Toyota 's Management Structure Functional Integration

Organizational culture could almost be considered the roots of a company. The way a company’s employees think, the way the customers feel, and the company’s decisions are made are all based around the culture that the company has laid for itself. An employee’s values, thoughts, and actions should reflect those stated in the company’s mission. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, while both attempting to create a culture that is comfortable and pleasing to their

When an organization does not use a holistic approach towards their culture, structure and systems, the organization could create a poor working environment for its employees and poor results for their customers. An example of culture, structure and systems not working well together can be seen in General Motors (GM). GM prior to its bankruptcy was seen to be a “highly bureaucratic company in which brands, departments and regions operated like self-governing and competing states with a federation” (Smerd, J. 2009).

Toyota is the leading motor vehicle manufacturer in the world today. The company is known particularly for manufacturing a wide range of high quality cars attracting a spirited competition from other globally established competitors like General Motor (GM), Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Nissan.

Before this chapter I thought organization’s culture was only internal and outside factors only affect the brand and sales of the company. But I have now learned a lot more about the

Global competition in the industry: There are many vehicle manufacturers throughout the world. A few common vehicles seen in my state are GM, Chrysler, Lexus, VW, Honda, Toyota, Ford, and Jeep. Each company tries to stay ahead of the rest. Toyota, based in Japan, for example was one of the first businesses to introduce hybrid vehicles. This was a direct result of the oil embargo. After having three oil shortages automobile manufacturers are creating more fuel efficient, environmentally friendly products.

Organization Culture is the second concept that plays a vital role in a new communication structure in an organization. No matter what an organizational culture might be, the goals are to work for a common goal and be successful in new communication structures. Our text states “Organizational culture refers to the cooperatively held underlying beliefs, logics, and legends concerning corporate life that organizational participants learn and use to guide their behaviors. These ideas, philosophies, and myths are embedded in and transmitted through both formal and informal channels of organizational communication” (Kreps, 2011). Organizational culture defines the individuality of the organization to both members and nonmembers, cues members of the culture about how they should represent the organization, and helps members make sense of their role in the organization and the higher part of the group within society (Kreps, 2011). Having

The demand of cars has been increasing in China and India as well as Latin American region

The United States Automotive industry has been dominated by five major auto manufacturers: GM, Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, and Honda. As globalization increases the domestic automotive market (GM, Ford, Chrysler) suffers from foreign competitors. Although with high entrance barriers the market suffers little to none from new entries. There are several reasons for this the largest being capital. It takes a lot of capital to obtain manufacturing plants, raw materials, as well as to hire and train employees. PASTEL Analysis

Toyota Motor Corporation is an international car manufacturer that is based out of Toyota, Japan. Toyota started vehicle production in 1933 with the company being a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Throughout the early years of Toyota, they were well known for making highly desirable vehicles that were efficient and reliable. However, in recent years Toyota has been plagued with recalls for various reasons. Many of these recalls are safety related issues that have tainted to company’s sterling reputation. For instance, in January 2010, Toyota suspended sales of eight recalled vehicle models to fix accelerator pedals with mechanical problems that could cause them to become stuck. In December 2012, Toyota announced an agreement worth more than $1 billion to settle a lawsuit involving unintended acceleration in some of its vehicles (Wikipedia, 2017). Business experts believed that it was not necessarily the recall that damaged Toyota’s reputation, but rather the way that the recalls were handled. Many individuals believe that Toyota executives were insincere in their apologies, and that they did very poorly at explaining the recalls and what the course of correction was for the problems (Kaufman, 2010). Toyota’s CEO, Akio Toyoda, stated in an inter interview that the company was growing to quickly and was putting growth-related goals above quality concerns

“Toyota’s information and decision making has been highly centralized. The result: Top management in Japan has been less sensitive to the expectations of regulators, culture and politics in overseas markets, and consequently, they have been slower to respond to local problems. The reality is that Toyota’s problems were not caused by a faulty production system but by poor management decisions” (Cole, 2011, pg. 34). In the past, Toyota was a company that trained employees to embrace the Toyota Way and pushed their employees to strive for continuous improvement and perfection. The upper management at Toyota has strayed away from their core; founding principles that empowered their employees and contributed to making them a successful automobile manufacturing juggernaut. A major source for of their ongoing improvement and innovation has been from employees.

