...1) What is Toyota’s corporate brand? Toyota built a world-class corporate brand reputation based on its commitment to quality, reliability, continuous improvement, customer focus, and excellence in design and manufacturing 2) Evidence of supporting the corporate brand: - “The Toyota Way” philosophy in the corporate culture - “Toyota Production System”: aimed to eliminate any excess interruption, misalignment, unnecessary work, or redundancies in the production process that adds no value to customers. (helped to create better logistics systems and a quality focus that resulted in significant cost savings) - Toyota’s special complex web of suppliers that works in three-tier system (Keiretsu)which led to intimate collaboration between Toyota & the long-term partners 3) Evidence of not supporting the corporate brand well enough: - refused to recognize problem of quality during the complaints of engine oil sludge by customers - “Customer First” management committee initiative was never really pushed - Not transparent enough towards customers in time of product quality crisis (not acknowledging the vehicle-based cause for the accelerator problems) - Slow response & action to vehicle recalls - Highly centralized decision-making centre based in Japan, leading to fractured organizational structure in USA; its units operated as fiefdoms that reported independently to Japan. In addition, read Jula’s & Boland’s statements. - While pursuing aggressive globalization growth strategy...
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...strategic, structural and cultural challenges, discuss the drivers of Toyota’s accelerator crisis. Why was Toyota facing a recall crisis? Toyota was facing the accelerator recall crisis because the company and its management became more focused on growth and less concerned with the TPS principles the company had adhered to for much of its existence. Lean operations with a focus on the bottom line and a very lackadaisical support system in North American oversight as well as deficient TPS training proved to be a cultural disadvantage to a highly centralized Toyota management team (Gretto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010). How well are Toyota’s management, employees and external stakeholders able to support their corporate brand? There was a clear breakdown between Toyota’s management, employees and external stakeholders. Because Toyota’s management was centralized in Japan and the U.S. operations worked in isolation from an information sharing standpoint, it was impossible for all interested parties to effectively collaborate and quickly solve the accelerator issue. There was a difficulty in training and process collaboration, especially in regards to TPS, which the American subsidiaries lacked any expertise or field knowledge in (Gretto, Schotter & Teagarden, 2010). Has Toyota effectively managed ethics and public relations in the United States? Who should be accountable for this activity? How could Toyota’s crisis management be improved? Toyota was deficient in managing...
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...CONSUMERS PERCEPTIONS Yuanyuan Feng School of Business and Engineering, Halmstad University, Sweden Abstract Since the late 2009, the famous vehicle manufacture Toyota has suffered a severe crisis due to unintended quality problems in its cars which had triggered Toyota’s largest officially recalls of its cars around the world. This crisis threatens the company’s previous reputation of good quality cars, as well as the brand image built up over time. This study aims to elaborate on the Toyota crisis in order to understand why Toyota faces this crisis and how they deal with the crisis; and investigate consumers’ perceptions of Toyota brand as the outcome of the crisis, with a focus on Swedish market. A qualitative research along with a number of face-to-face interviews with Toyota Swedish dealer and Swedish vehicle consumers is conducted. The findings reveal that the impact of the Toyota crisis in Sweden is not as serious as that in America; there remain satisfied and loyal Toyota’s customers who are not swayed by the negative publicities; While Toyota should manage the crisis even in a better way in order to retain its good reputation. Key Words Crisis, Toyota, Corporate Reputation, crisis management, consumer perception INTRODUCTION “We deeply regret the inconvenience and concern caused to our customers and others by our recent recalls of multiple vehicle models across...
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...Toyota Based on the articles, there are 3 broad issues that Toyota currently faces. These includes (1) Deteriorating quality (2) Inefficient factories and engineering practices (3) Rising vehicle and labour costs Deteriorating quality According to another article, Consumer Reports reported that it will no longer actively recommend Toyota’s car due to the slip in product quality. This was evident from the fact that Toyota recalled more cars than sold in 2005. Subsequently in 2007 after the release of the Consumer’s report, Toyota recalled another 470,000 cars. Toyota’s rapid global expansion was cited as one of the cause of quality problems. The other possible reason for the slip in quality could be due to many components involved in the production of Toyota’s vehicle, as well as the complexity in production, which could have increase errors during the production process. Order qualifier refers to the set of criteria for a firm to do business in a particular market segment. Quality is likely to be regarded as an order qualifier in automobile industry since it would concern the safe use of the vehicle and the users. Toyota also holds the reputation of being able to produce quality cars in previous years. Therefore, quality issues may deter consumers from making Toyota their choice of car, which would result in Toyota losing its competitive edge over time. Inefficient factories and engineering practices Toyota values incremental improvement, yet on top of quality issues, inefficient...
