MGMT 4650: Seminar in Strategic Business Management - Research Paper Example

Toyota’s Products Toyota is a successfully established multinational company, and among the leading automobile companies in the world. The company has secured a significant global market share through meeting customer demands and creating relevant product values for the customers. Toyota’s products have outstanding characteristics that customers have traditionally valued over the years. These product characteristics also shape the company’s organizational culture, thereby defining operational goals and objectives (Liker 230).

Toyota’s customers have valued the company’s products simplicity over the years. The company manufactures user friendly products, specifically customized for specific markets around the world. This diversity and dynamism in meeting usability needs for customers is an aspect of Toyota’s products that its customers have traditionally valued. Secondly, Toyota’s products are affordable. The company manufactures products that are affordable to middle class earners. While other companies engage in the manufacture of luxury cars that are actually expansive, Toyota strives to provide automobile products that are fit for luxury and business.

Thirdly, Toyota’s products quality has not been subject to significant compromise over the years. Where instances of compromised product quality have emerged, the company has been quick to respond to such issues. At one point for example, the company recalled one of its brand cars for re-examination due to reported faults in acceleration (Taiichii 75). Another outstanding characteristic of Toyota’s products is availability to customers. The company’s business aspect is well established and set up in such a way that the time consumed between ordering and delivery of products within and without borders is limited.

Toyota Company observes strong and functional operational strategies that aids in the realization of these characteristics. One of the operational strategies employed by the company is the assessment and evaluation of customer diversity and dynamism across different markets. This allows the company to change its operational strategies accordingly, in response to changes in demand and product preferences. This process encompasses all the above mentioned characteristics of Toyota’s products.Another operational strategy is evaluation of income levels of different customers in different markets.

The company therefore understands that there exists a significant distinction between low, middle and high income earners. The middle class earners buy more products at affordability prices, and this allows the company to set strategies that are strongly responsive to automobile needs of this class. Finally, as the company focuses on the middle class earners, it also targets the high class earners by manufacturing products that meet their luxury needs. In a nutshell, the company embraces diversification of markets needs amid globalization trends.

Toyota’s products are outstanding and fully integrated in the global market. The company has been operational for decades of years, allowing it to build and maintain a customer base that is relatively hard for rivals to break (Satoshi 127). As a result, its competitiveness in the automobile market allows the company to protect its products and operational strategies. On the same note, the company legal grounds of operation also protect it from its rivals. Specifically, its fair competition strategies have significantly managed to keep the company’s rivals at bay.

This has also protected the company’s products from imitation by rival companies. Works CitedLiker, Jeffrey. The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the Worlds Greatest Manufacturer. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2004.Satoshi, Hino. Inside the Mind of Toyota: Management Principles for Enduring Growth. Michigan: Productivity Press, 2006.Taiichii, Ono. Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. Michigan: Productivity Press, 2008.