Project Planning of Toyota Automobiles: Branding and Consumer Perception

This project plan explores the branding and consumer perception of Toyota Automobiles. It identifies the goals and objectives of the project, the problems and issues faced by the organization, and the amended project plan involving marketing. The plan also includes a timeline and recommendations for approval.

Running head: BRANDING AND CONSUMER PERCEPTION
Branding and consumer perception
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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BRANDING AND CONSUMER PERCEPTION
Table of Contents
Project Planning of Toyota Automobiles........................................................................................4
Background..................................................................................................................................4
Business Goals and Change.........................................................................................................4
Project Goals................................................................................................................................5
Scope............................................................................................................................................5
Purpose of Plan............................................................................................................................6
Problems or Issues.......................................................................................................................6
Project Plan Amendment.................................................................................................................7
Detailed Analysis of the mentioned Issues..................................................................................7
The amended projected plan:.......................................................................................................8
Advantages of the amendment- involvement of marketing to the project...................................9
Strengthening of supply chains of Toyota:..................................................................................9
Attracting dealers and distributors:..............................................................................................9
Attracting end customers:..........................................................................................................10
Brand image strengthening:.......................................................................................................10
First Progress Report.....................................................................................................................11
Recommendation.......................................................................................................................11
Approvals...................................................................................................................................11

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Timeline.....................................................................................................................................12
Timeline Table...........................................................................................................................12
Second progress report:.................................................................................................................12
Gantt chart.................................................................................................................................14
References:....................................................................................................................................15

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Project Planning of Toyota Automobiles
Background
Toyota Motors is an organization that mainly engages itself in the manufacturing of large
scale automobiles from the different plants of the company located all around the world. The
main business operations of the company are therefore largely the manufacturing, assembling
and delivering the automotive products to the customers of the business. The business of the
company is spread in mostly a large part of the globe and therefore enjoys a healthy brand name
of its own. The company was the first to build the Toyota Production System and also implement
the lean manu8facturing system in the organization. The 7 different principles that were
implemented in the production system of the business was one of the main reasons that led to the
development of the brand performance of the organization and also enhanced the customer
perception of the business. Toyota Motor Company has the reputation of topping the list of the
most preferred consumer car for a number of times in a line as because it uses superior
technology and presents a superior image to the customers to maintain a proper reputation. For
example apart from the other companies the management of Toyota ensures special safety
features in all of its cars which helps it to become the very best in the business and helps to gain
a competitive advantage over its rivals in different markets.
Business Goals and Change
Toyota announced a number of major goals that are to be achieved over a period of 35
years to address the key global environmental issues like that of climate change, water shortages,
resource depletion and degradation of biodiversity. The environmental planning of the company
has been named Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 and it aims to reduce the negative impact

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of manufacturing and driving vehicles as much as possible. The company is dedicated to the
development of the next generation new vehicles and aims to reduce carbon emissions by 90
percent within the year 2050. The planning of the management of the company is also to
diversify and increase the options of sources of fuels and try out new variations like ethanol,
methanol, electric, solar power and many other such fuels that may be the needs of the future.
Some of the main aims of the new project undertaken by the company to change the
brand perception of the customers will be to manufacture the best cars with the implementation
of the latest technologies and also to manufacture the cars using the best machineries and
improved technologies that are suitable for the change in the organization process. Apart from
this the company also has plans to enrich the value of the communities by means of global
rollout of end life vehicle treatment and use of different kinds of recycling technologies.
Project Goals
The goals of the company are mainly to undertake a large-scale transformation process
that will help in the achievement of the business to be a greener company than the present state.
The transformation will basically involve the adaption of different greener and cleaner
technologies that can help the organization to gradually reduce the carbon emissions and adapt to
the use of the greener and cleaner technologies. The goals of the project are surely one of the
best in the markets and aims to bring a better and sustainable automobile future for the
organization.
Scope
The project will explore the planning of a large scale transformation process involving
the increase of brand perception of Toyota among the customers of the company and also among

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the potential customers of the company. The scope of the following event and the perception of
the brand itself is a large thing to address. This makes the scope of the following project plan big
in nature. The planning can also serve as the ideal resource for any kind of future planning by
other companies.
Purpose of Plan
The purpose of the following plan is to identify and assess the branding and consumer
perception of the different automobiles that are generally produced by Toyota Automobiles of
Japan. The plan will serve as an agreement between the different parties namely the sponsor of
the project, steering committee of the project, project manager of the team, the team itself and
the other people who are involved in the following project. The purpose of the project helps to
determine the goals and objectives of the following project easily and effectively.
The Project Plan defines the following items;
a. The purpose of the project
b. The scope and expectations of the project
c. The Responsibilities and the roles of the people involved in the project
d. The goals and objectives of the project
e. The budget of the project
f. The timeline of the following project
Problems or Issues
There are different problems or issues that can be addressed by the organizations
accordingly. The problem with the maintenance of the quality and the problems with the
preferences of the customers can be challenging for the management of the company to address

