Strategies for Ford and General Motors to Gain Market Share from Toyota

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND SERVICE
INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND SERVICE
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND SERVICE
Introduction
The aim of the paper is to identify the long term strategies and opportunities for Ford and
General Motors in the US market. The paper will introduce a companywide operations
management for the companies. The paper will also advice on the operational strategies which
will be implemented by the companies which will be implemented to gain market share from
Toyota.
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational company which has its headquarters
in Michigan which is a sub urban of Detroit. The company was found by Henry Ford and was
incorporated in the year 1903. The company is known for selling various types of commercial
vehicles and other automobiles. The company is divided into two parts where the company sells
the commercial vehicles and commercial vehicles under the Ford Brand and the luxury vehicles
under the Lincoln brand. The company is also known for owning the Brazilian SUV
manufacturer brand which is Troller. The company also has introduced various new methods of
manufacturing cars under the large scale manufacturing and updated assembly lines. The
company has opened its research and innovation center in China, Germany and California. The
Ford Research and Innovation and has expanded its innovations worldwide.
General Motors is also an American multinational company which has its headquarters in
Detroit. The company is known for designing, distributing parts of the vehicles, manufacturing
and marketing for the automobile companies globally. The company was founded by William C.
Durant in the year 1908. The company also invested a huge amount of money in the research and
development and implemented various strategies and has divided its brands like the Cadillac,
Buicks, Olds and Oakland. With the implementation of new strategies the company has been

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able to bring changes and upgraded its relationship as a supplier and consultancy to Cadillac and
Buick.
Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer which has its headquarters
in Japan. According to Kobayashi (2018) in the year 2018 the company’s corporate structure
consisted of more than 364,445 employees all over the world. It is the only company which is
known to produce more than 10 million vehicles in a year since the year 2012. The company has
a vigorous respect for the people who are working in the company as well as its continuous
improvements in manufacturing and lining up of the vehicles. The company has summarized its
values and conducted the guidelines with five principles which are Challenge, Kaizen which
means improvement, Genchi genbutsu which means go and see, respect and team work.
The paper will apply a range of numerical decision making models and techniques which
will be able to explain the factors which are involved in managing the business operations and
services. It is aligned to explore various tools and techniques which can be used by Toyota in
order to introduce a companywide improvement strategy. In the later part the paper will discuss
and advice the organizational strategies which can b implemented by Ford and GM to gain
market share from Toyota in the US market.
Discussion
Kasemsap (2018) discusses those operations improvement strategies are a total set of patterns
and discussions which helps in shaping a company’s operations and their contributions to overall
strategy through the reconciliation of the market requirements with operational resources. Also
Helm-Stevens and Ansoff (2018) argues with the previous decision that operations improvement
strategy is not only concerned with the reconciliation of the requirements in the market but also

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by satisfying the market requirements by setting appropriate performance objectives for its
operations. It also involves a set of decisions which should be taken on deployment of
operational resources of the company.
Toyota was a very famous automotive maker in the automobiles industry. But in the recent
years it has suspended its sales by 57 percent of the automobiles in the US market. In the year
2017 it has recalled almost more than 9 million vehicles which are more than its total number of
sales in the past three years. As an Operations Manager of Toyota it can be said that an
organization’s market position is only one in which its performance enables to attract the
customers. In order to introduce the company wide operations in improvement strategy, by
implementing the five strategies.
 Going lean – According to Popovič, Tassabehji and Castelli (2018) lean is basically an
operational philosophy which generally focuses on the continuous improvement of
delivering the products and services to the customers of the company. Toyota should be
able to add practices in making the operational services more efficient and effective.
 Focusing on the quality rather than quantity – Toyota has been working on various
operational strategies which are implemented in multiple versions of the quality
management in its business. With the help of various techniques like Six Sigma and
Kaizen the company the company has been now able to gain a control over its statistical
processes. With the help of these small changes in practices the company has therefore
expanded its operations. According to the author Harmon (2019) the idea of focusing into
quantity the company will be able to reduce waste and reworks, this also saves money for
the company. This improves the working results of the company which thus makes it
more effective.