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...SWEDISH CASE OF CONSUMERS PERCEPTIONS Yuanyuan Feng School of Business and Engineering, Halmstad University, Sweden Abstract Since the late 2009, the famous vehicle manufacture Toyota has suffered a severe crisis due to unintended quality problems in its cars which had triggered Toyota’s largest officially recalls of its cars around the world. This crisis threatens the company’s previous reputation of good quality cars, as well as the brand image built up over time. This study aims to elaborate on the Toyota crisis in order to understand why Toyota faces this crisis and how they deal with the crisis; and investigate consumers’ perceptions of Toyota brand as the outcome of the crisis, with a focus on Swedish market. A qualitative research along with a number of face-to-face interviews with Toyota Swedish dealer and Swedish vehicle consumers is conducted. The findings reveal that the impact of the Toyota crisis in Sweden is not as serious as that in America; there remain satisfied and loyal Toyota’s customers who are not swayed by the negative publicities; While Toyota should manage the crisis even in a better way in order to retain its good reputation. Crisis, Toyota, Corporate Reputation, crisis management, consumer perception Key Words INTRODUCTION “We deeply regret the inconvenience and concern caused to our customers and others by our recent recalls of multiple vehicle models across multiple regions.” – Aki...
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...industry (Corporate Planning Div. 31). SUSTAINABILITY With constant environmental law and regulation changes, Toyota faces one of their biggest challenges to comply. The policies and strategies were easy enough to produce, but the hardest part is getting employee and business partners to adhere, internalize, and understand the overall picture of where Toyota wanted to be. Training programs were designed to educate dealerships and employees on becoming more eco-friendly and sustainable. The result was Toyota launching their Green Supplier Guidelines in 2001, in hopes that the suppliers would follow the same path (Toyota 47). The search for energy savings has produced what Toyota calls a “treasure hunt”, in which suppliers have access to tools and resources that Toyota themselves use to remain eco-friendly. The outcome has been Toyota’s reduction of around 34,000 metric tons of Caron dioxide (CO2) in their supplier’s processes (Toyota 47). Eco-friendly is not only emissions, but also conservation of resources. Toyota strives to help the environment by recycling old parts, reducing the amount of waste produced by creating new ones, and even reducing finished product vehicle CO2 emission (Corporate Planning Div. 31). Toyota logistic and production facilities in North America are equipped with Energy Management Systems (EMS), which identify, manage, and obtain ways to reduce plant...
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...non-family managers truly to blame for “hijacking” Toyota? This Process Identification and Improvement plan will examine process areas for improvement: Toyota Production System (TPS) integration, the company’s decision making management centralized systems, and quality of the products. Executive Summary With the global expansion occurring, the organization’s core principles became diluted. By the year 2010, Toyota faced an unprecedented crisis with both its reputation and plummeting stock prices from the effects of recalling over 10 million vehicles worldwide. Toyota put their customers at risk by failing to immediately notify the proper authorities regarding the potentially defective acceleration situation. Toyota failed to comply with the federal law in the foreign subsidiary and failed to report such safety defects to the proper government regulators within five business days (Greto, M., Schotter, A, & TeaGarden, M. 2010). There were numerous contributing factors of the dismay of Toyota’s known brand, but Toyota’s management failed their core principles and failed to implement the TPS process due to fast global expansion. The TPS process was not fully implemented in all plants globally during the global expansion which lead to quality...