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accordingly. The change in the preferences of the customers every now and then and the absence
of any strong strategies to convert into green technology can create different kinds of problems
to the organization.
Project Plan Amendment
Detailed Analysis of the mentioned Issues
The maintenance of quality is a major issue for the company. Toyota always provides
special emphasis on the maintenance of quality. However the management has failed to address
the issues of the emissions while ensuring the maintenance of lean manufacturing process for the
organization. The regular changes in the innovations and the change in the technological
advances, there is a constant change in the processes of the organization. Therefore the
organization has to ensure the use of the latest technologies to make sure that they meet up the
demand of the customers in brand perception among the consumers.
The current project of Toyota aims to manufacture more sustainable cars which would
enhance its brand image. The project would aim to manufacture cars which are more fuel
efficient and cause less pollution. The leading Japanese automobile manufacturer in one of its
reports have already declared that it is eying to turn its every model into an electric or hybrid
model in the coming 7 years. The company set to achieve a target sales of 5.5 million cars by
2030 which would include hybrid and electric cars. The company has also declared that it has
also entered into partnership with the global electronics giant Panasonic to manufacture more
superior quality and fuel efficient batteries for its vehicles (cnbc.com 2018). All the three goals
are aimed to establish the brand Toyota as a more sustainable brand. The company is also aiming
to upgrade its lean manufacturing technology to make its manufacturing process more fuel

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BRANDING AND CONSUMER PERCEPTION
efficient and sustainable. The company also aims to recycle its used car parts to manufacture
more automobile to reduce wastage and the resultant pollution. However, it can be pointed out
that this manufacturing of hybrid vehicles would require immense investment from the side of
Toyota in the initial phase (Wesseling et al. 2015). This means that Toyota right from the initial
phase of the launch of its hybrid and electric models need to earn sufficient revenue to be able to
meet the recurring expenses of continuous innovation which it has to incur. Moreover, the
second aim already points out to the target of the company to achieve a sales figure of 5.5
million cars globally. This means that the automobile company need to market its sustainable
and hybrid products in the global market to be achieve to acquire an immense customer base to
sell its highly expensive electric and hybrid car models. Thus, the amendment which the
automobile manufacturer needs to bring about in its present hybrid and electrical car
manufacturing project would be involvement of the marketing involvement in the project.
The amended projected plan:
The amended project would be a continuation of its previous project and would take into
account the marketing component which the previous project lacked. The following are the
activities of steps of the amended project plan:
Activity Particulars Time(months
)
1 Marketing of electric and hybrid cars 10
2 Receiving quotes from suppliers and R&D firms 5
3
Presenting quotes before apex management and project
management committee 2
4 Finalizing of suppliers and R&D firms 3
5 Toyota enters into procurement contracts with suppliers 2
6 Toyota enters into open innovation contracts R&D firms 2
7 Integration with the main project 2
8 Marketing department Receives quotes from distributors 6
9 Presenting of quotes before apex managers 2

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10
Finalizes distributors and intimates them about the sales
prices of electric and hybrid car models 6
11 Takes advance payments and orders 12
Advantages of the amendment- involvement of marketing to the project
Involvement of the marketing departments would have several advantages to the project
and would render it with greater level of success.
Strengthening of supply chains of Toyota:
The first advantage which marketing would bring to the project would be strengthening
of its supply chain both upstream and downstream. Hsu, Tan and MohamadZailani (2016)
mention that lean manufacturing method which leading global automobile giants like Toyota
employ requires very strong supply chains. Marketing of the electric and hybrid cars in the
market would create awareness among the suppliers of car parts. This would enable the company
to attract a large number of firms which supply electric and hybrid parts to automobile
manufacturers. Secondly, the research and development firms which work in hybrid automobile
engineering would be aware about the hybrid product strategy of Toyota. Thus, it would enable
Toyota to attract more research firms to collaborate with it. Toyota would be able to enter into
open innovation with these R&D firms and manufacture superior quality hybrid models. This
would automatically make its sustainability and manufacturing project more viable.
Attracting dealers and distributors:
Marketing of electric and hybrid models would attract dealers and distributors of
automobile. While achievement of the first advantage would strengthen the supply chains of
Toyota upstream, the achievement of the second advantage would strengthen the supply chains
downstream. Marketing of hybrid and electric cars would enable Toyota to create awareness

