 Dr Shankar Basu |
The executive heading the largest United States forklift supplier has roots abroad and an extensive history of marketing and management achievements with industrial trucks.
Shankar Basu, 60, is in his 35th year in the industry, mostly in forklifts, and his sixth year as president and chief executive officer of Toyota Material Handling USA Inc (TMHU).
Asked about significant industry issues, Basu cites five subjects: emissions regulatory impact, international standards creation, fuel cell-related developments, limiting dependence on traditional fuel resources and reducing fleet operation costs.
"Increasingly stringent national emission regulation is a challenge for many manufacturers and customers," Basu says. "There is mounting pressure to reduce or eliminate harmful materials" such as lead, cadmium and mercury.
"Of all the trends occurring within the material handling industry, no one factor has proven to be more influential than environmental concerns," he believes. "Recently, the environmentally friendly trend is forcing the industry to acknowledge and comply with customer demands for products that reduce or eliminate harm to the environment."
Global environmental attention is forcing designers of forklifts to adjust accordingly, Basu says. "In the future, we'll continue to see emphasis on new and greener material handling solutions, including fuel cell powered lift trucks."
About international standards, Basu says: "With more and more low-cost manufacturers entering the market recently, there has been an increasing variance in terms of product quality. These variations need to be brought within acceptable limits to ensure products sold in the US and North America meet safety and quality expectations."
Basu sees fuel cells growing in popularity and believes they will become readily available in the next five years. "Manufacturers are focusing on integrated fuel cell lift trucks as well as fuel-cell-on-battery replacements."
Using a fuel cell "could affect how the truck performs in every area," he adds. "Standards are being created now."
Concerning dependence on traditional fuels, Basu notes that we've all seen fuel prices increase in recent years. "In addition, there is a national awareness to reduce dependency on foreign oil. This makes electric, fuel cell, compressed natural gas and propane increasingly popular options."
With regard to reducing overall cost of fleet operations, Basu says: "Technology and reporting have made it possible to better track performance of fleets, and there is increasing pressure for businesses to lower operating costs. That's why so many manufacturers offer fleet management programs."
Basu was born and raised in the Calcutta area of India and received a bachelor of science degree in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur.
For higher learning, he came to the United States. The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis awarded him two degrees: a master of business administration with an emphasis on management and finance and a master of science in both metallurgical and industrial engineering. He did postgraduate work in Minneapolis and also at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Later, Basu received a doctorate in executive management from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, and is often called Dr Basu. The Claremont studies led to the 1999 publication of his book, "Corporate Purpose, Why It Matters More Than Strategy."
Early in his career, Basu was marketing services manager for the forklift division of Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co, then based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He joined the Toyota organisation in 1981 as national marketing manager in Torrance, California with Toyota Industrial Trucks USA Inc, which became Toyota Industrial Equipment (TIE) in 1984. He was TIE assistant general manager, successively in jobs with responsibilities for marketing-planning-distribution, parts-service and sales-planning operations, and then he served as TIE general manager and Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc group vice president.
In April 2001, Japan-based parent Toyota Industries Corp acquired TIE as part of a strategy to strengthen global material handling operations. The acquisition led to the formation of TMHU in southern California in 2001 and Basu's appointment as president and CEO. TMHU is based in Irvine, California.
The Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA) elected Basu to its Roundtable of Industry Leaders for a four-year term that began in January. Basu was a member of the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA) manufacturers board of advisors (2000-2004) and the Industrial Truck Association (ITA) board of directors (1997-2006) and executive committee (1998-2006).
He has taught management courses as an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, and the Long Beach and Fullerton campuses of California State University, and he is a member of the University of California Irvine graduate school of business's board of advisors.
Basu and his wife, Bogumila, each drive an upscale hybrid Lexus model within the Toyota automotive family. His is a GS450H, hers is a RX400H. At their Santa Ana, California home, they installed solar panels to provide electricity and heat water for the swimming pool and other needs.