Organizations Global Strategy (Toyota)
Toyota Motor Corporation is considered as the market leader in the automotive industry. It has been formed on certain principles which include challenge, improvement and teamwork. The company has been rated as the fifth largest company of the world by Fortune Global 500 in 2006. Toyota is selling its vehicles in around more than 170 countries and states by the end of March 2010. It has its operations going on with 52 companies in 27 states of the world. Toyota is one of the best examples of globalization as it has its network operating around the world.
The company believes in immense localization, instead it has initiated a Toyota Way where the company is seen in localizing the operations in order to take advantage from it. (Paul, 2010) Optimization through globalization Globalization allows the company to expand in different markets with different needs and different perceptions. The company by going into new markets gets a chance to understand the new people and serve them with their needs. This along with increasing the profits allows the company to expand into new markets.
The company is already operating in 170 countreis around the world where it has integrated its operations with 52 companies around the world. This has made the Toyota circle a huge one. The company has an opportunity to integrate its supply chain on the global level where it can procure goods from the cheapest location. A few new componenets can be added to the supply chain which can make it a global supply chain for the company where it would be using the best and the cheapest resources available around the world. (INA, n. d. )
The company already has a lot of emphasis on localization as it belives firmly on integrating the local strategies into the organizations strategies which has been named as the Toyota Way. The company can further localize its operations by incorporating the local ways of operating. This would help the organization on the global level as well because the company may then integrate the local ways of working into their global strategies which may bring in more efficieny and reduce the cost for the company. (Wyman, n. d. ) Research and the Global Expansion
The company earleir used to only export the vehicles to different countries but later it moved to the next model where it started manufacturing locally. The company has gone for immense geographic expansion and is still looking for opportunities where it can get into more regions of the world. Expansion requires immense research by the company before entering the market. Every market has separate needs and ways to satisfy those needs. The different traditions of the countries influence their need for various things including the automobiles.
By research the company has an opportunity to explore the new markets around the world and understand their requirements for the automobiles. The company currently has incoporated an extensive research system due to which it has managed to introduced extremely localized cars that are designed by the local designers and engineers. This is one of the ways how research ahs currently helped the company in getting and being accepted into different parts of the world. Research may provide the level of risk involved in a particular conutry that the company would have to face in terms of operating over there or exporting vehicles over there.
Other than the needs of the customers Toyota may also see the level fo competition and the way the other organizations operate in the country. This would enable the company to evaluate the various countries in terms of its profitability level and decide whether it would be a profitable decision to enter in a particular country or not. Research may provide the company with a complete country analysis which would be helpful in deciding if the company would be profitable or not. (Ichijo, 2006) Leadership in Toyota
Toyota has a flatter organization structure within the corporation which has always encouraged the leadership culture in the organization at all the levels. The company??™s philosophy is to disperse responsibility even at the lowest level in the organization. The Toyota Way espicially has been the way the company has spread leaders all around the organization around the world. The level of leadership is to such extent in the company that the team leaders in the company are considered as running a minibusiness which is thus run wholly by them.
The company since incorporates continuous improvement procedure thus the leadership is required immensely. The reason for this is the fact that that continuious improvement requires immidiate decisions on the spot thus the employee at every level is taking decisions on the spur of the moment. Leadership currently has impacted the globalization procedure of Toyota as the company has encouraged leadership globally. The leadership is to such extent that the company has local designers and engineers for each region who have been given immense leadership and autonomy in terms of their work.
The local designers and engineers decide for the local vehicles themselves and not a lot intreference is seen from theToyota headquarters at Japan. Leadership at the new locations may allow the employees to work autonomously which help in the innovation within the organization. The localization within an organization is only possible where the employees are given enough freedom to work and decide on their own. Leadership is considered as a pre requisite for localization. Leadership would allow a better and a efficient working conditions around global Toyota.
It would allow the employees to be their own leaders and work more efficienlty and serve the local people in a better way. Leadership allows the employees to get the best out of them by putting their maximum efforts. Since the employees are given responsibilities so they are seen working more efficiently in order to achieve their targets. Other than that leadership also helps in making the vehicles in the most localized manner as the local employees have the full autonomy to make the vehicle.
This makes the vehicles more acceptable by the local and that is the only reason why Toyota today has managed to lead the automobile sector in such a diversified automobile market of the world. (Meier &
The cultures around the world are so different that it may sometimes even become a hurdle while at various times it may even benefit the organization in the operations. Various positive and negative impacts on the global strategies are as follows: Positive Impacts Cultural Diversity: The cultural diversity may be a hurdle and also a positive impact on the organization. The positive impact may be the cross cultural exchange of knowledge within the employees. The employees from different cutures may teach the good points of their cultures to the others as well which would benefit the working culture of the organization.
New Markets: The exchange of knowledge from the cultural diversity may even benefit the organization when entering the new markets as it would give them an idea of the different people around the world. Negative Impacts Cultural Diversity: The negative impact of cultural diversity may be the communication barriers or the differences that different cultural people may have within them. This may hamper the working conditions of the organization and may even create disputes in certain extreme conditions.
Cultural Traits: Toyota is originally a Japanese company which has its various norms originating from the Japanese culture. The various global strategies may also have a little influence of the Japanese culture which is extremely opposite from the western world. It may make it difficult for the strategies to be adopted in such parts of the world where the norms and cultures are very different from the Japanese culture. (Silverthorne, 2005) Conclusion: Toyota has beenone of the best examples of globalization which has adopted the different localized procedures within the company.
The country has expanded to various countries and this has been possible due to the immense research that the company does. Research would enable to the company to understand the local needs and traditions that would be influencing the needs of the local people. The company has previously also benefitted from the local processes that it has adapted. Localization has been a good sign for the company as it has always benefitted from the cross cutural influences in the past. It has a strong conviction of adapting the local procedures that have proven to be successful for them in the local regions.
Th company believes in learning new and improved techniques from the local markets and then incorporating them at the global level. These staretgies have made Toyota very successful in the past and the company is still looking forward to explore new opportunities in order to further benefit from the environment.