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BRANDING AND CONSUMER PERCEPTION
among the dealers and distributors of automobile, especially the ones dealing with hybrid
automobiles (Grant 2016). This would enable Toyota to create a base of distributors and dealers
which would place advance orders. This would enable Toyota to create a more accurate sales
budget and estimate the future sales which it can achieve in the initial phase of launch. The
company can also make advance strategies to further push the sales in order to maximize the
revenue generation by sale of hybrid and electric cars (Bohnsack, Pinkse and Kolk 2014).
Attracting end customers:
Toyota would be able to create awareness about its future hybrid and electrical cars by
using an aggressive marketing strategy. This creation of awareness among end customers would
create demand in the market for the Toyota hybrid cars. Some of the end customers would place
orders with the Toyota dealers and distributors to buy electric and hybrid cars. Thus, it can be
inferred from the discussion that marketing as an amended part of the project would enable
Toyota to create demand in the market and secure high sales volume. This it can inferred that
that marketing would render the hybrid and electric cars manufacturing project which Toyota has
undertaken more financial viability (Ottman 2017).
Brand image strengthening:
Marketing would enable Toyota to strengthen its brand image which would in turn allow
it to attract more consumers. The Japanese multinational company has already been fined for an
immense amount of $ 500000 and has incurred a settlement cost of $ 34 million for violating
pollution limits in the US (epa.gov 2018). It can be pointed that these fines have hit the revenue
of the company and damaged its image. Marketing of electric and hybrid cars would enable to
repair the damage its brand value has suffered due to violation of environmental laws in the US,
which is one its important markets.

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BRANDING AND CONSUMER PERCEPTION
Timeline
Task Name Duration Start Finish
Project Green Toyota 85 days Tue
9/18/18
Mon
1/14/19
Selection of the
Project
10 days Tue
9/18/18
Mon
10/1/18
Meeting with the
Shareholders
1 day Tue
10/2/18
Tue
10/2/18
Meeting with the
top level Mangement
1 day Wed
10/3/18
Wed
10/3/18
Joint meeting
involving both the
parties
4 days Thu
10/4/18
Tue
10/9/18
Decision regarding
the Plan
2 days Wed
10/10/18
Thu
10/11/18
Budget of the plan 10 days Fri
10/12/18
Thu
10/25/18
Start of the
implementation of
the plan
1 day Fri
10/26/18
Fri
10/26/18
Implementation of
the new technology
35 days Mon
10/29/18
Fri
12/14/18

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BRANDING AND CONSUMER PERCEPTION
Approval of the
new technology
20 days Mon
12/17/18
Fri
1/11/19
End of the Project 1 day Mon
1/14/19
Mon
1/14/19
Timeline Table
Source: (As created by the Author)
Gantt chart
Source: (As created by the Author)
ID Task
Mode
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
0 Project Green Toyota85 days Tue 9/18/18Mon 1/14/19
1 Selection of the
Project
10 days Tue
9/18/18
Mon
10/1/18
2 Meeting with
the
Shareholders
1 day Tue
10/2/18
Tue
10/2/18
1
3 Meeting with
the top level
Mangement
1 day Wed
10/3/18
Wed
10/3/18
1,2
4 Joint meeting
involving both
the parties
4 days Thu
10/4/18
Tue
10/9/18
3
5 Decision
regarding the
Plan
2 days Wed
10/10/18
Thu
10/11/18
4
6 Budget of the plan10 days Fri 10/12/18Thu 10/25/185
7 Start of the
implementation
of the plan
1 day Fri
10/26/18
Fri
10/26/18
4,5,6
8 Implementation
of the new
technology
35 days Mon
10/29/18
Fri
12/14/18
7
9 Approval of the
new technology
20 days Mon
12/17/18
Fri 1/11/19 8
10 End of the Project1 day Mon 1/14/19Mon 1/14/199
T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T
Sep 16, '18 Sep 23, '18 Sep 30, '18 Oct 7, '18 Oct 14, '18 Oct 21, '18 Oct 28, '18 Nov 4, '18 Nov 11, '18 Nov 18, '18 Nov 25, '18 Dec 2, '18 Dec 9, '18 Dec 16, '18 Dec 23, '18 Dec 30, '18 Jan 6, '19 Jan 13, '19

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v). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

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Ottman, J., 2017. The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for
sustainable branding. Routledge.
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