...and Business Development Toyota Crisis: Management Ignorance? – A Swedish Case of Consumers Perceptions Master’s Dissertation in Management of Innovation and Business Development, 15 ECTS Final seminar 2010-05-27 Authors: Yuanyuan Feng Supervisor: Mike Danilovic Hamlstad University Feng(2010) TOYOTA CRISIS: MANAGEMENT IGNORANCE? – A 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...
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...Political With offering autos in 18 nations of North America, Western Europe and Asia (Tesla, 2014),Tesla Motors need to manage unique political examples affecting its business activities. One of the major political elements influencing the business is ecological insurance laws to impel creation of more natural autos to meet strict emanation levels. The other critical component is US government vitality advance projects for innovative work of new vehicle innovations (Department of Energy, 2010). For this situation, numerous vehicle producers will be intrigued by entering the business sector. US $8 billion project for cutting edge vehicle advances backings building and the production of model S and the advancement of power train innovation. Department of energy conceded $465 million credit to Tesla in 2009 to support in its operation. 3.2 Economic Economic conditions are now improving after GFC.A moderate but steady economic growth with low inflation, readily available credit,low interest rate can be expected. These conditions will inspire and motivate consumers to buy new cars. The buyers who cancelled their sales during recession will reconsider the decision and drive them to the auto market. 3.3 Social Social components are identified with expansion of natural concerns, mentality and accentuation on items that are eco amicable. Purchasers are losing confidence in gas fuel and related cost in generation, attempting to help nature's turf. Also, without a doubt the...
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...Introduction Toyota has demonstrated along its history to be a high tech car manufacturer company, leader in manufacturing reliable and high quality cars. The rest of the car manufacturers adopted Toyota’s production philosophy, the well-known TPS. The continuous rivalry with the rest of the car manufacturers and the aggressive growth strategy combined with a cost reduction plan caused Toyota to overlook quality issues which caused a very serious problem known as “The Accelerator Crisis” This crisis affected the company’s image and reputation and of course had an impact on its financials since they had to recall the defective cars. In this document it is intended to analyze and explore the reasons behind this Toyota’ accelerator crisis and how it was managed. Case Analysis Toyota had 14 principles in four sections that encompass a philosophy of continuous improvement. These sections, or groupings, refer to: long-term vision, process improvement, root-cause analysis & self-criticism, and developing the people. Toyota was so successful in implementing them that these best practices became a philosophy that others wanted to emulate. It is surprising that Toyota had to face a crisis over its lack of quality. In determining the main cause for this crisis, we can identify several items such as change of the management staff, from family to a professional team, oriented towards growth and increasing sales volumes. The original Toyota values got mixed-up, prioritizing volume...
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...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 ethics as well as handling...
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...improve Toyota Process Improvement Abstract This paper will address the identification of processed used by Toyota Corporation during the accelerator crisis. It will identify the process used and the core problems with the process. In part A of the paper the paper addresses the issues that began with sticky gas pedals, floor mats, and pedal entrapment and braking issues on some models of Toyotas vehicles. The quality of the vehicle was the issue. In part B of the paper the issue was safety and this lead to drivers dying because of safety issues. In part C of the paper Toyota has a lean process established that had no buy in from employees or Leadership which contributed to issues with their product. Toyota thought they had implemented a learn culture that consist of problem solving, teamwork, and a continuous improvement culture to sustain lean. Toyota Process Improvement Toyota is considered a global leader in the automobile business. Toyota has dominated the market with accolades from several organizations endorsing the Lexus as well as the Camry on a top ten list of best cars to own. Toyota had the market share of 12.8 percent. Toyota was based in Japan in 1933 and was introduced to the United States of American in 1957. Toyota made a name for them for producing reliable vehicles with superb quality. This paper will identify several processes for improvement that Toyota has researched, developed, or incorporated due to the crisis of the accelerators. A process...
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...DE MONTERREY | THUNDERBIRD Production Operation Management TOYOTA: THE ACCELERATOR CRISIS Study Case Report | | 1. What were the drivers of Toyota´s accelerators crisis? Why was Toyota facing a recall crisis? The drivers of Toyota crisis were Strategic, structural and cultural issues. At the strategic level, the cost reduction strategy added with the increasing of the output volume strategy caused a decrease in quality. Furthermore, the structure of Toyota (HQs in Japan and not in the U.S) impacted Toyota’s response to customer’s claims, taking a long time to address Toyota consumer’s concerns, and in fact was one of the most criticized issues during the crisis. In other words, the company took a considerable time before recalling units that meant life losses and significant economic impacts. At the cultural managerial level, there were difficulties driven by how Japanese address the situation vs. how Americans deal with the problems. The company lost its original philosophy due to different cultural orientations between Japanese headquarters and North American subsidiaries. The fact that Toyota was recovering from its last unit’s recall (due to motors leaking oil) plus the beginning of the global financial crisis, ended up yielding a deviation of the original long term plan to look after the U.S subsidiary´s financial performance, triggering a swap in the three main pillars of Toyota (Safety, Quality and Volume). 2. Michael Porter claims that...
