Farin Reza Prof.

Mark Cunningham MKT3300 12/12/12 TOYOTA How the company came about The name Toyota was derived from its founder Sakichi Toyoda in 1924. Toyota Company was firs established an automatic loom works Ltd. The loom machine which they made was so good that in1935 it was used to make the first car and truck. Toyota Motor Company was established in 1937. Since then Toyota started its bright journey. In 1965 Toyota won the Deming Application Prize for quality control and became the worlds#1 automobile company in 2008. Toyotas SWOT analysis: SWOT is an acronym for strength, weakness, opportunities and threats and is the most renowned tool for audit and analysis of the overall strategic position of the business and its environment. Strengths: Toyota has many strengths being one of the industry leaders in the automotive industry Toyota Motor Corporation is the worlds largest vehicle manufacturer by production and sales: Toyota has three major brands underneath the company umbrella; Toyota, Lexus, and Scion. By having these three distinct brands, it lets the company reach many sectors of

the globe in a choice of vehicle for customers. For the year 2005, Toyota has ranked 8 on the Forbes 2000 directory of the worlds leading companies. Toyotas sales increased by 9.2% mostly on the demand for Camry sedans and Corolla. Toyota has very strong presence in Europe due to the accomplishment of Toyota Team Europe: In order to target special global regions, Toyota makes the Carina E for the European segment. Toyota is best known for environmentally safe, quality, durability, reliability, and value for money and convenient. Toyota has traditionally also been the leader in Total Quality Management or TQM. The belief that no process could ever be declared perfect, and that therefore there was always room for improvement was introduced by Toyota Sakichi. In 1997, Toyota begun manufacturing the of the globes best-selling hybrid cars, the Prius. Toyota has also introduced its newest hybrid power car, Toyota Prius, at the 2003 New York Auto Show and hit the dealerships in the fall of 2004. In September of 2003, orders for the new and improved Prius totaled 17,500 which is five times more then the company target of 3000 (MSNBC). With the price of gasoline and oil ever rising, this is a great market for Toyota to exploit. Capable of creating its own technology Started the Innovative International Multi-purpose vehicle plan to optimize global manufacturing and supply system and has also produced hybrid gasoline-electric automobiles

Weakness: Some of the weaknesses of the Toyota Company are as follows: Toyota offers most of its products for Japan and United States and some in Europe whereas its competitors get global. To many, Toyota brand is not perceived as prestigious. This may result in decreased sales (Amherst). Another perceived weakness is that it is in the top five of sales but not in the top five in dividend payouts or stock performance (Yahoo finance). This may prevent investors from investing in Toyota and invest in Toyotas competitors. Opportunities: The Company has great opportunities. Toyota has passed the Ford Motor Company to become the world's second largest automaker in the world trailing only GM (Forbes). The company is also being pushed in the right direction for opportunity with the strengthening of the Japanese Yen (Bloomberg). With the yen gaining strength and shifts in other world currency, the operating profits dropped during the AprilJune quarter by fifteen percent or seventy billion yen (Bloomberg). Because of the saving the company acquired in currency shifts, Toyota has extra money on hand to use possibly in R&D to improve on their vehicles or in several other areas causing great opportunities for the company(Highfill). Threats: According to Highfill threats to Toyota Motor Company are an everyday occurrence. Major threat to Toyota is its competitors. On average, Hyundai usually has thirty more horsepower in their vehicles, and costs around 3000 dollars less than a comparably segmented Toyota vehicle (Amherst). In the luxury line of Lexus, they are still losing

ground to BMW in sedan sales and in SUV sales (Business week). Technology increases in cars today is a major driving force (Highfill). Toyota has to keep up with its competitors to retain its market shares. Increasing maintenance cost of vehicles, rising fuel prices, and changing customer preferences are challenging threats to Toyota as well The industry is also facing adverse impact of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. BUSINESS PORFOLIO ANALYSIS Business portfolio analysis is used as a method of categorizing a firms products according to their relative competitive positions and business growth rate in order to lay the foundations for sound strategic planning. In this analysis the several brand names under the Toyota Motor Company will be divided in four quadrants according to amount of cash that they generate or require for organization. The four quadrants are as follows. Stars: They have high market shares and high market growth. They might need extra cash to finance their own rapid future growth. For Toyota, the Lexux-luxury sedan, Priushybrid, and Land cruiser SVU are starts.

