Where Did Toyota Go Wrong?

As I have been learning all of the wonderful tools and innovation that Toyota brought to manufacturing I am astounded to say the least. And up until now their quality was unsurpassed. What happened? I was reading an article from the Harvard Business Review by Sean Silverthorne on this very subject. Apparently, a significant contributor to this accelerator problem was Toyota leadership abandoned their quality driven system for increased market share. This wonderful thing called capitalism comes with an underlying price - manufacturer responsibility to the consumer's safety. Toyota let themselves be lured by increasing market share instead of their customer first ideals. I wonder if the leadership seriously considering the long term consequences of this direction.

"The flush of catching up to Ford and General Motors, coupled with a boom in demand, led Toyota's leaders to put sales growth above quality. Senior leaders became focused on becoming first in sales with a 15% share of global sales. This meant that new products had to be introduced more quickly, new plants had to be opened more rapidly, and supply networks had to be expanded more aggressively. We're now seeing the consequences of those decisions." - Learning from Toyota's Stumble by Steven Spear

Another automaker that lost its credibility was Audi. "Volkswagen AG's Audi luxury brand spent 15 years rebuilding U.S. sales after sudden-acceleration incidents in the 1980s almost wiped out demand, a possible sign of the difficult times Toyota Motor Corp. faces. Audi's U.S. deliveries plunged 83 percent by 1991 from their peak in 1985 following recalls of the German automaker's 5000 sedan. A class-action lawsuit in 1987 by Audi owners seeking compensation is still being fought." Audi 1980s Scare May Mean Lost Generation for Toyota by Andreas Cremer and Tom Lavell.

Toyota was the industry example of how to run a manufacturing business at optimum performance. When they upheld Lean principles of the customer first in on all levels of their processes it was reflected in the quality of their product. Not just in production, but design and marketing. This Lean philosophy was translated into profit, brand loyalty and an impeccable reputation. They were truly a lean enterprise. I fear that they have now become just another automaker. Toyota is reexamining what made them great. However, it will still take years to recover from the brand damage now done.

Toyota is a clear example of what not to do when you have a successful business model. All companies can be what Toyota was and hopefully will become again. Before this recall Toyota had 15% of the global market. Amazing. On a local level, think of what is would be like to increase your market share just by doing things Lean. If you were able to set up best practices, reduce or eliminate mistakes, full utilization of staff, etc. how would that help you become an industry leader? The question to ask yourself is am I the Toyota of yesterday or the Toyota of today? This applies for service business too. Which one are you?

Cynthia Marsh-Croll

Your Lean Path to Success!

Croll Productive Synergy
Westtown, NY 10998

845-649-2778
http://www.crollproductivesynergy.com
cmc@crollproductivesynergy.com

Article Source:

Mergers and Acquisitions Execution - Avoid the Failure

Mergers and acquisitions are a prominent phenomenon in business. It provide additional growth and profit opportunities. Entrepreneurs also often use it as an exit strategy and it is crucial in determining their ultimate success and financial independence. Unfortunately things do not always go smooth in the execution of mergers and acquisitions and sometimes it is a complete failure.

Why mergers fail? Here are nine deadly sins of merger failure

Nine Deadly Sins Of Merger Failure

View more documents from triagung.

To Download the presentation, visit 9 deathly sins of merger failure

A successful merger and acquisition can be measured against two major factors:

• Shareholders value increase. A sustainable increase in shareholders value should be achieved over time.
• Synergies materialised. The achievement of expected synergies such as more efficient operations, increased profitability and an increase in market share.

A merger and acquisition is normally one of the most important strategies that a company will embark on. Unfortunately many mergers and acquisitions are failures (or at least in some aspect). One of the best ways to increase the chances of success is to plan properly for a merger and acquisition and to see it as a project and manage it in such a way. A merger and acquisition typically has all the important characteristics of a project - it is multidisciplinary, has specific objectives, is once-off and has time and budget constraints.

How to Deal With Employee's Turnover Rates

Turnover Management

View more documents from triagung.

A turnover rate is the ratio of employees leaving the company (or some specific industry) in a given period. A company or industry has high turnover rate when the workers of that company tend to ditch their jobs more often than the employees of other companies (in the same industry). Some industries and jobs have high turnover rates because of the nature of work, however if your company has a high turnover rate than your competitor and you are not able to sustain your employees with you, there maybe something wrong with your policies. In case you don't pay attention, not only you will be loosing your good employees to your competitors, your business will also suffer from high costs of attracting, recruiting and training the new staff.

Atmosphere and working conditions:

At certain workplaces, you will feel the tense atmosphere as soon as you put your feet in, reason can be strict management or unrealistic targets. Being a manager, it is necessary to maintain some discipline but some managers overdo it by importing rules straight from the books of military. For many individuals (especially fresh graduates) it becomes really hard to adjust in this kind of atmosphere. Working conditions are linked with health related issues. Light, ventilation, air conditioning, heating systems and safety measures are some of the basic requisites. Sometimes, improving your high turnover can be as simple as loosening up some rules or dealing with some unhealthy environment issues.

Salary & Growth Opportunities:

Excessive work, no incentives and low salaries, these are all grounds for a high turnover rate. Employees are here to earn, and their morale is directly related to their income. If you are expecting them to give their 100 %, you should be giving back in form of good enough salaries. Your salary packages should be competitive if not the best in market. A good salary package will make up for many other factors, but if the salaries are low from the market standards, nothing can hold the employees for long. Similarly, motivating employees by providing growth opportunities is also necessary.