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...Team B Assesses Public Relations for Toyota SUA Recalls MKT/578 University Of Phoenix Team B Assesses Public Relations for Toyota SUA Recalls In August of 2009, an off duty California Highway Patrol officer and three family members died when their Lexus crashed after the accelerator pedal stuck. The car was traveling at a high rate of speed and could not be stopped according to a panicked call from the driver (MacKenzie and Evans, 2010). This tragedy kicked off a crisis for Toyota as it had to deal with accusations that a faulty accelerator pedal is what caused the crash. The company faced negative publicity from the media, the public and the NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) as a result of this accident and other accidents involving sudden unattended acceleration (SUA) from a stuck accelerator pedal. In response to these incidents and the publicity, Toyota eventually recalled 7.5 million vehicles to fix the stuck accelerator problem and shut down production of its effected vehicles until the problem could be solved. In this paper, Learning Team B has evaluated the role public relations played in this case and how the company could better prepare for a similar crisis. Problem Toyota realized it had a public opinion problem after numerous reports of “runaway” cars were claimed to have been caused by an accelerator pedal that would remain pressed down after the driver released the pedal. This resulted in the California accident...
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...9/11/2015 Abstract Prior to October 2009, Toyota was seen as a leader in manufacturing and quality that other companies were trying to emulate (Cole, 2011). The company was facing a recall crisis because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had to pressure them to recall additional vehicles after a driver died in what was identified as a stuck accelerator followed by reports of unintended acceleration as a result of sticky gas pedals (Cole, 2011). Communication was the process identified that Toyota needed to improve. Communication between customers, management, employees, and the media was selected as the process for improvement. Project Management Institute (2013) reports that Business research from Forbes, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, and Towers Watson proves that companies realize that effective communication is important for success. According to Project Management Institure’s The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications, “PMI’s 2013 Pulse of the ProfessionTM report revealed that US$135 million is at risk for every US$1 billion spent on a project. Further research on the importance of effective communications uncovers that a startling 56 percent (US$75 million of that US$135 million) is at risk due to ineffective communications” (p. 2). This paper discusses the process of how to improve communication at Toyota. Introduction Toyota experienced the accelerator crisis because of a breakdown in communication. We start...
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...issues of quality and ethics in Toyota Motor Corporation in line with the recall crisis at Toyota and its overall impacts to the brand as revealed by (Greto, Schotter & Teargarden, 2010) in their study titled, “Toyota: The Accelerator Crisis.” In her process identification, Ndagire introduces us to the drivers of the Toyota accelerator crisis and in her response, she contends with the fact that nonfamily members who were obsessed with quantity influenced the crisis in quest. In addition, the author says that the reason behind the recall crisis at Toyota was the nonfunctional management structure. Ndagire goes on o mention that failure by the top management to involve the employees in decision making especially concerning the TPS system demoralized the employees hence they could not support the corporate brand while the stakeholders would only do so upon invitation and satisfaction of the model quality. Also to not from the process identification is that Toyota did not manage public relation in U.S in the verge of the accelerator crisis thus need for crisis management. According to Ndagire, for the CEO to restore Toyota‘s reputation, he should change the management structure by ensuring flow of information among different units as well as minimizing on cost cutting. Further, she concludes that Toyota lost sight of its long-term philosophy by focusing on quality rather than quality and that three different quality dimensions were not addressed at Toyota. After analyzing the...
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...manufactured by Toyota has been the critical problem. Ever since the whole crisis rose, the need for effective customer communication has prevailed. With little prioritization of Toyota customers, it has cost a lot to the organization: I am talking of over 6 million recalls, the fines that have totaled to about $50 million. Above all that, there has been a greater drift when it comes to the standards that do define Toyota as a brand. To resolve the accelerator crisis, there is a need to provide customer satisfaction, improved productivity and quality of the products manufactured by Toyota. To achieve effective communication to take place, there is need to break the barriers that do exist between the top management and the departments through the provision of courses related to customer relations and leadership. There is also need to shift the suppliers as a way of ensuring the quality of the products that reach the customers. For Toyota to retain the quality standards and the best auto brand among the competitors, real customer’s relations should be attained. History and Description of the Current Situation The crisis was reported on August 28th, 2009 when Mark Saylor, a California Highway Patrol officer together with his family passed on in an accident. The accident was caused by the 2009 Lexus ES350 whose acceleration was out of control with the report from 911 saying that one of the occupants said the vehicle had no brakes (Toyota, 2012). After some investigation, the Toyota Company...
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...& Recommendations | 10 | 7 | Bibliography | 14 | INTRODUCTION Toyota Motor Corporation, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. In 2010, Toyota Motor Corporation employed 317,734 people worldwide, and was the world's largest automobile manufacturer by production. The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. TMC is part of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world. It created its first product, the Type A engine, and, in 1936, its first passenger car, the Toyota AA. Toyota Motor Corporation group companies are Toyota (including the Scion brand), Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino Motors, along with several "non-automotive" companies. Sakichi Toyoda invented the Toyoda Model G Automatic Loom in 1924 incorporated the principle of Jidoka, which means that the machine automatically stops itself when a problem occurs, later becoming a part of the Toyota Production System. RESEARCH PROBLEM: Toyota has long been recognized as an industry leader in manufacturing and production. Toyota's management philosophy has evolved from the company's origins and has been reflected in the terms "Lean Manufacturing" and Just In Time Production, which was instrumental in developing Toyota's managerial values and business methods collectively known as the Toyota Way. In 2010, the Toyota Motor Corporation ranked first by the International Organization of Motor...
