Toyota SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses & Strategy
Toyota Motor Corporation is one of the largest and most diversified auto manufacturers globally today, with supply chains and production systems that span across over 70 nations with sourcing, procurement and quality management systems unified to their manufacturing centers. The high level of complexity inherent in these operations have made it essential for Toyota to create one of the most advanced supply chain management systems globally, the Toyota Production System (TPS) (Dyer, Nobeoka, 2000). This system is the galvanizing force of their entire operations and is so complete in its coverage of supply chain operations, it takes approximately one year to get suppliers up to speed and to the point of meeting quality standards on it (Toyota Investor Relations, 2012).
The TPS is a foundational element of the mission and mission of Toyota as well. As is stated in the company's annual reports and on the investor relations area of their website their mission is "To attract and attain customers with high-valued products and services and the most satisfying ownership experience worldwide and in key markets including America " (Toyota Investor Relations, 2012),. To attain these high levels of customer satisfaction, all aspects of the Toyota business model must be synchronized to deliver the greatest levels of reliability possible at the lowest costs. The vision statement of Toyota as also defined in their financial statements is "To be the most successful and respected car company worldwide and in key markets including America" (Toyota Investor Relations, 2012). Despite the recalls that occurred in the 2010 and 2011 timeframe, Toyota continues to reinvest in and continually look for how they can best improve worldwide Total Quality Management (TQM) performance, taking into account House of Quality, Lean Six Sigma and quality functional management initiatives, all aimed at increasing the reliability of their vehicles by driving up the quality levels of suppliers (Takahashi, 2010). Toyota launched an extensive internal audit of their own to determine the factors surrounding the recalls and learned that specific factories had taken shortcuts and at one point had not performed supplier audits of incoming components in well over two months (Minhyung, 2010). Internally Toyota had lost sight of its core values of product quality within the plants that had been the catalyst of the faulty products being produced that led to the globally embarrassing vehicle recalls (Johar, Birk, Einwiller, 2010). Toyota is a very resilient, very analytically-driven culture and took the lapse in quality as a major challenge to improve. This became the catalyst of a renewed emphasis on quality and an even more stringent level of supplier quality management processes, procedures and systems (Toyota Investor Relations, 2012). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Toyota Motor Company. The strengths and weaknesses will be analyzed from the internal environmental perspective, and the opportunities and threats from the external environment standpoint. Of the most potentially debilitating factors the company is facing today, product recalls and product quality could have a very detrimental effect on the value of the brand over time, a factor Toyota mentions in their quarterly filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (Toyota Investor Relations, 2012). As Toyota is a very analytically-driven organization that has a strong engineering emphasis, their filings with the SEC also indicate their greatest potential growth is ahead of them with their intensive spending on research and development (R&D) in hybrid and hydrogen vehicles (Toyota Investor Relations, 2012). Presented below is an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Toyota followed by an assessment of their opportunities and threats.
Germany vs South Korea: Trade Show Industry Compared
The trade show industry plays a crucial role in the marketing success of any business firm. At the same time, the trade show industry remains largely ignored in academic research. Germany is the global leader in the trade show industry because of the excellent quality of its infrastructure and professional standards. The strategic location and liberal economic policies of the country also contribute to its sustained success. The trade show industry can support a firm's marketing objectives by providing opportunities to make new customers, explore international markets, promote products and obtain information about competitors. The South Korean trade show industry has also shown growth in recent years because of its economic success after the Asian financial crisis of 1997. It is expected to become one of the leading trade show destinations of the future. As the global trade show industry prepares for growth after the global economic crisis, industry participants are gearing up for intensifying competition between existing players and new entrants from Asia. The emphasis will be on increasing service quality for exhibitors and visitors. At the same time, there are increased opportunities for cooperation among trade show destinations for exchange of exhibitors and visitors.