The Toyota Way

         

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         “The Toyota Way” is a set of beliefs Toyota established as their corporations operating principles in 2001. At the core of these principles is a dedication to continuous improvement of product, and respect for people. “The Toyota Way” prides itself in keeping the consumer’s long-term best interest in mind, rather than short-term gains for the company. Since “The Toyota Way” was put into place in 2001, Toyota’s success and customer satisfaction has put Toyota at the top of the consumer market. Since Toyota shifted focus from solely focusing on sales and company growth to customer satisfaction, other car manufacturers have had to improve the quality of the vehicles they make in order to stay in business.

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         In recent years, the principles Toyota uses have become a common area of focus for many large corporations that want to stay competitive in other consumer markets. “Keeping the customer happy,” and “the customer is always right,” was always talked about but never practiced by most corporations who were dominating the market. Companies knew that they needed to keep the customers in mind to an extent, but when it came down to customer complaints with poorly designed products, most companies would keep their short-term success in mind rather than long-term customer satisfaction. Within the last 10 years, the consumer market has been flooded with new companies making products to compete with the main companies dominating the consumer market. Since competition is much higher, companies have to increase quality and decrease price, ultimately shifting focus to customer satisfaction above all things.

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         Keeping the consumer in mind, Toyota has done a great job designing and building quality vehicles that the majority of consumers want. The Toyota brand used to be perceived as a club, and owners of other makes would compete against those who own Toyota. You still see that with a lot of other makes, a good example would be Chevy and Ford; die-hard ford fans have stickers of the Chevy emblem being peed on by Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes), and die-hard Chevy owners have the same image, but with Fords emblem. It’s similar to the way fans of different sport teams treat each other (in friendly competition). Within recent years most consumers, whether or not they are die-hard fans of other makes would buy a Toyota without even thinking that they were supporting the competitor. Toyota has positioned their product as a commodity within vehicles consumer market.

         Toyota suffered criticism in 2009 after numerous cars and trucks were experiencing unintended acceleration. Instead of ignoring the issue, Toyota halted production and recalled more than nine-million cars to fix the issues and make it right with consumers. It’s only been a short time later, and most consumers hardly remember the defects some Toyota vehicles had four years ago. This is because the Toyota Corporation made sure that consumers were taken care of and the issues were fixed within a timely manner, no matter how much it cost the company. In 2012, Toyota issued one of the largest recalls to be recorded for a faulty window switch. This was a simple fix, but most car manufacturers would decide the cost to fix wouldn’t be worth the recall. Toyota is establishing themselves as a corporation that cares about its consumers. With any big corporation there are negative stories and experiences that consumers have faced, but Toyota has satisfied the majority of society with its quality product. I am happy with the quality in my 1992 Toyota pickup, which has a quarter million miles on it.

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