Analyzing Toyota NZ: Information Strategies for Competitive Advantage

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Toyota New Zealand's strategic management practices, focusing on the alignment of information strategies with overall business objectives to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. The report begins with an executive summary and t...Read More

Running Head: Information Management
Strategic Management:
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note

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Executive summary
The following assignment is based on strategic management from a chosen company in
Deloitte. The aim of the report is to state the strategic management and align it with the
strategies of business organization to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The organisation in
which this report is based is Toyota New Zealand. The literature review section will comprise of
current information management strategies and practices. After the examining the strategic goals and
objective the paper will further highlight on providing suitable recommendations for the information
strategies which is aligned to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Information management...........................................................................................3
Company Overview...................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................3
The strategies of information management of Toyota...............................................3
Sustainable competitive advantage............................................................................3
Recommendation........................................................................................................3
Conclusion......................................................................................................................3
Reference........................................................................................................................3

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Introduction
The report is based reviewing the strategic management for the chosen company
which is Toyota New Zealand. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the business strategies,
organizational strategies and align it with the information strategies of the company. Strategic
management can be defined as the involvement of the setting up the objectives and then
analyzing them with the competitive environment and examining with the internal
organizational, ensuring the roles of the management and further evaluating the company’s
objective (David & David, 2016). However it is important for any organisation to have its
own vision and mission as it caters to align the information of the management with the
goals. The strategies varies from the formulating the objectives of leadership till the till it is
executed and is implemented in the business. Further in the report the discussion is based on
the information management of the selected organisation and will further highlight on
company’s achievement in sustainable competitive advantage.
Information management
Information management strategies can be described as the agency which plans its
approach to information management in sort to assemble the current and potential
organizational needs and the fundamental regulatory requirements (Malcolm et al., 2015).
These formulated strategies cater to set out a plan with an intention for continual
improvement. The attributes of the activities which the information management comprise of
is first it is important for the company to learn the activities, indentify the information,
acquiring information, storing information and organizing it appropriately, developing
information on the particular product and service, distributing the information and lastly
using the information. However the information management comprise of three types of
benefits and they are firstly it reduces cost (Monden 2019). Increases the revenue and lastly it
manages the risk of the company. Therefore with reference to the business strategies in MIS
(Management Information System) the strategies of the company are aligned with its
objectives like for example the advertising strategy or promotional strategy or many more.
These planning comprise of certain elements and embrace to involve the long term policy
decision like product diversification, installation of new machinery or formulating innovative
business model. On the other hand the role of MIS assists the company in planning,

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managing, controlling, operating and transactional processing. It acts like a middle man or the
middle management for short duration of panning and controlling the business activities.
Name of the Company- Toyota New Zealand
Company Overview
Toyota New Zealand is an importer and distributor of new vehicles to New
Zealand. Until the year 1998 it assembled a variety of knocked down vehicles which were
imported from various other countries. The long term goals of Toyota aim to steady
development in harmony with concern of the environment, communities and global economy
as well as catering the stakeholders and shareholders (Osten, 2015). Toyota uses the symbol
of a tree to formulate its strategies as a tree signifies the meaning of strength, as it is long
lasting and continues to grow and flourish in near future. Aligning with the aim or objective
of the company the information management of Toyota leads to future mobility of the
environment and the society as a whole, enriching the lives of the people living in the world
with responsible and safest way of moving people. With the commitment of the catering
quality product, respect for planet and ceaseless innovation the company is striving ro exceed
its expectation.
Literature Review
Information Management was first introduced in 1970 where it had emerged from
data management as a practical media which began to surpass the physical media. The
information administration can be defined as the consistent evolution of technology, business
and ideas needs change. According to Ogiela (2015) the Information Management
encompasses a sequence of the organizational activities, analyze, assembling data,
contextualization and achieving in order to meet the company’s needs. In this case the
company requires data and information which has a lifecycle as it is useful for a particular
stage of time but at some time it becomes no longer importance.
There are four main components of information management and they are:
People: they are not only involved in information management but vicinity also the innovator
and users of information or data.