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...Business/ Reputation 4. If I am the new Ceo( Chief Executive Officer) of the company what kind of actions I am going to undertake? [pic][pic] [pic] 1. From 2009 to 2010, Toyota recalled millions of cars for accelerator pedal sticking. The first recall, on November 2, 2009, was to correct a possible incursion of an incorrect or out-of-place front driver's side floor mat into the foot pedal well, which can cause pedal entrapment. The second recall, on January 21, 2010, was begun after some crashes were shown not to have been caused by floor mat incursion. In March 2010, at the time of the recall, Toyota was unsure of the cause behind a spate of cars that would speed up without the driver's help. Hybrid’s breaking systems: Prius owners have reported that brakes momentarily fail when driving in icy or slippery conditions, or over potholes. Normally the anti-lock braking system engages and disengages many times a second as the system reacts to the slipping tyres. But - as Toyota puts it - some drivers have complained of "inconsistent brake feel" during slow and steady braking on some surfaces when ABS is activated.The solution involves an upgrade of the software in the braking system, which should take less than an hour and will be carried out for free by official Toyota service centres. Toyota stresses that the cars are still safe to drive and the brakes will stop the car. US safety authorities, however, have said they have received reports of accidents, including a small...
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...case of Toyota recall By Daniel Opoku Abstract Purpose: the main purpose of this study is to find out about the recalls of Toyota vehicles which lead to the death of some innocent lives. The recall was due to unintended acceleration. Toyota ultimately recalled millions of its cars for floor mat issues, brake problems and "sticky" gas pedals. Methodology: Data was collected online, by the help of some selected search engines. Information was collected from Toyota’s national website as well as other private sites. Findings/results: Most organization should seek for customers or consumer’s satisfaction rather than targeting of making high profit. Arrogance and choosing to ignore quality warnings when failures begin to happen is also a problem facing most organization. Implications: Companies or organizations should design and manufacturing information and traceability data that can be shared with suppliers for effective root cause analysis. Paper type: case study Keywords: recall, unintended acceleration, floor mat, sticky gas pedals. Introduction Toyota has long been recognized as seventh largest company in the world and the second largest manufacturer of automobiles, with production facilities in 28 nations around the world (Toyota Assembly and part, 2011). As been the world third largest manufacturer of automobiles in unit sales and in net sales, Toyota has also created good customer relationship and provides customers with the products they need. Toyota Motor Company...
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...Operations Improvement Plan for Toyota Angie Beckey Capella University Author Note This paper has been prepared for MBA6022 Strategic Operations Management Section 103 Executive Summary Clear and transparent communication efforts are critical in the strength of an organization. These efforts go beyond the internal walls of an organization and extend to their external customers. Effective and efficient communication is crucial to an organization on how consumers perceive the company and brand. There seemed to be a significant break-down across the lines of communication within Toyota, which resulted in a significant negative public perception of the organization and brand. Toyota Motor Corporation is in need of a communications overhaul across the entire organization to prevent future crisis’s and to retain market share, as well as capture additional market share. Implementing a communications improvement plan across the organization will cost approximately 11% of working capital, however, the opportunity cost of restoring and maintaining the reputable brand that has been known for reliability, durability and quality will be priceless. Operations Improvement Plan Implementation “The art of communication is the language of leadership.” – James Humes The purpose of this paper is to illustrate why Toyota is in need of a communications improvement plan overhaul. I have identified the root cause of the accelerator recall crisis as a lack of critical and pertinent information...
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...MBA 6022 Strategic Operations Management U02a1 Process Improvement Natasha Lynch Problem Statement Growth at the Toyota Motor Company skyrocketed with the opening of new subsidiaries from India and China to the U.S. and Brazil, which led to a strain on the company’s resources leading the company to misread the market, produce faulty products and to build underutilized plants. A program known as Construction of Cost Competitiveness for the 21st century was also introduced, to cut cost at every stage, by reducing the components in a car to 50%. Further along more aggressively than the latter, was the introduction of a Value Innovation strategy which promised savings by making the entire production process cheaper by trimming parts. With these cost saving mechanisms, Toyota also sort to seek a targeted global market share of 15% by 2010, whereby replacing GM from its number one position. Due to this growth, foundational philosophies like safety, and quality were undermined as focus was placed primarily on volume. This resulted in a series of vehicle recalls from 2006 spanning to approximately 4 years. Toyota refused to acknowledge complaints of faulty mechanics in their automobiles, and was slow to take appropriate actions. Background of Recall Crisis In 1999, 3.3 million vehicles were affected as the engines on some models like the Camry, Corollas were prone to oil gelling or sludging. Another issue occurred during the period 2003 to 2004 where more vehicles...
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