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Toyota's Recommendation Response At The World's Largest Automobile Manufacturer

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Q3: Toyota 's recommended response to Volkswagen 's ambition of becoming the world 's largest automobile manufacturer, based on the analysis of current market trends, would be to somewhat disregard them, rather they should focus on developing their own competitive advantages that allowed them to achieve the title of market leader. Volkswagen plans to grow in Chinese and Indian markets (De Moraes, 2016). They also aim to double sales in America by 2018 (Kresge and Weiss, 2015), by following their "clean diesel" strategy (The Economist, 2015a: 15). Nevertheless, the 2015 emissions scandal destroyed this ambition (Farrell, 2015). Widespread recalls and suspended sales led to a loss of market share (Kresge and Weiss, 2015) and fostered a bad reputation within America (The Economist, 2015b). In 2015, Toyota defended their lead in sales ahead of Volkswagen (The Telegraph, 2015). Toyota developed cost advantages with their "production system", Volkswagen found it difficult to replicate such optimisation due to union pressure rife in Germany (De Moraes, 2016: 465). Furthermore, to defend their title, Toyota adopted strategies of lean manufacturing, strict supplier control and highly efficient distribution (Schonberger, 1994). Toyota can strengthen their leadership by developing more environmentally friendly technologies. Volkswagen 's emission scandal encouraged the demise of diesel, opening up lucrative industries in methane, hydrogen and electricity powered vehicles (The

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