Contemporary Developments in Business: Toyota's Knowledge Management

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Toyota's business development, examining the impact of external factors and the significance of knowledge management. The report begins with an introduction to business development and its application to Toyota, a multinational automotive company. It then delves into the influence of various external factors, including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors, on Toyota's operations. The report further explores the importance of knowledge management within Toyota, detailing its processes and benefits. It covers how Toyota can manage information to improve its productivity, including employee awareness, customer service, and decision-making. Recommendations are offered to enhance Toyota's response to knowledge and information management. The report concludes with a summary of key findings and insights into Toyota's business strategies.

Contemporary Developments in
Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Influence of External Factors on the Business organization........................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
Knowledge Management.............................................................................................................4
Organization Response On Knowledge Management.................................................................8
Areas for improvement in knowledge management....................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Business development is a long term value creation from customer, market and relation
for the organization. Business development is an activity of any small or large organization to
improve the business of company in the market place. It also can be summerised as idea,
initiative and working or organization for increasing revenue, growth in order of expansion ans
increasing the profitability of company (Charles Jr, Schmidheiny and Watts, 2017). This report is
providing brief of business development procedure of Toyota . Toyota id a multinational
automotive organization that is working on the global level. Headquarter of the Toyota motor
corporation is in Aichi, Japan. Company was founded in year 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. This
report is providing impact and influence of the external factors on the business of Toyota.
Importance of each external factor is explained for Toyota company. Importance of Knowledge
management for the business organization is covered for organization. Influence knowledge
management is analysed for policies and decision making of organization. Response of Toyota
for information management is evaluated in the study. Important recommendations are provided
to improve the response of company for knowledge and information management.
TASK 1
Influence of External Factors on the Business organization
For an organization is important to keep eye on the external factors that can affect the
business of Toyota company. These external factors of the organization are not in control of
company. These factors are also known as macro organizational factors. These factors are
classified in different categories which are as follows- political factors, economic factor, social
factors, technological factors, environmental factors and legal factors. This all factors are
presents outside the organization and these factors are not in control of company. Each factor
affects the organization in different way.
Political Factors
The political factors are known as the decisions and policies of government of the
country. The nation in which organization is performing business there are different decisions
made be government for the stability in country. Decision related to the taxation policy, foreign
policy, foreign trade policy, transportation policies and business policy mainly affects the
business of Toyota Motors (Budzianowski, 2017). Change in each of this policy make effect on
the business in different manner. Change in taxation policy force the organization to make
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changes in the economic policies of company. The economic decision of company are based on
the economic tax policy of government. Variation in tax policy force the organization to make
changes in prices and economic structure of company. Foreign policy affect the global business
of Toyota in international market. As per foreign policy company design particular model and
strategies to perform business in international market and change in foreign policy lead to
changer in international business strategies of company. Foreign trade policy provide different
benefits to organization to perform business outside the country. Any change made by
government\ in foreign trade policy can affect the pricing method of Toyota for global market.
Transportation policy of government also can make huge impact on the business of company in
market place. The business policies help the government to keep track on different business
organizations and by this policies government somehow control the organization with in limits.
This affect the business of company by making their actions limited in different area. This is how
political factors force the Toyota company to make different changes in the procedures and
operations methods.
Economical Factors
The different organizations have major concern about economic factors. Conditions like
economic crisis, recession and inflation affect the business of organization by affecting the
operation, methods and employees of company (Tukker and Tischner, 2017). This all three
factors mentioned above lead to instability in financial condition of both country and
organization. Recession and economic crisis lead to unemployment and shortage of resources.
This reduces the capability of production of organization and make the company unstable in
market. Inflation in country reduce the sells of organization and this reduces the profitability of
Toyota.
Social Factors
Social factors that are considered as macro factor for the Toyota are average income of
people, education level of people, population of business market. These all factors affect the
business of Toyota. Average income of the people affect the price policy of company and also
the profitability of organization is depended on the income of locals. Education level of people
around the country creates the possibilities for recruitment and selection of skilled employees.
