with key market distributors to build image stores and upgrade store image. The image store has a standardized brand image and complete functional zoning, making it a small-scale 4S store. At present, we have built 6 standardized 4S stores and 39 image stores nationwide. In the future, we will focus on key markets and continue to promote the construction of image stores, helping end channels create a storefront image and sales service capabilities that are consistent with Kubota's product positioning, providing high-quality and efficient products and safe and reassuring services to more users.
With the advancement of information technology, people's channels of obtaining information have shifted from traditional media to digital new media. Compared to traditional media, new media has fewer time and space limitations, making it easier to voice and spreading faster. In order to meet the needs of users and enhance the promotion of "National IV" products, we collaborated with the Agricultural Machinery Magazine to carry out six live streaming activities in 2023. Inviting industry experts and the general manager of Kubota 4S store as guests in the live broadcast room, we will review the development history of the agricultural machinery industry, share our thoughts on the future of the industry, and convey product performance characteristics more clearly through multi frequency and comprehensive product explanations. The live broadcast activity was spread through Kubota's video account and Agricultural Machinery TV video account, with a total of 2 million viewers, achieving good promotional effects.
4. Spread wealth creation stories and unleash the power of role models
In order to spread the story of users participating in agricultural operations through Kubota, achieving wealth creation and income increase, and amplifying the demonstration and leading effect of high-quality users. Since 2019, we have launched a collection of wealth creation stories for the agricultural machinery industry. In 2023, we collaborated with 16 distributors nationwide to submit and publish 19 wealth creation story essays. Through essay writing, review the growth process of users choosing Kubota and share their evaluations of Kubota products. At the same time, we record product evaluations from corn machine and tractor users through market visits, user reputation collection, and on-site filming.
Since being rooted in China for 25 years, Suzhou Kubota has provided over 600000 sets of agricultural machinery products to more than 300000 domestic users, helping users engage in the "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" industry and striving to achieve wealth creation and income growth in agriculture. In order to express our gratitude to Kubota's high-quality users for their love, our company has selected over 600 VIP users nationwide through dealer recommendations. For VIP users, we offer multiple welfare policies including visiting the company. In 2023, 6 VIP user visits will be implemented. Through the event, VIP users have enhanced their understanding of the Kubota brand and products, and their confidence in the Kubota brand has been enhanced.
6. Service skills competition to build core competitiveness in service
In 2023, the 13th Service Skills Competition was successfully held, with 113 service personnel from 89 first level distributors across the country participating in the competition. By using competition as a substitute for practice, we aim to make service personnel aware of the maintenance and operation standards of "National IV" machines, guide dealers to strengthen service process management, and improve service effectiveness and user satisfaction. During the competition, a total of 44 students from the "Kubota" class of Changzhou Mechanical and Electrical Vocational and Technical College and Suzhou Agricultural Vocational and Technical College watched on site. At the same time, 7315 people watched the contest through the Tiktok and Kwai platforms, and achieved good publicity results.In addition, Suzhou Kubota also attaches great importance to the vocational skills training and improvement of its service personnel. In December 2023, at the 6th Asian Service Skills Competition hosted by the Agricultural Machinery Overseas Service Department of Kubota Group in Osaka, Japan, Wu Zhidong from the Suzhou Kubota Service Department won first place in the competition, surpassing other competitors. This is also the third time that Suzhou Kubota has achieved first place in a competition organized by the group headquarters, fully demonstrating the achievements of Suzhou Kubota's service skills and talent cultivation.
In the future, Suzhou Kubota will further encourage and support dealers to continuously improve the overall skill level of the Kubota service team through service talent training activities such as skill training, skill appraisal, and skill competitions, and better serve the vast number of Kubota users.
In order to adapt to users' online shopping habits and facilitate the purchase of genuine Kubota accessories, Suzhou Kubota has partnered with key first tier distributors to establish an online pure accessories sales platform called "Parts Mall" through "Kubota Agricultural Machinery" since 2018. In 2023, we collaborated with 13 first tier stores to carry out 4 component e-commerce festivals, covering nearly 150000 users and achieving component sales of nearly 3 million yuan. At present, the Kubota Component E-commerce Festival has grown into a landmark component online sales event in the industry. In the future, we will develop more distributors and carry out online component e-commerce festival activities on a larger scale, with more frequency and greater promotional efforts.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Suzhou Kubota, the Human Resources and General Affairs Department of the company plans and implements a series of activities to celebrate the 25th anniversary. In order to thank the employees for their hard work, the company organized excellent employees to visit excellent suppliers and distributors, selected exemplary employees to visit and learn from Kubota Co., Ltd., and carried out a long-term supplier outstanding employee recognition activity to enhance employees' understanding of the group, suppliers, and distributors, and boost team cohesion. Through the activity, everyone realized that although roles and positions are different, everyone's extreme pursuit of product and service quality is the same. In order to win the trust of more users, we need to work harder to provide higher quality products and services, and contribute more to Suzhou Kubota in the next 25 years
9. Take on social responsibility and support the development of agricultural machinery education
As a corporate citizen, Suzhou Kubota values and actively assumes social responsibility. In 2023, we donated 67 diesel engines to 13 agricultural colleges and training institutions, including Luoyang Locomotive Senior Technical School, as teaching tools to facilitate students' learning and understanding of diesel engine technology, and to assist in the cultivation of specialized talents in agricultural machinery.10. Winning multiple industry awards and gaining recognition for brand strength
