Toyota Corporation Company Overview Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota Corporation

Company Overview

Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese company which deals with manufacture of automobile. The company is among the largest companies in the world in manufacture of automobiles. In 2008, the company was ranked the largest company for the first time in automobile industry (Wankel, 2009). The company has approximately 600 subsidiary companies in various parts of the globe. These corporations are involved in the manufacture of automobiles, commercial as well as industrial vehicles, and automobile parts. Headquarters of the company are in Toyota city, Japan.

Toyota Motor Corporation started in 1933 as a constituent of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works (Wankel, 2009). The first car to be produced by the company was the Model AA sedan, in early 1936. In 1937, the company was incorporated and it became Toyota motor company. In 1982, the company took its present name (Wankel, 2009). This is when Toyota Motor Company merged with Toyota Motor Sales Company.

Toyota Motor Corporation has experienced a significant growth over the last few years. This has come with various innovations including the luxury brand Lexus as well as hybrid powered vehicle (Wankel, 2009). The company is listed on both New York stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange. The company is expanding to new markets and mostly targeting younger buyers for its new brands including Scion brand and Lexus RX 400h.

Currently, the company has assembly plants as well as distributors in several states all over the world. Its vehicles and parts are exported to over 140 countries worldwide (Wankel, 2009). Moreover, the subsidiary companies produce cork and rubber material, synthetic resins, automatic looms, steel, woolen goods and cotton. Other subsidiary companies of Toyota deal in prefabricated housing units, real estate and import and export of raw materials.

Company Analysis

Strengths

New investments by Toyota Motor Corporation in factories in China and in the United States saw profits rise significantly against the motor industry in the world. Net profits of the company rose by about 0.8% to 11 billion U.S. dollars (Toyota, 2012). Meanwhile, the sales increased by about 7.3% to 18.55 trillion yen. Current research indicates that this advancement is as a result of the right mix of products by the company for the market that it serves. This portrays a good example of focuses segmentation, positioning and targeting in a number of countries.

Secondly, in 2003, Toyota Motor Corporation knocked Ford, its rival to become the second largest carmaker in the world with a production of 6.78 units. In 2008, the company was ranked first in car production (Toyota, 2012). The strong industry position of the company is based on several factors .These include highly targeted marketing, commitment to lean manufacturing, diversified product range and quality. The company manufactures vehicles for private customers as well as commercial organizations. They vehicles range from the small Yaris cars to large trucks (Wankel, 2009). The company uses various marketing techniques in order to satisfy the needs of the customers. In addition, the company maximizes its profits through various manufacturing approaches which are considered effective. An example of such approach is Total Quality Management.

Strength of Toyota Motor Corporation includes global organization due to strong international position in over 170 companies all over the world. This has made the company to have a strong brand image all over the world based on quality, customized range and environmental friendly.

Weaknesses

Despite the numerous strengths that Toyota Motor Corporation has, it also has weakness. First, its big size comes with problems (Toyota, 2012). Currently, the world market for cars is in oversupply and hence car producers are having hard time in determining the models that the consumers want. On this, Toyota is no exception; it is facing the same problem. The company markets its products mostly in Japan and U.S.. Therefore, it is facing the challenges of economic fluctuating and political conditions in the course of its marketing. This is one of the reasons which are making the company to start shifting its marketing attention to the emerging market in China. In addition, variation in exchange rates has also led to the car market worldwide to be reduced.

Secondly, Toyota needs to keep manufacturing new cars for the purpose of retaining its operational efficiency (Toyota, 2012). Car manufacturing plants represent a huge investment due to the expensive fixed assets. In addition, there are high costs of training as well as retaining labor in those plants. This implies that if the market experiences a down turn the company may experience over capacity. On the other hand, if the market is experiencing an upturn, there is high possibility of the company missing out on potential sales because of under capacity (Hitokoto, 2010). This becomes a typical problem as a result of manufacturing cars in large volume.

Actions

Toyota Motor Corporation is taking some steps to capitalize on strengths address weakness (Toyota, 2012). When it comes to capitalizing on strengths, the company is using various marketing strategies to ensure that the sales remain high. The company's segmentation as well as the target market is guided by the philosophy of the right car in the right place (Wankel, 2009). The company therefore employed both psychographic and demographic form of several segmentations. Moreover, it has targeted its market with respect to that basis. For instance, it has segmented all countries all over the world as its market.