Diversification helps Nakashima Marine Propulsion navigate changing market conditions

As marine businesses continue to assess demand across both commercial and leisure sectors, Nakashima Marine Propulsion says diversification across markets, products and regions is helping it maintain growth despite global uncertainty.

The company, which recently rebranded from Michigan Marine Propulsion following its acquisition by Japanese parent company Nakashima, operates across commercial and leisure marine markets throughout Europe and Asia.

Tom Clarke, sales manager, says the transition has been straightforward.

“The old Michigan customers are quite happy. Obviously some of the existing distributors have had to deal with a bit of a change. But all in all, they’re very positive.”

The rebrand forms part of a wider strategy to increase visibility for the Nakashima name, especially in the small boat market in Europe.

While he says Nakashima is well known in commercial shipping circles, the company sees significant opportunity to build recognition among leisure boatbuilders and distributors.

Diversification helps offset market fluctuations

Clarke says the current leisure/commercial split is now “probably 50-50 by quantity, but by value it’s probably more heavily in the commercial side.”

That breadth is proving valuable. “Because we’ve got that mixture of commercial and leisure (and we’ve got a massive mixture in size of equipment), when one thing’s up, the other thing goes down. It’s like that.

“We ride the peaks and troughs quite nicely.

“Obviously the leisure market is suffering a little bit with changes in the global situation,” he continues. “People are holding on to their purse strings a little bit more than they were before. It’s very apparent in both [commercial and leisure] sectors.”

But, he says, Nakashima is going against the trend in leisure: “We’ve not found that we’ve, on the whole, lost anything. We’ve probably gained more than we’ve lost.”

He partly attributes that to the business moving further into supplying larger vessel sets – full packages – to boatbuilders.

Investment continues as orders increase

Growth is being supported by investment in people and facilities. The business is planning long-term expansion.

“We’re looking at what we’re going to do over the next five to ten years with some big changes and big plans. We’re doing more and more leisure boat build work and we’re also doing more custom commercial work. We need to invest and increase our size of our facility and our capabilities as well as physical space and capacity. It’s exciting on all fronts.”

The company has recently added five new people to its workforce.

Bespoke solutions remain central to the business

A key area of focus remains bespoke engineering solutions, particularly for commercial customers.

“Most of our work is custom and bespoke. People come to us with a problem, and we’re providing product, but ultimately we’re providing a solution.”

Within that, Clarke says efficiency is continuing to influence buying decisions, particularly in commercial marine. “Green efficiency, fuel savings, all those things are big buzzwords.” He says the need to actually go green, rather than pay lip service to the idea, is more prevalent in commercial.

Rope cutter offers new growth opportunity

Alongside its propulsion systems and stern gear products, Nakashima has also invested in a new rope cutter that Clarke believes has significant global potential. (Information is available on the company’s website.)

“We’ve got an absolutely fantastic new rope cutter.

“It’s incredibly aggressive. It’s very cost effective. It is incredible … It works really, really well.”

Nakashima’s now building stock, developing distribution channels and expanding into new markets with the States and Europe firmly in its sites.

“We’ve built our stock levels up. We’ve gained some new customers. We’re looking at some global roots to market,” Clarke concludes.