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...Operationalizing Sustainability in Toyota By Nancy Vahidi August 2012 Brandman University CSR 650 Operationalizing Sustainability in Toyota Toyota is famous for making quality cars at reasonable prices. Recently, while some American auto-makers concentrated on making large, luxury vehicles, Toyota was focusing on building small, fuel-efficient vehicles that would grow to dominate the automotive industry. Although quality and efficiency are two important features of economic sustainability, this paper will look into more aspects of sustainability to determine how Toyota has operationalized sustainability. Energy bulletin, 2007, published that oil accounts for 95% of the global energy use for transportation. This fact alone makes the job of auto makers in general and Toyota specifically, in making fuel efficient cars, of outmost importance. Emitting CO2 is another harmful side effect that results from operating the existing autos. “Seventy-five percent of carbon monoxide emissions come from automobiles. In urban areas, harmful automotive emissions are responsible for anywhere between 50 and 90 percent of air pollution.”1 Considering the above, in order to operationalize sustainability, Toyota needs to step in and produce autos that are fuel efficient and pollute less in order to lower the energy consumption and save the environment. The sheer size of Toyota operations as one of the largest auto makers in the world, and it’s strive to always be the leader, has...
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...Reflection and evaluation of the marketing principles using Toyota’s case study Introduction In this essay, I will reflect on my experience within Principles of Marketing module. To illustrate this I will use feedback obtained from my tutor, the information I have learnt from undergoing my presentation and verbal feedback from other group members. I will then briefly explain what the principles of marketing are and how these principles relate to modern marketing practices. I will address both the negative and positive feedback I received and explain how I will use the feedback to improve on my strengths and mend my weakness so that I may do better in future presentations. My view on the Principles of Marketing During Principles of Marketing module, I learnt that marketing principles is mainly about finding out what the consumer wants and going the extra mile to provide this at a high standard whether it’s goods or service. I understood that there are key elements involved with marketing process; the 4P’s for goods and the 7P’s for services. The 7P’s of the marketing mix are price, place, product, promotion, people, process and physical environment. By understanding, the marketing mix a corporation will have more knowledge about how to plan, distribute and promote their products. Without these fundamental elements, it is unlikely for managers to formulate a feasible marketing plan. For a business to be successful, an appropriate composition of the marketing mix...
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...motor companies (the Big 3) – General Motors (GM), Ford & Chrysler almost dominated the global market. In 1994, Toyota replaced Chrysler, and it became the global No. 2 motor manufacturer by squeezing out Ford in 2003. Since 2008, Toyota has replaced GM to be the largest automaker globally. Toyota is a successful corporation and has a very good performance in automotive industry, but it also has some troubles and challenges to face, like the problem of Toyota vehicle recall in the last three years. So we have to ask how did Toyota achieve its success? How Toyota face to the challenge? Toyota is known for its reliable cars among the general public, but it has also been known in manufacturing, management and relationship with suppliers. Toyota’s production system has been held as a model for the industry based on market share and the profitability of Japanese manufacturers. There are two important elements here: Lean manufacturing and Toyota production system (TPS) Lean manufacturing is the concept created by Toyota to make production development and the production system more...
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...showered on us by providing us with all necessary facilities. We are thankful to him, for his expert advice and help which has always been source of inspiration for us. Above all, we owe everything to the Almighty and well-wishers for their valuable contribution and insights. However, we have taken utmost care in preparing this project report, mistakes would have crept though. (12010121196) Ms. N AMULYA REDDY (12010121213) Ms. NIKITA SINGHANIA (12010121276) Mr. REUBEN JOSEPH (12010121032) Mr. AMIT KUMAR JENA (12010121057) Ms. ARPITA DEB (12010121316) Ms. SAYONEE DATTA 1 Topic. Case Summary Q1: Toyota's revolutionary lean production Q2: Compare and contrast the arm's length relationships Q3: Development of Toyota's revolutionary "lean production system" Q4: Toyota enter into the NUMMI Q5: Toyota's subsequent expansion Q6: Role of national culture in shaping Toyota's lean production system Q7: Toyota is becoming more of a global corporation Page No. 03 05 07 08 09 10 12 13 2 SUMMARY Background Toyota is a multinational automobile manufacturing corporation headquartered in Japan. The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spin-off from...
