Case Study Toyota

In 2002 Toyota Motor Corporation adopted Global Vision 2010 and set the goal of being the largest automobile sales company in the world by reaching a global market share of 15 percent. Toyota was very close to reaching both goals when the global financial crisis and a series of recalls totaling 20 million vehicles began (Cole, 2011). Since then, there is no question that Toyota’s quality image and reputation has suffered tremendously. Media coverage of this crisis has blamed Toyota’s pursuit of growth, lack of immediate response to the crisis, and poor internal communication as the source of many problems for the company. However, Toyota is not an ordinary company and has been admired for its outstanding quality and management philosophies for decades. This case study will analyze some of the issues the company experienced, the organizational culture, and discuss the solutions Toyota implemented to move forward from the crisis.

Introduction

Toyota Motor Corporation was one of the first companies to understand the critical links between quality, customer satisfaction, and profit. Quality has been an integral part of their management philosophy since the company began and Japanese total quality control is said to be the building blocks for Six Sigma Methodology, which is used by many large corporations in the U.S. to measure quality and performance (Cole, 2011). Because of Toyota’s reputation for quality, consumers we...

... middle of paper ...

...till embodies a spirit of never giving up. Toyota has viewed the recall crisis as an opportunity to make fundamental changes to restore quality in the Toyota brand. While the media may have sensationalized some of the major recall problems, it is still clear the executives at Toyota failed to take immediate responsibility. That failure led to speculation of quality control issues, it damaged Toyota’s safety reputation, and raised questions about the internal communication of a company that was once renowned for its management philosophies. The majority of Toyota’s problems were caused by poor management decisions and loss of traditional focus on quality. As the company continues to recover it is imperative to ensure the values and organizational culture are the underpinnings for the Toyota Way and leaders of the company need to be cautious about maintaining them.