Case: Toyota, Ford, Gm and Volkswagen- Some Differing Opinions About Working with Suppliers

The recommendations I would suggest for structuring the supplier relationship process for the Wolf Motors dealership network are Wolf Motors should consider a centralized corporate level Materials Management System to consolidate buying decisions for each of the 4 dealerships. This would facilitate greater leveraging with suppliers for consistent quality-control. They should study, calculate and make effective decisions on the materials that should be brought for each of the four dealerships instead of allowing each dealer to do it on their own. An automated

The Ford Motor Company’s Supply Chain Management ABSTRACT The influx of foreign automobiles that flood the United States market is higher than ever before and American companies are struggling to adapt to this decrease in market share. Ford is one of the organizations that has restructured its supply chain strategy to better integrate suppliers into their system reducing cost and

With a wide variety of vehicles and manufacturers due to low switching costs, the bargaining power of customers is very high in the automobile industry. Also foreign brands are selling vehicles in the Indian markets, adding to the bargaining power of customers in this industry. Thus the value created by the firm lies in adding differentiating features by innovating and increasing the customer’s willingness to pay while reducing the supplier’s opportunity cost.

In this world of technology and innovation even Ford Motor Company is investing in new technologies in order to improvised their supply chain management, build an environment with interaction between each department as well as suppliers in order to reduce the bridging gap between them. As it is a leader in auto market segment, needs to update and coop with time and technology periodically but due to huge competition from the Japanese auto makers like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, Suzuki etc., who are strong and powerful with references to the supply chain process management due to which Ford market share dip compared to others as well as the sales also declined. During this time, Ford analysed the situation and thought positively and started improvement in the supply chain management.

Given the current economic climate, I think the automotive industry is going to be faced with a multitude of economic challenges in the next five years. As an oligopoly market, the auto industry is highly dependent on strategic decision-making, and the demand for dynamic innovation and supply at decreased-cost levels. Competition, possibilities of turning substitutes into compliments, and shifts toward higher demand in services are seemingly leading factors that face the current automotive industry in the immediate future. But first, we should not ignore the political forces at play within the market.

Toyota faced a challenge related to the poor visibility and low quality of a supplier for the Suprima model. The Japanese brand, being related to a top quality product and a Just in Time manufacturing scheme could not afford to have stock out problems nor not meeting consumers’ demand for quality.

To better understand a firm and its placement of its strategies, we must conduct an analysis of factors that might affect its selection of strategies.

Selection of outside suppliers at the initial stage was crucial. Three advantages would benefit from authorized supplier involvement in design and production process. Firstly, they could foresee major problems in the design cycle by pulling their expertise and methodologies. Secondly, this model embedded quality into BMW’s production system up and down the supply chain. Thirdly, supplier was able to realize the critical connection between quality and profit through high customer satisfaction.

Just like the other industries such as apparel, electronics, and consumer goods, the automobile industry has accelerated its foreign direct investment, cross border trade and global production. The automobile industry has increased outsourcing and bundled value chain activities in major supplier chains. As a result, more developed countries that serve as suppliers have increased their involvement in trade and FDI. With these increased supplier capabilities, large national suppliers have become global suppliers and are now controlling multinational operations. This is because of their increased capability of providing good and services to various lead firms all over the world. The automotive industry has a distinct firm structure. This

This helped the company to have a competitive advantage for the suppliers opportunity cost. Suppliers were paid incentives for improving the process. Continuous contact with the suppliers helped the company to have control for quality and also the computer aided layouts were dispersed. If the supplier used ideas to reduce cost then profit was being shared with them. This encouraged the suppliers to bring more innovation the process and thus Toyota had a competitive advantage over its suppliers if compared to its

Communication is the most important aspect of conducting business. Toyota must improve their means of communication and it must start at the beginning of the customer/supplier relationship. The Process Flow chart will identify the communication process between Toyota and supplier is further updated to show improved processes. Expectations should be established to ensure that suppliers are providing the quality products that represent the Toyota brand. Currently, Toyota has sacrificed quality and safety to meet the demands of the customers. Toyota must take into consideration the market they enter and the major players that exist to provide the support necessary. Toyota uses the Annual Purchasing Policy process to communicate their expectations to suppliers. “The purpose of supplier expectations is to highlight key priority activities and emphasize broader, more philosophical issues universal to all suppliers (ToyotaSupplier.com, 2012).” In addition, “individual expectations, on the other hand, are developed uniquely for each supplier and include specific targets in the key areas of quality, delivery, value improvement and minority sourcing (ToyotaSupplier.com,

Toyota and Honda succeeded in constructing effective supplier relationships because of the methods they used for it. In article they were the following:

Suppliers are able to be involved in the product development to some degree. Different from others which control everything during purchasing and the suppliers are just responsible for supplying products as what is in the contract, Honda’s suppliers are able to offer advice about enhancing the efficiency which facilitate the cooperation as well as the products. In other words, Honda and its suppliers are mutually-beneficial cooperation rather than Honda just relies on suppliers.

4. In a service supply chain, the (explicit) cost of information is higher than in a product

We will start the external analysis with the PESTEL analysis of the automotive sector followed by the Porter’s five forces analysis and we will end by having a look at the key competitors and competitor pricing.