The Damage to Toyota's Brand Image

In 2010, automaker Toyota was faced with one of the biggest threats to its brand, the safety of its vehicles. Toyota failed miserably in its response to the safety issues due to a few major management issues.

1. Group think

2. Lack of leadership

3. An organizational structure that could not offer quick response

4. A flawed evaluation and control process

These issues led to Toyota losing much of its brand equity as a leader in safety. According to an article in Time Magazine from February 2010, the automaker didn't just have safety issues in 2009 that led to the recalls, there had been smaller recalls for similar issues nearly every year since 2002. Historically, Toyota has been an organization that can take problems, root out their cause and turn the solutions into advantages over competitors. In this case, Toyota's complete lack of crisis management led to a major loss for the company both in 2009-2010 sales but something more precious and long-term, brand equity.

Toyota seemed to be suffering from a major problem with their decision making. Decision making for an organization the size and influence of Toyota needs to be top of mind for its management structure, from the CEO down to the supervisors in their manufacturing facilities.

Toyota is a pioneer of the LEAN manufacturing principle. Lean, as a process, is a way to add value to customers while minimizing waste (LEI, 2011). It can also be thought of in terms of flow, which is how Toyota likes to think of it. It is simply a process of decision making where the problems tend to be thought of in terms of flow, reducing starts and stops or unnecessary motion increases flow, reducing waste.

I think that the re-call crisis shook the organization so deeply that they...

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...izational structure and be much quicker at anticipating and reacting to problems before they erode brand equity.

Works Cited

Ahlstrom, D., & Bruton, G. D. (2010). International Management: Strategy and Culture in the Emerging World. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Clark, A, (2010) Guardian UK. February 23, 2010 Toyota boss Akio Toyoda apologizes ahead of US grilling. Retrieved on October 19, 2011 from, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ 2010/feb/23/ toyota-president-toyoda-apologises-congress

Lean Enterprise Institute, 2011. Retrieved on October 18, 2011 from, http://www.lean.org/WhatsLean/

Saporito, B., Schuman, M., Szczesny, J. R., Altman, A., (2010). Time, 2/22/2010, Vol. 175 Issue 7, p26-30, 5p. Toyota Tangled. Retrieved on October 18, 2011 from, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=ulh&AN=48134905&site=ehost-live