Strategic Analysis on Toyota Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Strategic Analysis on Toyota - Assignment Example The paper tells that the history of Toyota can be traced back to humble beginnings in 1930 as a research initiative into gasoline-powered engines at Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, before the registration of Toyota Motor Corporation Ltd. in 1937. The company’s timeline is characterised by major breakthroughs involving careful business partnerships with other players in the car industry and launch of activities into foreign markets. The first formal exports were to the USA in 1957. The company then entered with Hino Motors Ltd. in 1966 and Daihatsu Motor Co. in 1967, before launching the very successful Lexus brand in the USA. Production in the UK began in 1992, and the company saw the launch of the world’s first mass produced hybrid car, the Prius. Production in France began in 2001, with Toyota entering Formula 1 in 2002. Recent highlights include the introduction of the Lexus in Japan in 2005 and establishment of a strategic direction for the firm towards industry leader ship into the future. Toyota has grown into a giant global car maker, surviving a decade of poor performance by the industry to continually post profits and growth nearly all the time. In 2010, the company was ranked first in terms of units moved (8,557,351) and thus market share (11%). The latest figures however indicate that the company has fallen into third place behind GM and Volkswagen especially following the recent devastating earthquake in Japan. (Business Week 2011). Company Purpose Through analysis of Toyota’s vision, mission, objectives and company principles it is possible to gain important insight on Toyota’s current position in the global market and the strategic direction the company is taking. The company’s global vision is to â€Å"lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible way of moving people† (Toyota-global.com 2011). The company bases this vision on commitment to quali ty, high innovativeness and respect for the earth. From the company’s vision, it is clear that Toyota seeks to be the industry leader way into the future. The company’s mission statement is â€Å"To sustain profitable growth by providing the best possible customer experience and dealer support† (Toyota-global.com 2011). The mission and vision statements reveal that the company’s current and future are pegged on sustainability, quality and customer satisfaction. The management at Toyota has generated a set of principles that have brought the company the success it now enjoys, and still look to work with these principles into the future. These guiding principles involve honouring every nations law in order to be a good global corporate citizen, respecting customs and cultures of the different peoples around the globe, production of cleans and safe products, production of outstanding products through innovative technology, fostering individual creativity and teamwork through an appropriately enabling corporate culture, harmonious growth

Universalism in Human Resource Management Is Dead Research Paper

Universalism in Human Resource Management Is Dead - Research Paper Example The last twenty five years have witnessed the field of human resource undergo huge changes in a bid to make it a scientific discipline with its own theories, assumptions and strategies. These developments led to the introduction of HRM in the MBA curriculum, leading to the discipline becoming a major part of business strategy development (Budhwar and Khatri, 2001). Questions began to emerge however regarding the nature of human resource management as a discipline with many scholars and businesses criticizing it for lacking in credible theoretical foundations. This led to development of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), a subfield of Human resource management that focuses on integrating the process of strategic management in to the field of human resource management. This led to development of three main theoretical perspectives or approaches in the discipline, namely universalistic, contingency and configurational approaches. The universalistic approach in Human resource ma nagement outlines the best practices in the field with the objective of encouraging application of those practices by companies and businesses across the globe and from different industries (Goodman & Truss, 2004). This perspective highlights the fact that there are some HRM practices that are certainly better than others. Companies should therefore focus on adopting these best strategies for their own success in implementation of their Human Resource Management strategies. Among some of the practices identified by the proponents of the universalistic Human resources perspective include seven strategies namely selective hiring, employment security, extensive hiring, self-management teams, extensive training, reduction of differences in status, information sharing and high salaries and wages based on the company’s performance. Universalists in Human Resource management believe that these strategies should be applied universally by all companies and that they are bound to lead to great success (Balogun, 2006). Another reason why Universalists promote the application of universal best practices is rooted in the scientific belief that the relationship between dependent and independent variable is always the same universally. It therefore does not matter where the industry is located of in which industry it is, since the relationship between human resource and success of the company is the same universally. In the second approach, the Contingency perspective, the application of Human Resource policies by any company must be consistent with the other policies and functions of the company. This perspective lays great emphasis on aligning HRM policies with company strategies based on the ‘best fit’ policy (Lewin, & Peters, 2006). The best fit policy posits that there are some Human resource policies that will fit better with the strategic functions and goals of the company. The company should therefore implement only those HR policies that better f it or merge with their general company strategies, policies and functions. Human Resource policies should be able to relate well with the companies lifecycle in order for them to be successful.