Analyzing Toyota's Competitive Advantages in Australia and Japan

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Toyota's competitive advantages in both Japan and Australia. It delves into Toyota's operational systems, including the Just-in-Time and Jidoka production methods in Japan, and how these systems are adapted for the Australian market. The report highlights Toyota's strategic use of the VRIO framework, continuous improvement, and employee training to maintain a competitive edge. In Australia, the report emphasizes Toyota's focus on innovation, customer-centric strategies, and leveraging research and development to enhance its product offerings. The analysis covers how Toyota adapts to different market demands, emphasizing the company's ability to innovate and maintain its position in the global automotive industry. The report also touches upon the company's ability to use natural resources efficiently, and its focus on lean production and customer responsiveness.

Running head: Competitive advantage
Competitive advantage of toyota
toyota

Competitive advantage 1
Introduction
Toyota is a multinational company in Japan, they are known as one of the largest manufacturers
in automobile sector who sells over ‘7.5 million models’ in continents. Toyota has created
distinctive set of values and principles that have been rooted in constructive years in japan.
Toyota in Australia being a subsidiary markets various Toyota products and advertise them
manages business operations and motorsports in Australia. They have announced that they have
become a national distribution and sales company by the end of 2017. Their strength and
weakness lies in the strong market positioning and their wide spread distribution channels on the
other hand their product recalling affected brand image also the poor allocation of resources lead
to few losses. . The competitive advantage of Toyota in home country as well as Australia is
been discussed here under and how they operate in Australia. This company is in the mature
stage of its industry life cycle (Anon, 2017).
Toyota’s operations in Japan
Toyota is one of the renowned industry leader in manufacturing. Their operating system is an
integrated socio-technical, they manufacture and organize logistics for automobile manufacturers
which include suppliers and customers. Their approach is built on ‘Just-in-time production’
which was created by the founder of Toyota. This approach helps to eliminate waste and design
in a way that it lessens the burden and the inconsistency to achieve the smooth system of
delivering the expected outcomes. Just-in-time explains everything clearly that company should
make what is needed at the time and the fixed amount which is needed at that moment only. An
another operating system of Toyota is ‘Jidoka’ and it is used in Toyota production system to
automate but with a human touch, it simply means an automation which require human to
operate but work is done in automation (Toyota Australia, 2017). The automation help rapid
detection of any mistake and their correction in the particular process where it occurred and in
this way it ease the process of the worker’s need to judge the operation whether it works normal.
Sometimes one has to wait for the final product and it is not sure that product will come out as
expected there are always the chances of occurrence of defective products. Automation help
them to detect any defect at an earlier stage only (Kumar et al., 2013).

Competitive advantage 2
Toyota’s operations in Australia
Toyota operates in Australia in a different way as compare to its home country. It has become the
largest vehicle exporter who is shipping more than to 13 markets overseas. Toyota has been more
simplified and got a manageable environment in Australia which has reduced the requirement of
remote support. The operation system in Australia has given the company a flexibility to respond
in market and enable them to achieve profits by reducing costs through various planned activities
for longer term plans. As Australia is about customer-oriented mind set so the approach of just-
in-time does not work here exactly the same it does in Japan. It has transformed its operating
system from heterogeneous to consolidated one. One of the benefit they get in Australia’s
operating system is their cost of service has been substantially reduced in order to improve the
cost of ownership. The customers in Australia are about the design of cars rather than its
functions, they are after customization in this way the improvisation and modernization has been
made in end-user experience which ultimately lead to another level of success in operations in
Australia. It also provides seeks to improve their processes. They form manufacturing strategies
effectively in regard to design flexible and efficient processes that allow them to standardize
their products keeping in mind the customer’s requirements (Rothaermel, 2016).
Competitive advantage in Japan
In spite of poor resources in Japan, Japanese companies have managed to use scarce resources in
a way and adapt successfully in the global competition including geographical factors which
affects the success of a company at both national and corporate level. Toyota’s philosophy is
about continuous improvement in their operation processes and adopt VRIO framework where
this organization has acquired attributes and combinations of different attributes which will allow
Toyota to perform the best from its competitors (Hines, 2016). VRIO framework helps in
determining the competitive potential, values, rarity which enables the company to improve its
overall efficiency by organizing its planning for the usage of resources. The competitive
advantage of Toyota consists the characteristics of detecting problem at earlier stages and
solving them by making continuous improvements (Laszlo, 2017). In Japan they have adopted
radical redesign of their business processes, provide time to time employee training so that
quality can be maintained and keep them updated about the latest technologies. The success is
mainly depend upon how the processes work in the alignment of particular objectives, Toyota
has implemented few efficient strategies and invented Just-in-time approach, inventory strategy

Competitive advantage 3
by synchronizing their processes towards lean production which make sure it eliminates waste
produced in varied areas of production. There objectives are clear saying automation would
require less human effort, just-in-time require less amount of time to deliver products by
reducing the in-process stock or inventory and it shows high responsiveness towards customers
(Hatch, 2015).
Competitive advantage in Australia
Toyota’s competitive advantage in Australia is innovation, the key to survive in market for a
long term prosperity. The hi-tech and innovative products are the factors which would help a
company to survive and grow (Fujitsu.com, 2017). They develop the leading-edge technologies
to innovate and make lighter material or customize as per consumer’s requirement. It can be said
that it is more about customer centric strategy that they adopted because Australia has got high
level of education and their research and development base are their strength which can be
utilized in ways to enhance the functionalities of products to compete with other automobile
companies. The continuous improvisation in their product lines gives them an advantage of
highly efficient production and attract brand positioning in market. Their strategy is to chase new
markets in order to spread all over to survive for long they have got ample of natural resources
and added to the fact the innovation allow them to use wisely the natural resources which tends
to make lighter material (Barney, 2014).

Competitive advantage 4
References
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Competitive advantage 5