Ejemplos

The Toyota Phenomenon

The Toyota Phenomenon
How come the world's second largest automobile manufacturer grows continuously and makes large profits whilst its biggest competitors fight forsurvival?
Summary
After the Second World War, the distribution of World economic power was totally rearranged. Before the war, Europe and the USA ruled the world market. The management of Westerncompanies was based on the "Scientific Management" by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) and on "Modern Sociology" by Max Weber (18641920). This intellectual basis characterizes the begin ofindustrialization, led to mass production and to tremendous productivity increases. Yet after the war, new players appeared on the playground, whose work was based on a philosophy, on methods and rules unknownbefore. Whilst Western managers turned to short-term thinking to satisfy shareholders and to endless restructuring, the new actors concentrated on continual improvement in the quality of products,uniformity of processes and qualification of employees. Toyota is one of these new players, which despite the fierce competition due to excess production capacity in the automobile industry of around 25 %outperforms Western competition in every aspect, in technological innovation, in customer satisfaction, in continuous growth and in profit. In 2004 Toyota passed Ford to become the second largestautomobile producer. Before long, Toyota will overtake General Motors becoming the biggest car company in the world probably having no less than 15% of the world market. Toyota will prevail. Most otherswill have the choice between shrinking or sinking. This paper tries to shed light on the root causes of the Toyota Phenomenon, which for some reason or another Western companies find so hard tounderstand and much less on how to apply, despite their struggle for survival. in technological innovation, in customer satisfaction, in continuous growth and in profit. In 2004 Toyota passed Ford to...