Population of the target market provide the opportunity to the Toyota to improve the sales of
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company to gain higher profit and gain greater market share. This is how these social factors
influences the business and operation of organization.
Technological Factors
Technological factors are the factors that are concerned with the technology used by the
organization and latest technology in the market and the advancement of technology in Toyota
Motors. Technology used in the organization is most important for the business, performance
and productivity of company in market place. For each functional department in the organization
has a particular technology that provide high performance to the individual employee and team.
Technology used by the organization define the production capability and quality of product of
company (Glover and Kusterer, 2016). For the competitive performance in market company
should have the latest technology to meet the demands of consumers. If the company is using
less effective and slow technology then it will reduce the business profitability of Toyota. To
generate higher revenue company should implement the latest technology to meet the market
demand. New technology in organization will help to full fill the product demand in target
market. Technology also can help Toyota to perform market research to set goals and targets of
company for future. For more accurate and precise product development innovation in
technology can help Toyota motors. Technology also can reduce the over all cost of production
to the company.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors for an organization are related to sustainability of natural resources
and about the environmental and geographical specification where the organization is located.
Sustainability in the production of motor vehicle is major factor for Toyota. Environmental
conditions are getting worst and affecting the air pollution and water pollution issues force the
company to conduct market research to reduce pollution from the vehicles sold by Toyota. Other
issues for the business organization are mainly related to the location of manufacturing plant of
company. If the manufacturing plant of company is far from the target market then it will reduce
the profitability of company cause it will make the company to invest high in the transportation
of product to the market place. Geographical conditions also can affect the productivity of
company. If the location of company store is far from reach of consumer then it will reduce the
sales of organization and lead to reduction in the profit of organization. The weather condition at
location can make the business operation of Toyota less effective and less productive. This will
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make direct impact on the revenue of company. Availability of resources and raw material is
important for the production of company. So, availability of resource and raw material is also
important for business stability of Toyota Motors.
Legal Factors
Legislation that are made by Legal authorities and these are compulsory for all business
organizations to follow these rules made by legal body of nation.. These laws made by legal
bodies to protect the rights of employees and customers. The different laws like employment act,
health and safety act, minimum wages act and business laws are made for different business
organizations. These acts are regularly put on review to make changes as per the need and as per
new cases that are faced by employees and customers (Hirschmeier and Yui, 2018). As per the
change in the legal act company have to make different changes in the company policies which
are designed as per the legal law of country.
These is how legislation affects the business and organizational policies of Toyota
Motors and force them to make relevant changes in the operation and infrastructure of the work
place.
TASK 2
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management ids a process of creating, sharing, utilizing and managing of
kno0wledge and information of and organization in an effective way to improve the actions and
operation of company. This is consisted of different approaches that help the company to achieve
the company goals with maximum efficiency. Toyota is a multinational organization that is
performing its business in near about all regions. Do it is important for them manage the
information in the right manner to make the organizational process more effective and
productive (Kollmann, Lomberg and Peschl, 2016). Toyota is selling its products on global scale
and to evaluate success of the organization it is important for them to use different information
systems to perform information collection, storing and processing with high accuracy and
precision.
Importance of Knowledge Management
Information and knowledge management is most important for Toyota. In the different
way knowledge management can help the company to improve its productivity. For various
factors kno0wledge management work differently. These aspects are employee awareness,
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availability, timelines, adept organization change, help in decision making, transfer of
knowledge, reduce risk, goal achievement and availability of information. For each different
operation company can use different information system to improve the particular operation.
Employee Awareness-
For Toyota it is important to keep the employees aware of the company policies to
improve their performance as per the need of company. For this different tools of information
system can be used (Laudon and Traver, 2016). Fore better awareness of employees pyramid
diagram of organizational level and information requirement can be used to provide the required
information to employees.
Arability
In organization customer services are most important because the brand value of
company is based on the reviews and feedbacks of customers. Information system or knowledge
management system can help the organization to serve customers as per their need. This will
improve the availability of employees for customer services.
Timelines
As an multinational organization and developed industry Toyota need to complete its
tasks with in the given dead line to meed and full fill the demand with customer in short and
acceptable time. This is important for customer satisfaction.
