Ashwini Wankhede: Steering Excellence at Toyota Lift Northwest

In the realm of material handling solutions and excellence, certain individuals stand out as pioneers, reshaping the landscape of services and strategies. Selected as WCRCINT World’s Best Emerging Leader, Ashwini Wankhede, an influential figure at Toyota Lift Northwest, embodies a commitment to exceptional service, strategic insights, and transformative leadership in the forklifts and material handling.

Driving Innovation

Ashwini Wankhede, armed with a wealth of experience and a forward-thinking mindset, plays a pivotal role in steering Toyota Lift Northwest towards redefining forklifts and material handling. solutions. His journey is marked by a passion for innovation, embracing cutting-edge technologies, and fostering operational efficiency.

Under Wankhede’s guidance, Toyota Lift Northwest has emerged as a prominent entity in the forklifts and material handling services landscape. The company, founded on the principles of exceptional customer service and a commitment to providing tailored automotive solutions, has positioned itself as a trusted name in delivering innovative services.

Empowering Client-Centric Services

At the heart of Wankhede’s philosophy lies a deep-seated commitment to client-centric approaches. Toyota Lift Northwest is dedicated to providing personalised forklifts and material handling solutions, catering to clients’ distinct needs while ensuring reliability and optimal performance.

Industry Impact and Future Trajectory

Wankhede’s expertise extends across the forklifts and material handling sector, leaving an indelible mark in the industry. His insights and strategic approaches have elevated standards and redefined the service experience, setting a trajectory for the company’s future successes.

Ashwini Wankhede’s journey epitomises the essence of transformative leadership and a dedication to innovative forklifts and material handling solutions. His initiatives, client-centric focus, and groundbreaking endeavour’s position her as a trailblazer, inspiring the sector to reimagine their strategies and navigate the ever-evolving industry landscape.

In conversation with Ashwini Wankhede, President and COO, Toyota Lift Northwest

What makes you a strong leader? What are your key leadership strengths are make the strongest attributes of success.

Fast decision making, consistent communication, empowerment, inclusive leadership, and trust are some of the unique traits of my leadership style. As a leader, it is crucial to build a strong coherent team that delivers consistently. Effective delegation, i.e., the right person for the right job is mantra for success. It is equally important to seek timely feedback from the employees and act on good ideas to foster pride of ownership. The key intent is to make employees happy at heart so that they are fully committed to the job and enjoy their time at work. Empowerment ensures that the ideas are implemented at a faster pace. An efficient comradeship between staff members accompanied with an attitude of forgiveness goes a long way in building trust and confidence.

An accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career? What challenges did you face to reach to the success?

A significant career achievement is to be able to solidify and position Toyota Lift Northwest as a Total Integrated Solution Provider. We have been able to achieve this by eliminating any downtime the customers face due to product or aftermarket failure. We aim to get closer to customers; be a partner in their operations and understand their pain points and grievances. This leads to innovation and improvement in their solutions, while paving the path for novel business opportunities. In the last 2 years we have opened six new facilities. We have started our own battery line and charger line of business. We have also commenced tire business and servicing trailer business. This equips us with the capability to recondition and refurbish our used truck within our own premises. The rental fleet has been increased three-folds, and investment in storage and automation department is yielding positive results. All these efforts consistently support us in hitting record numbers in service, rentals and parts sales.

What is the role of a leader in these challenging times. List 5 in order of priority.

• Focus on opportunities, not the problems.
• Delegating to the right people.
• Recognize differences between leadership and management.
• Take responsibility for decisions.
• Inspiring the employees.

What is your vision and how do you share that with your shareholders, employees and others?

My vision is to exceed customer expectations at all touch points, with integrity. To achieve our desired vision, we consistently strive on improving our customer interface with honesty, transparency, and treating every interaction with respect by building a team of engaged employees. Our plan is to further solidify and position Toyota Lift Northwest as a Total Integrated Solution Provider. The intent is to eliminate any downtime our customers face due to product or aftermarket failure. Attempt is to get closer to our customers and be a partner in their operations. Understanding our customers’ pain points and grievances leads to innovation and improvement in our solutions. Warehouse technologies have been advanced by leagues since the early days of logistics. Among the industrial trends, we see the adoption of new technologies relating to the Internet of Things, increased pressures on and demand for efficient and flexible distribution operations, and growth in use of automated solutions across key end markets. It is expected that mobile robots will help the companies to lower their increasing labor cost. We will continue to put additional resources in storage and automation vertical to address the growing concern in the industry.

How do you drive active business renovations and how does that impact your subordinates?

Business renovations are a key aspect of the corporate sector. I believe in driving active business renovations primarily through inclusive leadership. It helps to ensure that the management team is aligned with the aim and vision of the organization. This avoids unilateral decision making and the opinions of all the team members are accounted for during the decision-making process. This inculcates aspects of courageous authenticity, cultural and emotional intelligence, as well as collaborative curiosity within the subordinates.

How do you integrate corporate philanthropy or corporate social responsibility as part of your business strategies?

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a critical aspect of our business.  It helps us integrate social and environmental worries in our business decisions. It allows the company to align our business focus with our customers’ mission and vision. CSR is a great mechanism to make statements on concerns that impacts us and the society equally.

What has been your driving force or philosophy in life?

The courage to keep reaching, to keep working, and to keep fighting. Courage to dream big and the courage to think big. Courage in the face of difficulty, courage in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of courage.

How do you plan to drive your business at a global level?

When working at a global level, cultural sensitivities need to be addressed appropriately in addition to business needs. We plan to work with local partners at different geographical locations, understand cultural nuances and expand our business. Understanding diverse cultures and affirming the variations and similarities helps individuals interact more efficiently and create significant relationships.

How do you define success and how do you measure up to your own definition?

My definition of success is the extent of active and practical engagement of people with their work. Sir Richard Branson has rightly said “The more you’re actively and practically engaged, the more successful you will feel”. The more actively engaged people are in the task they enjoy, the more successful they will feel and, most likely, become. To achieve optimum success, people must enjoy what they do.

In your opinion what is the most significant aspect of leadership?

Leadership is an enabler, in the sense that it supports the team and helps them accomplish their goals in a positive context. A critical aspect of leadership is not to hold the teams back, rather clear the way and facilitate them with the resources to do what they do best. The task of an effective leader is to give the team an understanding of why a particular work is significant, so that they are motivated and driven to deliver to the best of their capabilities.

Your perception of an empowered society. How far your industry has/can contribute for the same?

We strongly support the process of building autonomy, power, confidence, and other necessary means to enact change and pave the way for a better future. The key idea here is to adopt and follow the servant leadership pattern. Rather than prioritizing our own objectives, an emphasis is laid to serving the greater good. Instead of exercising power by a few individuals being at the top of the pyramid, we follow a structure which enables sharing of power, putting the needs of others first and helping people develop and perform as highly as possible.

Esprit de corps: How do bring fairies and equality to all?

The primary means of ensuring equality to all is to respect every individual and treat them the way we ourselves want to be treated. It helps to inculcate essential human virtues of friendliness, respect, politeness, love, and loyalty within the team members.