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Processes and policies: the rulers or the leaders are determined who can access the
information and the steps to stores and secure the information. However these data must be
stored and secured and a timeframe is allocated to achieve it and later delete it.
Technology: the physical components like computer, filing cabinet and many more which
store the information and data and the any sort of software which is used.
Data and information: lastly the data and information is used by the management people.
The information management caters to many principles and they are well known set in the
Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK) which is a framework that breaks
down the supervision skills into six awareness areas and four types of process areas:
 Information Technology: the hardware and software.
 Information system: the information technology built into a system which caters to
meet the business objectives and policies (Olutoyin & Flowerday, 2016).
 Business Information: it is created by examine and contextualizing the data using tool
such as the in sequence system.
 Business Processes: this is the process which explains the evaluation and use of the
business information to make decision.
 Business Benefits: it is the desired advantage of the business information which is
provided.
 Business Strategy: this is the master arrangement where the company provides a
course. The decision is made by analyzing the business processes which is focused on
business information and will through the strategy and lead to realize the benefits of
the industry.
However the strategic information management assist the business and the organisation in
categorizing the process in which the information they have created and received. It assists
the companies to recognize the opportunities and improve the operational functioning
through analysis of data usage (Bevilacqua, Ciarapica & Paciarotti, 2015). It is an important
method to drive and manage the changes towards the managerial activities aligned with the
objectives.

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The strategies of information management of Toyota
Toyota has developed actively on the ground of expansion and innovation in its in
order system by incorporating the new information processing technologies while it responds
to a variety of changes in the external environment. The factors of external environment are
rapid globalization of development, changes in Japanese and global economy and compliance
with global environment (Monden, 2019). The innovation and growth system at Toyota in the
second half of 1980s to the first half of 1990s witnessed the advancement in the office
automation.
The company is based on distinct business framework and the manner it achieves its
vehicle manufacturing has an effective quality expectation which had contributed in the
development of the organisation. On the other hand the information system of Toyota New
Zealand offers efficient management for the warehouses of the procedures from the time it is
obtained to storage and controlling the location (Prajogo et al., 2018). The Toyota WMS was
assigned to provide a vital function in catering to producing comprehensive reviews which
holds a huge amount of warehouse data which could be used mostly to make certain decision.
By analyzing the results of warehouse management officers of Toyota it can be determined
by the habits and trends that would be invisible if the organic information.
The MIS in Toyota is applied across the departments like in operational field,
marketing and finance. With reference to operation of Toyota it has been impacted by
wonderful development in technology and is manufacturing business that has significantly
increased. The vehicles and car parts are transported ahead of the delivery time and inhibit
enormous amount of finance from being used for the purpose of storing activities. The
company also offers remedies for the business and also relates to the car and its process
structure for smooth stream of procedures. Toyota’s depth warehouse management system
helps the organisation to reward the development of the functional areas. It is the want of the
customers for various Toyota automobiles defensible a solution that would cater towards
improvement and assist the organized creation (Toyota et al., 2015). The management in
sequence system of Toyota reduces the order to delivery period, increase the sales and
activities in order of demand examination and tracking of delivery and lastly enhance the

