100 Stories2009 The beginning of the SAGE
Aiming to be the industry-leading automotive company— a bold declaration that was even covered by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on July 20, 2018.
Being the first material manufacturer to sponsor the World Rally Championship, Asahi Kasei gained global recognition from the automotive industry. Many people must have seen Asahi Kasei’s logo on the windshields and on the banners along the course.
Asahi Kasei acquired the American company Sage Automotive Interiors Inc., the world’s leading company in the automotive seat fabric market. In fact, Sage Automotive Interiors Inc. was the supplier of the suede artificial leather Lamous™.
Acquiring Sage Automotive Interiors Inc. and sponsoring the rally cars, Asahi Kasei made bold efforts in the automotive business.
At the Sage Automotive Interiors Inc. acquisition conference, President Hideki Kobori explained that the reason behind these bold efforts was the business opportunity he saw in the change taking place in the automotive industry. “Instead of waiting for a change, we wanted to make a change ourselves and turn it into a business opportunity,” said Kobori.
The automotive industry formed a new business direction referred to as Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric (CASE). This was said to be a major once-in-a-century turning point.
Asahi Kasei saw this as a business opportunity rather than a threat and announced its goal to triple its automotive sales in comparison to FY2015 to 300 billion yen by FY2025. What kind of company is Sage Automotive Interiors Inc.—the key to this plan? It started in 2009.
In 2009, the American textile manufacturer Milliken & Company decided to create a spin-off in the automotive industry, resulting in the birth of Sage Automotive Interiors Inc..
Founded in 1865, Milliken & Company is a long-standing manufacturer active in a wide range of fields, such as special chemicals, flooring materials, protective fibers, and healthcare. The management team that created a spin-off in the automotive division quickly came up with a new business to expand globally.
They worked on creating a new campaign, brand name, and brand domain. They pursued a more modern and innovative brand image in the new automotive interior fabric company.
They announced the brand name Sage Automotive Interiors. The name Sage, meaning wisdom in Greek, represented their ability to offer advice for customer problems, and the green used as their corporate color represented their support for sustainability.
Right after its announcement, Sage Automotive Interiors Inc. worked on expanding its public relations and conquered the industry in no time. It was not very known when it was first established, but it leaped ahead and became the world’s leading automotive interior manufacturer in less than 10 years.
Until then, Asahi Kasei was only supplying Lamous™ to Sage Automotive Interiors Inc., but after the acquisition, it has been covering the entire process—from designing automotive materials to manufacturing them—and is expected to further strengthen its relations with automobile manufacturers.
As Kobori said, “We want to expand from upstream to midstream,” Asahi Kasei set foot in the center of the automotive industry. It will continue to move forward in cooperation with Sage Automotive Interiors Inc.
