Toyota’s Quest to Regain its Reputation, Market Share and Sales

After enjoying a top ten ranking on Ward’s Automotive list for most of 2009, Toyota Motor Corporation suffered a severe blow to its image of quality, safety and reliability. Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, has recalled 8.5 million vehicles worldwide as a result of runaway vehicles caused by defective gas pedals, faulty floor mats and braking software glitches. The company is desperately trying to salvage its reputation and regain market share and sales. Some considered this to be the biggest crisis in the auto industry since the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler while others thought that Toyota would not be able to rebound from this problem in a short period of time. This paper will explore the decisions that Toyota faced with its problem of regaining its reputation, market share and sales. In efforts to assess this problem, I will be using the PrOACT approach. According to our textbook, “an effective decision-making process will fulfill these six criteria:
• It focuses on what’s important
• It is logical and consistent
• It acknowledges both subjective and objective factors and blends analytical with intuitive thinking.
• It requires only as much information and analysis as is necessary to resolve a particular dilemma.
• It encourages and guides the gathering of relevant information and informed opinion.
• It is straightforward, reliable, easy to use, and flexible. (Hammond, 1999, p.4)
The PrOACT approach does just this. It simplifies the problem and provides more clarity to the decision situation. Problem, objectives, alternatives, consequences and tradeoffs are elements of smart choices that will be discussed within this paper to simply Toyota’s decision scenario.
Problem and Objectives The objectives in Toyota’s quest to discern how to regain its reputation,