The Business Level of Toyota Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese company that is involved in the design, assembly, manufacture and sale of a wide range of motor vehicles such as minivans, passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and assorted accessories and parts (Nkomo, 3). Examples of brands under the Toyota portfolio include, but are not limited to; Lexus, Toyota, Hino and Daihatsu. Toyota was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda and has grown to not only be the world’s leading auto manufacturer in the automotive industry, but also the world’s eighth largest company with operations in virtually every corner of the world (Nkomo, 3). This growth has been fueled by two key aspects of Toyota’s business; its ability to lower costs and concise …show more content…
In regards to the former, Toyota has been successful in implementing cost reduction policies such as the Just-in-Time (JIT) model that have not only minimized production costs, but also selling prices across all Toyota models (Thompson, 1). In regards to the latter, Toyota has constantly employed a model of innovation as the key to differentiation, which is the reason why Toyota is able to manufacture all types of vehicles to uniquely suite not only the geographically landscape of their target regions, but also the pockets of the consumers (Thompson, …show more content…
However, since 2010, this longstanding quality reputation has been unabatingly shattered by increased vehicle recalls that have seen virtually every class of consumer affected (Rajasekera, 2). Recognizing that its reputation and brand is at stake, Toyota has endeavored to not only publicly apologize, but also settle a class-action law suits totaling $1.1 billion. While this strategy may look inept to many, research provide that leadership requires swift acknowledgement of mistakes and fitting solutions which is what Toyota has done. Going forward, Toyota will need to fully embrace innovation as its key strategy, especially given the fact that the current industry life cycle has overstayed its maturity, which means that most automakers will be looking to create new demand and create more innovative