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inventory activities that is around the institution. However it allows Toyota to significantly
decrease the time and energy of customers for its excellent vehicles.
With reference to finance Toyota uses the software called SAP software system
which also provides financial information to the fund subdivision of Toyota and its concerned
personnel. The software enables the sales and the costing of cars or machinery through
configuration and monitoring of available parts. Therefore the last attribute of marketing
caters the SAP software in assisting the marketing business of the company in regard to
products development, sales forecast, marketing and costing activities. Like the other
company procedures Toyota also depends on external sources of data (Coetzee, Van der
Merwe & Van, 2016). Hence these sources can be entailed to view the feedback of the
customers.
Sustainable competitive advantage
It was possible for Toyota to achieve the business strategies with its alignment with
the information system and business strategies by facilitating the areas of the competitive
advantage of the company. It was possible to align because the external firm of Toyota
involves both the cultural and geographic elements. However the location and resources are
integral factors which influence both the national and corporate success. The success of the
firm comes with the meaningful components of population characteristics and institutional
arrangements. As compared with its rival firm Volkswagen, Toyota has also catered to
develop a set of competitive advantage on basis of its business strategies and information
system which successfully keeps the corporation at the high level (Toivonen, 2015). Brands
identity being one of the vital components the industry has still been referred to as the
successful car marker in the world. This resulted to be its sustainable competitive advantage
where Toyota brands itself. On the other hand the cost competitive advantage lies in the cost
leadership strategy that the corporation pursues. The name of the brand also associates with
low cost of manufacturing which facilitates more saving for customers. This strategy had
enabled them to carry out the process of implementing various tactics on Toyota. Lastly it
can be said that the competitive advantage of Toyota focus on implementing continuous
improvement which also allows bringing in innovation in the firm (Toivonen, 2015). The
improvement is catered in the areas of engineering, supporting the business model,
manufacturing and marketing management. The company has set a target of 30% in
improving the development capacity for the year 2012.

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Recommendation
Therefore it can be recommended for Toyota to achieve competitive advantage can be
facilitated by incorporating the process of MIS within the integration of system management.
It is important for the company to bring in innovation in system management as well in the
development of managerial activities. The company also aids its employee with the facility to
maintaining a transparent relationship so that it can listen to their grievances and obtain the
feedback provided by the, this will however enhance the management system and will allow
smooth functioning. In order to enable the company to control its business steps properly,
Toyota should preserve in handling the ownership which allows it to promote the business
procedures and assist to ensure the reduction of expenses. Therefore it can also be
recommended that Toyota New Zealand should allow the market to increase the revenue and
penetrate in the market where it can increase the demand and cater to higher fuel efficiency
and advanced technology.
Conclusion
Hence it can be concluded that establishment of the management information system
in Toyota New Zealand has resulted in execution of the environment of the system
ownership. The owner of the system management holds its clients and keeps up their
expectations and facilitates them with the necessary ability in funding the new program. The
information management is an effective medium in conducting the business where it offers a
bundle of opportunity and advantage for the marketers as it supports in eliminating waste
from the management which enhances the surrounding of the working space. Therefore when
the strategic management system is aligned with the information system of the company it
serves the organization with successful achievements.

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Reference
Bevilacqua, M., Ciarapica, F. E., & Paciarotti, C. (2015). Implementing lean information
management: the case study of an automotive company. Production Planning &
Control, 26(10), 753-768.
Coetzee, R., Van der Merwe, K., & Van Dyk, L. (2016). Lean implementation strategies:
how are the Toyota Way principles addressed?. South African Journal of Industrial
Engineering, 27(3), 79-91.
David, F., & David, F. R. (2016). Strategic management: A competitive advantage approach,
concepts and cases. Pearson–Prentice Hall.
Malcolm, P. B., Napier, J. A., Stickler, A. M., Tamblin, N. J., Beadle, P. J. O., & Crocker, J.
P. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,203,650. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office.
Monden, Y. (2019). Toyota management system: Linking the seven key functional areas.
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Ogiela, L. (2015). Advanced techniques for knowledge management and access to strategic
information. International Journal of Information Management, 35(2), 154-159.
(Referred from page 154 and 155)
Olutoyin, O., & Flowerday, S. (2016). Successful IT governance in SMES: an application of
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Osten, S. C. (2015). An analysis of MNE subsidiary performance: the exemplary case of
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Massey University, New Zealand (Doctoral dissertation, Massey University).
Prajogo, D., Toy, J., Bhattacharya, A., Oke, A., & Cheng, T. C. E. (2018). The relationships
between information management, process management and operational performance:

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