Strategic Execution and Implementation for Toyota: Overcoming Challenges and Improving Sales

The report discusses the obstacles in executing the new strategy and suggests mitigation techniques. The actions that need to be taken include identifying customer concerns, addressing employee grievances, and innovating the products. The report also emphasizes the importance of strategic customer relationship management and market risk analysis.

Running head: STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
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1STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
Executive summary:
The following report will describe the strategic plans that Toyota will use to increase its sales in
the future. The company also has aims to improve its internal communication between different
departments as well as to improve employee job satisfaction. Presently the organization is facing
issues in terms of these aspects, which is adversely affecting the business of Toyota all across the
world. There are also complaints from customers regarding their products. By the end of the
report, the reader will have a clear idea of the present issues that the organization is facing and
how the changes will be implemented. Newer information systems have to be implemented in
the organization and the management should ensure more employee job satisfaction in the work
culture within Toyota. Interaction with the different stakeholders such as logistics suppliers and
other third party vendors have to be further improved by the organization in order to ensure
better sales in the future.

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Table of Contents
Background of the company:...........................................................................................................3
Current strategy within Toyota:.......................................................................................................3
Obstacles to execute new strategy and mitigation techniques:........................................................4
Translation of strategy into actions:................................................................................................6
Alignment between actions and strategies:......................................................................................9
Strategic customer relationship management and market risk analysis:.....................................9
Strategic performance management:.........................................................................................11
Alignment between organizational systems and the strategy:.......................................................11
Evaluation of the management style:.............................................................................................13
Good and weak practices within Toyota:......................................................................................14
Best practices:............................................................................................................................14
Weak practices:..........................................................................................................................14
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................15
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................15
References:....................................................................................................................................16

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Background of the company:
In the year 1933, Kiichiro Toyoda founded Toyota Motor Corporation. Initially the
organizaiotn manufactured only trucks and supplied trucks to the Japanese army during the
Second World War. However, today it is one of the biggest market players in the automobile
sector and produces cars of different categories across 28 countries in the world.
Current strategy within Toyota:
The present organizational strategy has caused immense issues for Toyota. One of the
organizational strategy is standardization of business operations wherein the factory workers as
well as other staff including managers have to follow and abide a fixed set of guidelines and
organizational policies while making any business decision or interacting with stakeholders
(Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). This is in accordance to the mission of the organization
to maintain a uniformity in its lines of products and to ensure that all customers receive the same
global support irrespective of the category of vehicles they purchase. Toyota utilizes this concept
of standardization to ensure that the customers all of its customers are equally treated by the
support staff as well as other employees post sales. However, due to this standardization of work
operations at all levels, often the different processes in the manufacturing units as well as other
departments within the organization gets repeated making the tasks monotonous for the
employees as well as time consuming (Ornetzeder and Rohracher 2013). It also consumes the
much important bandwidth of the available resources for tasks that could otherwise have been
solved in other innovative ways. This in turn makes the employees as well as the factory workers
dissatisfied with their jobs. This is degrading the quality of work as well as the productivity of
the workforce within the organization. Newer ideas are not being tried out which has often

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resulted I client complaints regarding the market trends not followed by the organizaiotn in terms
of product innovation and other services.
There were also faults that has been seen in the past in the Toyota vehicles that has again
resulted due to the faulty systems such as February 2010, a recall was also made for the hybrid
anti-lock brake software, which reportedly had issues in the braking of the vehicles. Some of the
vehicles of Toyota, which were the Prius, Prius Plug in, Sei as well as Lexus HS 250h had issues
in the acceleration pedal and had been recalled in the past (Laudon and Laudon 2015). The
present strategy of the organization does not take adequate measures to innovate the products or
improve the existing systems.
Obstacles to execute new strategy and mitigation techniques:
There are different kinds of obstacles that Toyota has to face while implementing the new
strategy to improve the present system. The obstacles as well as the mitigation techniques in
order to overcome such obstacles are explained below in the tabular format.
Identified problem in the
present system
Obstacles in implementing new
strategy
Mitigation technique
Product failures and recalls,
thereby reducing revenue
generation.
Obstacle 1:
New strategies of implementing
innovations and flexibility is not
being widely accepted by all
employees at all levels across the
different branches of Toyota
Empower the powers of the
factory workers to ensure
their ideas are respected
and implemented while
manufacturing the
automobiles. Use of better
marketing strategies
Complaints from customers Obstacle 2: Dedicate time for proper

5STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
regarding product safety as
well as the features of the
newer vehicles in order to
ensure they are at par with
the present trend of the
markets, which Toyotas is
unable to provide at the
present.
New strategy of implementing
better customer relationship
management software needs
adequate training and
development of the employees
and the factory worker to respond
to the customer complaints
(Jacobs, Chase and Lummus
2014). Toyota does not respond to
the customer concerns regarding
safety.
training and development
of all the employees as
well as factory engineers
post implementation of the
new customer relationship
improvement strategy. The
human resources
department within Toyota
can use proper CRM
software.
Increasing employee job
dissatisfaction
Obstacle 3:
Acts of employee vandalism and
a strange sense of secrecy that is
maintained in the internal
workplace among the employees
that prevents the management as
well as the top leadership to
incorporate any new strategy to
improve employee job
satisfaction.
Reward system can be
introduced in the different
departments in order to
motivate the employees
and exhibit their
achievements in front of
the rest of the work place
to honor their hard work in
spite of internal issues such
as employee vandalism etc.

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Figure 1: Obstacles to the proposed strategy (Source: As used by the author).
Figure 2: Existing vs. new Toyota vehicle production system (Chiarini and Vagnoni, 2015).
Translation of strategy into actions:
In order to execute the strategies to overcome the present issues within the working
operation of Toyota automobiles the management has to ensure that the appropriate actions are
taken for the same. Some of the actions that has to be implemented based on the identified issues
that organization is presently having are explained below:
- Firstly, Toyota needs to identify the exact customer concerns and the feedbacks should be
collected from them using different mediums such as online product surveys as well as
the feedbacks they share on online platforms like Facebook as well as twitter regarding
the products. Only then, the organization will be able to exactly understand what the

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customers’ needs, which is presently missing from the different lines of products of
Toyota. (Rainer et al. 2013).
- Surveys can be conducted and it should be ensures that a minimum sample seize chosen
from among the target audience of the organizaiotn participates in the surveys so that the
data can be used for research for the company.
- Secondly, the mangers at each level and departments should delve deep into what exactly
is the reason of employee job dissatisfaction as well as acts of vandalism at times. The
management should understand and address the grievances of the employee’s first in
order to ensure that their productivity and other parameters are improved. Human
resource policies should be made more flexible and there should be regular reward
systems especially for the sales teams in order to drive their motivation and keep them in
a constant process of self-improvement and motivation (Izog and Ogba 2015). This will
not only help the company achieve better sales results but also ensure at the same time
that the employees are happy doing what they are hires for. The managers should be
given the provision to set the targets for the different team members based on their
capabilities instead of a preset standardized sales target from the top management for all
the teammates irrespective of their abilities. This will allow the managers to access the
skillsets of the different teammates and put them under performance action plan as well
as improvement plans in order to improve their productivity and efficiency in the future
(Hu 2013). This not only motivates the employees but also ensures that they do not end
up quitting their jobs at Toyota due to job dissatisfaction.
- Another important action that the organization must take on a priority basis is that
innovation of its present automobiles. The issues that the organizaiotn has faced in the

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past such as problematic acceleration pedals have to be addressed for experienced
automobile engineers. More highly experienced team of professionals as well as
automobile engineers have to be hired from in order to ensure that the quality of the
service is retained in the future line of products from Toyota and the customer feedbacks
are improved (Galliers and Leidner 2014). There should be an automatic and improved
feedback system form the customers regarding product improvement and their user
experience regarding the new vehicles that they purchase so the Company immediately
gets to know their feedback upon they purchase of the product. The company also has to
introduce a new hotline number where the customers can directly talk to the customer
representatives 24*7 even after new purchase of any Toyota product.
Figure 3: Strategy execution map (Source: As used by author using draw.io).

9STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
Alignment between actions and strategies:
The different actions that will be performed in order to implement the new strategy
within Toyota will be aimed at the improvement of the different segments of work operations.
The right activities that should be selected that should be practiced by the teammates as well the
mangers at different levels that are aimed at the enhancing employee job satisfaction, customer
satisfaction as well as the overall development of the organization (Galankashi, Helmi and
Hashemzahi 2016). A proper model of strategic risk management should be used to
counterattack unforeseen market crises as well as stiff product competitor form other competitors
(Sierzchula et al. 2014). There should also be a strategically designed performance management
program for Toyota that should have the capability of monitoring the performance of each
employees based on their daily target and other hygiene metrics such as customer satisfaction
scores etc.
Strategic customer relationship management and market risk analysis:
Based on the market research that was carried out for Toyota it was identified that in
order to increase the sales and the revenue for the organization it was first important for the
organization to stop just producing trucks and focus more on the private car segment. It is
extremely important for the organization management to understand the importance of
identifying the target audience for its different liens of products. For instance, Toyota cannot
afford to sell its mid-range economical cars to the audience who are mainly sports vehicles
enthusiasts (Fichman, Santos and Zheng 2014). It was also identified that in order to increase
customer satisfaction it should also come up with game changing innovative ideas such as
attractive offers on purchasing Toyota vehicles.

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Figure 4: Translation of strategy to actions (Source: As used by author using draw.io).
The company should also focus on price revisions to ensure that more customers are
attracted with the newer prices and at the same time, the company must ensure that the quality of
the products should be improved and there are proper after sales support for the vehicles at all
parts of the world. It has to be ensured that the reports a regularly generated based on the daily

11STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
sales form the different parts of the world and the trends of sales are carefully analyzed using
proper data analysis tool by the team of experts (Stair and Reynolds 2013). This will help to
determine the customer behaviors and patters they use in selecting the brand of vehicles before
they purchase a vehicle (Ehsani and Ehsani 2015). Such constructive tasks and activities within
Toyota can help the sales and marketing teams to come up with more innovative action plans to
increase the revenue form the different parts of the world across the global markets.
Strategic performance management:
In addition, their managers using effective performance management tools can monitor
the performance management for the employees and the factory workers working at the different
assembly plants of Toyota all across the world. This can be in form of online training and
courses that has to be mandatorily completed by the workers and the other employees. They have
to ensure that the tasks assigned to them are completed on time and deadlines are not missed
since the subsequent reports will be automatically generated on a regular basis through effective
information systems which will then be passed on to the respective managers for further
performance evaluation. There should be daily team hurled among the managers of the different
departments as well as the teammates where the issues faced by the employees can be discussed
and the managers can get to know the exact concerns that are being faced by the employees
including the factory workers.
Alignment between organizational systems and the strategy:
The present organizational systems makes use of the existing business models and the
systems include a fixed nature of systems or processes which has to be mandatorily followed by
all employees thereby causing a boredom for the employees in the job they do. However, the
new strategy ensures that the same tasks are performed here too, however in a different and

12STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
innovative manner thereby ensuring the same business outcome but with increased employee job
satisfaction. The existing information systems as well as the computers will be upgraded thereby
making the business operations much faster and much of tasks will get automated resulting in
faster and more efficient decision making by the managers (Cabigiosu, Zirpoli and Camuffo
2013). Most importantly in the present system, there has not been room for much innovation in
the different lines of products offered by Toyota. However, in the new strategy there is huge
scope of innovation in the different vehicles due to the presence of the information systems that
are customizable for future innovations and organizational requirements.
The different projects such as innovations in the electric vehicles as well as development
of fuel-efficient cars from Toyota are possible only due to the change in the business operations
as well as flexible regulations and policies within the organization. Other projects include change
implementation as well as project of roper market risk analysis that is again possible due to the
innovative information systems within Toyota. It ensures that the employees and staff are
efficiently carrying out the different business processes of sales and marketing, customer
services, pre as well as post-sales support as well as other processes of customer satisfaction,
promotional activities to increase sales etc., (Aguado, Alvarez and Domingo 2013). The
organization structure again plays an important role since the ultimate decision maker for the
approval and implementation of any new change is up to the chief executive officer of Toyota.
There are different kinds of ethical issues, which run through the different hierarchical levels
within the company such as acts of employee vandalism and other issues, which can all be
eliminated, and a transparency maintained by the proper use of the information systems within
the business operations of Toyota. Strategic resource management can also be done using proper
information systems and research by the team of experts regarding the resource allocation and

13STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
utilization among the employees (Atalay, Anafarta and Sarvan 2013). The role of the
stakeholders such as the third party companies tied up with Toyota as well as the different
logistics providers can be properly managed by the efficient business tools as well as
management information systems within the operations of Toyota.
Evaluation of the management style:
The changes that will be incorporated by Toyota within its work culture has been
communicated to the employees including the different stakeholders and the factory workers by
means of meetings. Email notifications regarding the constant updates of the different phases of
the lifecycle of the change has also been communicated to the managers and teammates of the
different departments from time to time (Yang and Yang 2013). The employees have also been
trained on the new technologies and information systems, which will replace the existing
systems. There have also been different feedbacks from the employees in the different
departments especially from the sales and marketing teams regarding the different parameters
that reconsidered in the new strategy regarding the promotion of the newer lines of products
from Toyota (Steinhilber, Wells and Thankappan 2013). Data from the online surveys as well as
the customer surveys have been used to amend the changes in the new strategy based on the
feedback from the managers of the different levels and the changes have been tested and verified
before final implementation with the earlier existing strategy prior to roll out.
Opportunities
The strong market position of this global
motor corporation is one of the main
opportunities of this firm.
Risks
The market competition of the other
automotive corporations is the main risk for
this organization.

14STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
The market share enjoyed by this corporation
across the continents are the other major
opportunities of this organization.
This organization faces huge risk from the
natural disasters such as earthquake and flood
as they operate in sensitive areas such as
Japan and Thailand.
Enabler
The different enabler for this corporation is
their enhanced quality of services which they
provide worldwide.
Barrier
The showdown of the hybrid systems is one
of the main barriers of this corporation.
Inefficient allocation of the resources are the
other barriers of this corporation.
Figure 5: Environmental Analysis of Toyota (Source: Created by the author).
Good and weak practices within Toyota:
Best practices:
- Toyota insists on knowing its suppliers.
- The company has a compliance oversight committee that has dedicated team of
professional to ensure that the employees meet the organizational standards and
regulations.
- Toyota employees believe in not getting overwhelmed even when it grows.
Weak practices:
- No employee reward system to recognize their achievements in work place.
- No flexibility in present system and inefficient customer support across the world.

15STRATEGIC EXECUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded for the above report that even though Toyota has seen
immense success in the recent past in its different line of products there are still different areas of
improvement that should be properly addressed by the management. Customer satisfaction
should be improved by the effective usage of the customer relationship management software as
well as data collected form the customer feedbacks and online surveys regarding the user
experience.
Recommendations:
Some of the significant recommendations for Toyota motors are stated below:
- Toyota should stick to the widely known Toyota production system that stresses on the
importance of the quality of the vehicles.
- Adequate staff training on quality testing.
- Toyota should focus more on manufacturing hybrid and fuel-efficient car and especially
in the Asian markets.

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improvements in a lean production system through processes of environmental
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