Adept Organizational Change
Toyota is a large size organization and as its large size high diversification of company
lead to low efficiency. To come out of this problem company need to make different changes in
the business (Vveinhardt and Kuklytė, 2016). Here the information system like TPS, MIS, AI
and OLAP can improve the implementation of change management and implementation in
organization.
Decision Making
In large size organization the decision making is bit difficult and company can face huge
failure in wrong decision (Kans and Ingwald, 2016). In the decision making process information
system and knowledge management system can help to take suitable decision of the
organization.
Transfer Knowledge
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For the high efficiency of the organizational department communication of information
and data is most important. This better communication of information and data provide higher
functionality to organization and employees. The information systems used in the organization
are the best suitable for higher performance at information and data transfer. The system
interface for information system reduce the chances of communication failure in the information
transfer process.
Reduce Risk
Information systems are used in the organization to store and process the information, store it
and provide result in form of future prediction (Huckle and Wals, 2015). These systems can help
the organization to reduce the risk of failure and financial loss by providing specific information
about customer behaviour and current market trends. Risk of the organization are reduced by
making right decision for organization.
Goal Achievement
The systems like DSS and artificial intelligence can improve the decision making of the
Toyota. This will help the company to set right and realistic target for the employees. Systems
like AI and DSS uses the market data which is collected by different online and offline sources
and process it to generate future condition and stability of organization (Ungureanu, Pop and
Ungureanu, 2016). The company is producing motor vehicles and currently the all motor vehicle
manufacturer use the knowledge management to improve the selling of company product.
Availability Of Information
Most important thing to the organization is related to the information that is possessed by
the company. This information is used by the organization to develop the motor vehicles with
new features. This systems also can be used in the motor vehicles to attract more customers
towards the company product.
This is how the different information systems can be used in the Toyota company to
improve the information management in the company.
Influence of Knowledge management on the Policies of organization.
There are different policies made by organization for smooth operation of organization
ion the business market and also these policies are used by company to manage the people inside
and outside the organization. These policies are important for company and these policies part of
code of conduct of organization (Allen and Truman, 2016). To gain better control on the
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organization function and for preventions of legal issues different policies are made by HRM and
management of company. Various policies that are followed by Toyota are recruitment and
separation policy, employee attendance and leave policy, pay and benefits policy, acceptance of
technology uses and conduct related company policies. On the basis of the information of
organization different methods are used by company fort recruiting candidate and separate
employee on the basis of their performance in the organization. The information system can help
the organization to track the behaviour of employee with in the work place for their performance
evaluation. HRM uses different information system to design the method of payment and
benefits that are provided to the employees (Liu and Cheung, 2016). This knowledge
management system can offer more convenience to the HRm to make right cut or incentive in the
salary or employee as their work hours in the organization.
Information system also can evaluate the data to support the policy of organization to
implement new and innovative technology in the organization. This all policies of Toyota motors
can be implemented in better and effective way in the organization. The policy making of the
organization also can be effectively managed by these systems. As per the code of conduct of
organization plan different policies and the information systems can be used to improve the
effectiveness and implementation of new policy for people of Toyota.
Influence of Knowledge Management on Decision making of Organization
Information or knowledge management is one of the most important function of company
and efficiency and productivity of Toyota is depended on performance of information system in
the organization. Highly productive and intelligent information system improves the data
processing for company and this help the organization to generate better prediction for future.
This prediction help the organization to take higher decision for companies operations and
functions.
The impact and influence of knowledge management id positive for decision making of
Toyota motors. Decision making in an organization is done by following seven different steps
and these steps are used to improve the effectiveness of organization decisions (Gerpott and
May, 2016). These steps of decision taking are identified the decision, gather information,
identify alternatives, Weigh The evidence, selection among alternatives, taking action and review
decision. All this steps of organization management can be performed with higher efficiency by
information systems. The knowledge management systems like Artificial Intelligence and DSS
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can help the organization to take right decision for organization. These systems are more precise
and accurate and these can avoid the human error in the decision making process. This is how the
information system and knowledge management system can improve the decision making of
Toyota motors.