In 2009 Toyota Motors (TM) posted a net loss of $4.6 billion ("Market watch," 2014). From 2009 to 2011 Toyota encountered a number of factors contributing to their economic downturn. It began with recalling millions of vehicles, for quality related problems, followed by natural disasters hitting northeastern Japan. These disasters wiped out Toyota’s production capabilities (Tabuchi & Vlasic, 2014). While these events were occurring, the cloud of the 2008 global financial crisis was still being felt. This crisis weakened demand in the automotive industry. This weakened demand increased the competitive landscape for all automotive manufactures. This drove down automotive prices and effectively contribution margins (i.e. sold less

As it relates to the competitive structure, or the number and size distribution of companies within an industry, the automobile industry is considered a consolidated industry, where a small number of large companies dominate and are able to set prices. Traditionally, in America, these companies were called “The Big Three,” Chrysler, Ford, and GM, but Toyota, was also a major rival during the recession. “In consolidated industries, companies are interdependent, because one company’s competitive actions or moves (with regard to price, quality, and so on) directly affect the market share of its rivals, and thus their profitability” (Hill & Jones, 2012, p. 62). The relative power of consolidation on the automobile industry was high.

Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Hyundai have similar vehicles and are routinely compared to each other. Honda makes the Accord, Toyota has the Camry, Nissan has the Maxima, and Hyundai produces the Sonata. All are considered in the same class. Marketing of the companies themselves, all indicate they are comparable. The degree of rivalry continues to increase as new technology develops, environmental concerns rise, and the economy challenges the market. The automotive industry is considered to be an oligopoly, which helps to minimize the effects of price-based competition. The competition between the companies continues to intensify due to the changes in the economy. The companies use rebates, financing, long-term warranties, and recently the guarantee to make payment or return the vehicle should the consumer lose their job. This is definitely a sign of the times. The automotive companies compare themselves to each other. In their advertising campaigns, the companies point out the weakness of the other company and stressing their strength compared to the other companies.

Toyota is a key player in global automotive market. Its structure constitutes if various production plants in different locations and a very strong branding which helps it capture a major market share. Like other enterprises, Toyota has several strengths and weakness which makes it what it is now. Toyota heavily invests in Research and development which helps it come up reputable product line which is spread out throughout the world because of its strengthening global distribution network however its recent product recalling, loose grip in key geographic areas and wrong allocation of resources shows that even a strong brand like Toyota has its weaknesses.

Toyota positioned itself in the American auto market and defined its organizational strategy as high quality, innovative engineering and producing some of the safest auto mobiles on the road, and in one fell swoop, the integrity and quality of their vehicles were not only brought into question, but many consumers looked elsewhere for their automotive needs. The Toyota group and its subsidiaries has had a prominence in Japan for years, but the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) embargo of 1973 allowed Japan to bring its kaizen work ethic to the US and begin to gain an automotive presence that allowed Toyota to compete with America’s big three: Ford, GM and Chrysler. The big three controlled the market up until this point and it would take some time but by 1980 Toyota was the fourth leading manufacturer in the US and poised to gain ground and by 2008 Toyota, Honda and Nissan made prolific jumps with around 32% of the market share. Unfortunately the economic recession slowed all manufacturers’ growth but trends such as forty-three-year-old Hyundai has surpassed 107 year-old Ford in global sells would mark the end of the big three reigns, with GM and Chrysler taking part in the controversial automotive bailout in 2009. This also harkened back to the belief those automakers had little vigilance on the market and their long term control left them vulnerable to better organizational strategies. Market growth in the US had become stagnant by 2008 so