FEATURE STRATEGY
A fter four decades with Panasonic, John Hardy has experienced several generations of transformation in the global technology industry. Having joined the company as a management trainee straight from university, his career has taken him across markets, functions and business divisions, giving him a perspective shaped by both the evolution of Panasonic and the wider electronics industry. Hardy’ s career began in Japan, before his first overseas assignment took him to Scotland, where he worked across finance and logistics. From there, he moved to Germany to work with the automotive business, including sales for Volkswagen and Audi, before assignments in Singapore, the UK, Thailand and Germany eventually brought him to Dubai.
The philosophy behind those early rotations was straightforward: future leaders needed to understand how different parts of the organisation operated and the challenges each function faced.
For the past eight years, Hardy has been based in Dubai, overseeing a region that is very different from the markets in which he started his career. It is also a region he believes offers some of the strongest long-term growth opportunities for technology manufacturers.
His four decades with Panasonic have coincided with a fundamental shift in the competitive landscape. Japanese electronics manufacturers once dominated many global categories before Korean companies emerged as major competitors. More recently, Chinese manufacturers have dramatically expanded their scale and international reach.
“ Panasonic’ s position is that it recognises that there are challenges globally because market dynamics are changing a lot. Competition is changing a lot,” said Hardy.
For a company with extensive manufacturing operations around the world, those changes have created a need to diversify beyond traditional hardware while making greater use of expertise developed across different Panasonic businesses.
Building a new growth engine One increasingly important pillar of that transformation is Artificial Intelligence.
Panasonic has been investing in technologies that would now fall under the AI umbrella for years, although Hardy pointed out that they were not necessarily described as AI at the time. Factory automation, planning, optimisation and other technologies have long been part of the company’ s operations.
The difference today is the speed at which AI is becoming embedded across businesses and industries.
One of Panasonic’ s most significant moves into this space was its investment in Blue Yonder, which uses AI and machine learning to optimise supply chains. Its technology is used by major global organisations to improve planning and supply chain efficiency.
Hardy sees this as indicative of how Panasonic’ s business is evolving.
“ Panasonic felt that it was a direction that it should develop more because it could see the way those markets were evolving globally,” he said.
AI therefore represents another important growth pillar rather than a complete departure from Panasonic’ s existing capabilities. It builds on technologies and expertise the company has accumulated through manufacturing, automation and enterprise solutions.
Local autonomy for a diverse region The Middle East and Africa present a particularly interesting challenge because Panasonic’ s business in the region is considerably more diverse than in many other parts of the world.
John Hardy, CEO of Panasonic Middle East and Africa, discusses how the company is reshaping its business around AI, sustainability and smart technologies, while responding to changing consumer expectations across one of its most diverse global markets.
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