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...Contents Case I 2 Toyota Ignorance on Safety 2 Impact on Individual, Organization and Society 3 Case II 6 Ethical Dilemma in Nigeria 6 Impact on Student, School and the society 7 Case III 10 HIV positive nurse gets sentenced on deliberate transmission of the disease 10 Impact on Individual, Organization and Society 10 Reference 13 Appendix 01 14 Appendix 02 15 Appendix 03 17 Case I Toyota Ignorance on Safety Toyota Moto Corporation is one of the world’s leading companies in the automobile industry. However their reputation has been greatly damaged when they deliberately ignored safety concerns by refusing to admit the acceleration problems in their automobiles. Failure to input a break override system to prevent accidents further aggravated the situation. Complaints from over 1,000 Toyota owners have been filed since 2001. The accidents have caused the life of at least 19 people, and resulted in several injuries over the last decade (Krolicki & Hill, 2010). At a report published by the Federal Regulatory system it says that, these accidents are far more than any other automobile company has experienced. In order to comprehend for the probes, Toyota managed to collect fewer than 85,000 defected vehicles. Over the last decade National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has investigated more than eight cases filed by Toyota owners. However six other cases were closed by the Federal agency without finding any problems in the vehicles (Vartabedian...
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...CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT Assignment When person from one cultural background, meet, interact with, understand and deal with person from other cultural background. That is cross-cultural management. The unawareness about the culture and beliefs of the people in a country has produced a lot of differences and misunderstandings between them and made their business field too much uncomfortable. In order to overcome this, the need of intercultural training has become very essential. In the intercultural training the candidates get a clear picture of the culture and the customs prevailing in a particular country and also get some helping words regarding how to mingle and associate with the people there. This enabled the trainees to clear the differences and misunderstanding between them to a greater extent. A mere training is not sufficient for a trainee to become perfect in dealing the matter timely and suitably. The latter part of the training can be attained by allowing the candidate to mingle with the people of the country concerned. Usually the trainees come across with one or two persons, or a group of people in a locality. On closely viewing the peculiarities in their behavior, nature, custom and language the trainees can make some preliminary judgment on the culture of the people there. These peculiarities cannot be taken into consideration for making judgments about the culture of the people of the country as a whole. If such an attempt is made, then it will be ultimately...
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...provides a concrete case study of this truth. While the biggest product differentiation of the Prius is a fuel efficient, hybrid engine, most people do not buy it because it is eco-friendly. We assert that Toyota succeeded by marketing the Prius on multiple factors including the potential for gas savings, appeal to those who desire the latest technology, crossing into multiple market segments, and keeping the car practical, attractive, and functional. If they had appealed solely on impact to the environment, they would have failed to generate significant market penetration. Toyota did not set out to create a hybrid car. Rather, the Chairman Eiji Toyoda was concerned about the increasing popularity of larger cars and of the effect it would have on pollution levels in increasingly congested cities. He was concerned about the threat of peak oil looming and believed that the traditional internal combustion engine would not successfully carry Toyota into the next century. It was a year into that effort that Toyota decided to adapt a hybrid approach to creating a car with a lower impact on the environment. Toyota was cautious in entering the American market (Itazaki, 1999). Toyota's first step was to ship the original Prius that had been sold in the Japanese market beginning in 1997 to the U.S. These Prius' were right hand driving models as no left hand models had yet been produced. The car was shown to potential customers in Southern California who complained that the interior...
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...Toyota Motor Corp: Launching Prius Vardhan Kamat Executive Summary: Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota or TMC) is currently working on the first mass produced hybrid car in the world, Prius and is aiming to launch it by end of 1998. Toyota’s new President Hiroshi Okuda wants to advance the launch to 1997 to ensure they are the first to market. Toyota needs to choose between the following choices: (i) Target an aggressive global launch in 1997 (ii) Launch in end 1998 as per the original plan (iii) Target a smooth launch in 1998 allowing for any unforeseen delay till 1999. I recommend that Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota or TMC) target a smooth launch for end 1998 and allow for any unforeseen delay to push the launch till 1999. Analysis: Traditionally, the market has been dominated by gasoline and diesel powertrains. Electric and fuel cell powertrains have not broken through as mass-consumer vehicles. With the hybrid technology, Toyota hopes to combine the traditional gasoline/diesel power source with electric source to combine the best of both. The modern hybrid car is estimated to cost nearly 20% more than a regular car. If we consider a 100% increase in the fuel efficiency, the buy advantage is $400 (see Exhibit A. Therefore we can see that the buy advantage is not primarily in the cost (value) proposition of the car. The current buyer of this car would be someone who (i) puts a high value for the environment, (ii) is willing to pay a premium over conventional cars in the...
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