Choosing the right candidate and the nature of the work:

If your recruitment and hiring process is flawed, you are meant to have a high turnover. Many small businesses, in a hurry to fill out vacant positions, hire some unskilled individuals, thinking that he/she will learn the traits with the passage of time. Such hiring is nothing but wastage of time, both for employee and employer. The interviewee should have complete knowledge of the skills required for some particular job, and the successful candidate should be having most of them, if not all.

Sometimes the reason for high turnover is the nature of work, for example the jobs that require night shifts or excessive late sittings. These types of jobs are not suitable for everyone and they are supposed to have high turnover rates than others. These are some of the common reasons, apart from looking into these areas; you can approach your employees to get the exact idea about their reservations.

Article source

Human Resource Outsourcing & Benefit

Need the logic information about HR Outsourcing? View the article and research outsourcing research and statistics and read the short explanation below.

Nice Reading...

Outsourcing is becoming important in today's business. Outsourcing will help the organization as the certain part of the work is delegated to an external service provider. He will be responsible for looking after day-to-day activities of the work delegated to him. It would be better if the organization communicates with the service provider on a regular basis. The organization should outsource the work for a longer period so that they can maintain a good business relationship with the service provider which will benefit the customers. Outsourcing can be done for marketing, web design & maintenance, manufacturing, recruitment, logistics, distribution, editing. Outsourcing can be done when the process becomes difficult to manage or when the employees do not have the necessary skills.

Outsourcing is done to help the organization to reduce costs, so that they can concentrate on their main activities. It will help the organization to save time and the resources can be used for other important activities. The service provider has to finish the project on time. Credibility and efficiency of the service provider is known if he meets the project deadline. The service provider provides better service quality. The organization does not have to worry about introducing new technologies. The pros through outsourcing are it has reduced costs, tax advantages, removing of personnel problems, expert resources and staffing. It can control operating costs. It increases customer satisfaction. It reduces the overall management burden while retaining control of strategic decision making. It spreads the risk. Provides value added services.

Outsourcing the recruitment process will reduce the recruitment costs up to 20 %. Outsourcing recruitment has 4 major advantages like cost reduction, results, focused management effort and optimal resource utilization. Outsourcing is beneficial to corporate organizations and consultancies. They are inter-related to each other because the corporate organizations use the outsourcing services and the consultancies provide service to the corporates.

There are basically two types of HR Firms. One is professional employer organization (PEO) and Hybrid HR firm. Professional employer organization is for those companies who are contended with handing over the whole HR functions to a 3rd party organization. But if there is a problem in handing out the HR functions to someone else then you may opt for the Hybrid. To choose an employee for an organization the consultant will do certain things like it will define the requirements, advertise, attract the applicants, selecting the applications, interviewing, assessing, conducting tests, reference check and then short listing the applicants.

The organization has to choose whether it is interested in taking up a human resources outsourcing (HRO) provider or a professional employer organization (PEO). HRO provides the specific HR function and PEO provides services like the workers compensation, payroll etc. For smaller concerns a PEO can be beneficial as it can control HR costs such as workers compensation insurance, group health benefits and payroll processing. For larger concerns the HROs work better because they save more money in outsourcing certain specific areas like administration, application management, HR information systems. If only certain functions are outsourced then HRO is the best solution but for a full service solution, PEO will be better.

Ebook: Competency Based Human Resource Management

Ebook exploring competency based human resource management. To download pdf version of this book click competency based human resource management

Organization Design : Towards Effective Organizations

Designing Organization is crucial phase toward effective organization. It consist of many elements including separation of task into specific job, managing delegation & autonomy, standardize formalization, and other complexity aspect of organization.

The process of Organization design start with developing the business model. It must answer the question about how is the general description about task separation, line of reporting and mechanism, and autonomy level before finalize the organization with talent placement.

Once business model is developed, another step is organization monitoring. It consist of several activities to maintain the life cycle of the organization itself. Like human, organization facing change as nature of life.

To understand Organization Design comprehensively, you can download organization design article.

Download Balanced Scorecards Journal and Articles

We present several resources to help you understand the concept and logic of Balanced Scorecards. Should you need them to enhance your strategic understanding, you may collect it through download to the following links:

1. Balanced Scorecards vs Business Excellence Model

2. An Integrated Methodology for putting BSC into Action

3. The Balanced Scorecards : Measures That Drives Perormance

4. Putting the Balanced Scorecards to work

5. Balanced Scorecards for Public Organization

6. The Balanced Scorecards

Understanding Human Resource Strategy

HR Practitioners are now being exposed to another new concept: “human resources strategy” due to the urgent needs to develop strategic approach rather than old-fashioned administration/personnel management. The article tries to provide general framework to enhance HR role towards business’ strategic partner.

Refer to Thomas (1996). HR strategy should be defined as “A co-coordinated set of actions aimed at integrating an organization’s culture, organization, people and systems”. It consists of HR mission statement, HR internal and external analysis, HR planning, Objectives/performance measurement, action plan, implementation, and review. Visual framework about HR strategy is presented below.

Thomas (1996)

The figure consists of several components:

1. HR mission statement

The human resources function has to be clear as to where the organization is trying to go and then consider the implications for its own activities. It provides a basis for future measurement.

2. HR analysis

HR analysis could be done through SWOT analysis to clarify the current status of the function, the organization and its external operating environment. Line managers should be co-opted into this process as it helps to generate new issues, understanding, ownership and commitment to any subsequent human resource activities.

3. HR planning.

Planning HR is about developing framework to those dimensions: organization, systems, people, and culture. Four dimensions are translated into HR policies which is contains organization strategic choices. How those four dimensions affect HR policies is figured below.