Organization Response On Knowledge Management
Knowledge management activities performed by Toyota Motors company are less
effective in the initial time when they were using the old traditional information management
systems in the organization. The response of Toyota is visible in the policies and code conduct
which are used in the business procedure, the acceptability of new technology in information
management Toyota has shown huge interest in implementation of these technologies in the
operations (Boyce and Ville, 2017). To gain high performance in the organization working and
for addressing larger people in market place Toyota has accepted information system in
organization. The response of the organization means how the organization react to the problem
in different conditions. For the information system response of company is clear. Toyota is very
particular about the knowledge management system used in operation and different process of
company. All the functional department are consists of information system. For the
implementation of new knowledge management system in company a technical team was formed
to gather the information about way to implement system in procedure of organization. This
particular team deals with all the issues of information system in organization. At the stage of
implementation of information system different researches, data and information collection and
processing done by organization to implement the system in organization. The response of
company in the operation of knowledge management is important cause effectiveness of business
is depended on information system (Samygin and Baryshnikov, 2015). Information transmitted
and processed by IS (information system) is of high quality and accurate in terms of evaluation.
This provides better research to organization management to deal with different issues in Toyota.
This is how organization response for information system and knowledge management system is
important. This provides better choice to company management to make right decision to
improve the productivity of Toyota in the business.
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Areas for improvement in knowledge management.
Knowledge management – It refers to handling and managing the information related with the
organization in effective way. It mainly concerns with providing relevant information to right
person at the right time.
Management of Toyota should consider various areas for bringing an improvement in knowledge
management in the organization. These are as follows -
Tapping intellectual capacity -
Knowledge management is the method in which knowledge is acquired through various activities
of building capacity. Management of Toyota should conduct these type of activities for
improving the decision-making of the workers. Manager should develop the plan for tapping the
knowledge of workers for improving the growth and success of the company.
Welfare package -
Another area that should be consider by the Manager of Toyota is that, organization should
develop welfare package for the employees. This will help to improve the knowledge
management in the company.
Encourage Collaboration -
Management of the firm should make efforts for improving the process of communication with
the employees there must be open communication so that employees can easily share their
opinion and ideas with each other. This will also result in improvement in productivity of
workers of Toyota.
Promote social relationships -
Firm should take steps for motivating the employees to involve in social groups. This will help to
share knowledge of one employee with another. Management should promote socializing in the
organization because this will help to create awareness regarding strengths and weaknesses of
the workers. This will result in taking decisions faster and better.
Feedback -
Another areas that should be consider by Manager of Toyota is to develop the policy of
collecting feedback from workers. Company should take steps for implementing the process of
getting feedback. This will help to collect information regarding the opinion, advice of the
employees.
Centralized repository -
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In Toyota there must be a centralized repository system in which all the information should be
stored. This will help the employees to access the information from any place and also resulted
in management of knowledge in the company. It will enable employees to locate the
conversation related with any type of project.
Change mindset -
Manager of Toyota should promote the change in mindset of workers. Employees should learn
from their setback and enables them to grab the opportunities. By changing the mindset of
employees, Toyota can easily cultivate the workers. Leader of Toyota should integrate
organizational structure and process of working to achieve vision of company. Change in
mindset will help staff to grow and take the benefit of their strengths. Further, management
should also track and monitor the performance of employees. Monitoring will help to align the
progress with the vision and mission of Toyota. It will also result in improvement in motivation
of workers to share their knowledge. Company should encourage workers through promoting
anatomy.
There are various areas that will help in managing knowledge of workers such as scheduling,
opportunities for developing confidence, team work etc.
CONCLUSION
This study is providing information of the knowledge management in the Toyota motors
company. The importance of information and data management is concluded in the report.
Impact and influence of the different external factors on the organization has been studied to
evaluate the business development of Toyota motors in United Kingdom. The importance of
each factor has been analysed in the study. Organizational response for effective use of
knowledge management system has been studied in the report. As per the study above various
area of development are suggested for Toyota company.
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