Strategic Management: Strategic Choices - Essay Example

When it comes to innovation, Toyota has persistently developed, acquired or integrated technologies to produce appealing automobiles. Nonetheless, it can be said that all aspiring car companies also placed emphasis on technological innovations. What distinguished Toyota was that it placed importance on the convenience of the car for all its passengers and not only its driver. As an example, American car manufacturers Ford and General Motors placed particular importance on improving engine performance for its ‘muscle’ cars (Ohno, 2008).

Toyota also improved on its engine performance as well as driving convenience and safety features to the point that it has established the world’s largest driving simulator and the virtual human model (Toyota, 2012) Perhaps one common mistake among companies aspiring to internationalize its operations is to insist on the adequacy of their local business practices – the proven methods thinking. While Toyota had its roots from well-known nationalistic Japan, the company has step beyond patriotism to embrace international business concepts and practices and incorporate it with their business philosophy.

From establishing production facilities outside of Japan to incorporating local preferences, Toyota has constantly strived to recognize and develop ways to satiate the local market. Other competitors were static and most were overly sentimental of their products but Toyota was willing to learn and develop. The meaning of localization was expanded by Toyota to include establishing not only the company’s presence in the region but also improve relationships with indigenous suppliers and workers.

As part of the Toyota Production System (TPS) scheme, the company proactively treats its suppliers as partners providing them training and advice. Also part of this production system is the employee involvement and empowerment wherein the local staff are given opportunities to improve their unit’s work efficiency (Liker, 2004). What is unique with Toyota is that despite its localization, it still placed importance on developing methods using the Japanese values of discipline, belief in empirical studies, industry and efficiency.

Combining best-practices gleaned from meticulous Japanese research with effective local methods provided an advantage to the company unavailable to its static competitors. Essentially, the company studied the local markets, fused Japanese empirical methods and blended them to form an image of a multinational company that locals can consider to be part of their own. Every business executive would acknowledge the basic rule of decreasing costs to increase profit. To achieve competitiveness, Toyota mass produced to achieve economies of scale.

Nonetheless, this effort may prove to be futile if there is excessive cost overruns which is hard to control in a global scale which characterized the company. Toyota has acknowledged and studied this basic principle early on resulting to the development and implementation of the Toyota Production Strategy – a guiding philosophy on reducing production costs by analyzing each stages of the production process and addressing possible concerns. The TPS is basically a proactive approach that includes the following principles: slash set-up times, produce in small