Question Marks: These have low share of high growth markets. They require large injection of cash just o maintain their market share. For Toyota, the Scion, the Camry and Corolla as hybids. Bio fuel, Solar powered, hydrogen gas, diesel engine cars for India, South East Asia, small cars for India / China, more SUVs and MPVs :Fortuner.

Cow: These generate large amount of cash for more than they can invest profitability in themselves. They have dominant shares of slow- growth markets and provide cash to cover the organizations overhead. Camry , Corolla sedan, Innova , Venza -MPV,Daihatsu -small cars are in the cow segment.

Dogs : Dogs are low shares of slow growth market. Although they may generate enough cash to sustain themselves but they do not hold the promise of ever becoming real winners for organizations. Celica , MR2 -for youth , Tundra pick-up, Crown, Cressida, Corona , Qualis : withdrawn, Declining markets in UK, Europe, Petrol cars to be phased out.

According to a wall street journal published on August 24, 2011 Toyota is about to make some significant changes in its Camry model. Everybody in the company knows how important the Camry is to our brand, says Steve St. Angelo who is Toyotas U.S. quality chief. Therefore, there is no way that the Toyota Company will let go of their Camry brand. Toyota's image and its sales slipped in 2009 and 2010 over a series of recalls and a high-profile quality crisis. At the heart of it was the Camry, which had all-weather floor mats that could slip over the gas pedal and cause it to accelerate (Ramsey). However, industry consultants say that and rivals say that that retaining the best-selling status wont be easy. Many U.S. consumers have changed the way they view the company and believe other auto makers are now on par with Toyota in quality, said John Hoffecker, a managing director at consulting firm Alix Partners, who works with automotive companies (Ramsey).

Toyota is "just not that different anymore in quality perception," he said. "When you get to that point, you lose a whole set of buyers who in the past automatically chose your brand just because they thought they were getting better quality than anywhere else. According to the wall street

journal Toyota is now counting on more interior space, better fuel economy and a sportier suspension to counter skeptics. The 2012 Camry also will have the Entune media system that can use a smartphone to run Internetbased navigation and music applications. It weighs 150 pounds less than its predecessor and gets up to 35 mpg on the highway. Toyota has upgraded its Camry hybrid which will now deliver 200 horsepower and get 43 miles per gallon in the city and 39 mpg on the highway. Most of the 2012 models will be priced between $200 and $2,000 below last year's version. Toyota's Mr. St. Angelo said the company has set a goal that the Camry will be produced with the fewest defects in its history. The ramp up to full production has been stretched to 35 days from 15 days and there were three times as many prototypes built for road tests as the previous model. The company has also decided to keep the car in development an extra month to do testing and went back over and did quality checks on hundreds of existing parts that were carried over from the earlier model.

As far the Scion is concerned which is in the Dog quadrant, Toyota has decided to retain the Scion and actually introduce a new version of the Scion in 2012 which will be the Scion iQ and hydrogen Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle by 2012.

As Toyota says, keeping the Camry and Corolla brand will be really profitable for Toyota as more people tend to buy the Cows rather than the luxury brand as it is so much reachable as far as budget is concerned. Closing down the Dogs maybe profitable too but as mentioned above Toyota is renovating its Dogs category for make them higher in demand.

Works Cited News Releases." Toyota. N.p., 05 Aug. 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases/toyota tesla build rav4 ev woodstock ontario.htm>.
"MBA LecturesEducating People For Tomorrow." MBA Lectures RSS. N.p., 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://mba-lectures.com/marketing/swot-analysis-marketing/1204/swot-analysis-of-toyotamotor-corporation.html>. Highfill, David, Matt Baki, Sean Copus, Matt Green, Jennifer Smith, and Matt Whineland. "Automotive Industry Analysis - GM, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, Ford, Honda." Automotive Industry Analysis GM, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, Ford, Honda. N.p., Nov. 2004. Web. 03 Dec. 2012. <http://academicmind.com/unpublishedpapers/business/management/2004-11-000aaa-automotiveindustry-analysis.html>. "(36) Toyota - Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Options - Edexcel Business Studies." (36) Toyota - Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Options - Edexcel Business Studies. Edexcel Business Studies, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2012. <https://sites.google.com/site/edexcelbusinessstudies/home/business-studies---unit-4/-36toyota---portfolio-analysis-and-strategic-options>.