Ford Motors and General Motors Essay Example

Japanese automaker is facing competition from emerging US rivals as well as new car manufacturers from South Korea, China, and Eastern Europe. To combat this challenge head-on, Toyota is implementing its Kaizen marketing strategy. With the current economic downturn affecting sales in the United States, Europe, and Asia, Toyota is intensifying its efforts to maintain sales.

According to Rinehar et al. (1997), although they are also low-priced, the cars from South Korea and China can still compete with Toyota models. However, the SWOT analysis reveals that Toyota Motors Corporation is a successful company that has surpassed rivals Ford Motors and General Motors in net profits in the United States as of October 2008. The increase in net income shown in the Income Statement for the three years ending March 2008 is a result of maximizing its strengths.

The company has been working tirelessly to enhance its innovative marketing approach to overcome its weaknesses and maintain its top position in the US automobile manufacturing industry. It has successfully utilized the vast market opportunities while combatting competition from Korean, Chinese, and Eastern European car manufacturers using its Kaizen management style. To further improve its winning strategy, it is recommended that Toyota continues to focus on all of its capital resources and marketing strategies equally on Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats/Trends. It is cautioned that prioritizing weaknesses could cause a lapse in the efforts towards maximizing strengths.

Similarly, if the company were to allocate more of its limited resources towards combatting competition from Chinese, Korean, and Eastern European car manufacturers, it would have to reduce its efforts in maximizing opportunities for expanding its market share.
REFERENCES: King, S., Cushman, D., (1997),

Lessons from the Recession: A Management and Communication Perspective, N.

The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer, authored by Y. and Liker in 2004, can be found in N.Y. at Suny Press and McGraw-Hill Kozminski.

The Suny Press published D. Cushman's book "Organizational Communication and Management" in 1993. Additional financial information on TM can be found at https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/tm/financials?ltr=1.