Toyota's Competitive Strategy Of Toyota

Toyota’s uses both differentiation and low cost as generic strategies to try and gain a competitive advantage over their competitors in the automotive industry. The market scope that Toyota uses is a broad one that encompasses nearly every type of customer that is in the market to purchase an automobile. Toyota is able to target such a large market because they have something for everyone. Toyota has four wheel drive trucks and SUVs for the outdoor types or those who live in areas that face severe weather conditions, hybrid models like the Prius for the eco-friendly customers that are interested in saving the environment, along with the standard cars for general, everyday use. Additionally, Toyota provides vehicles for all price ranges.

First of all, Toyota has been very successful in differentiating on the basis of superior design and quality. This has led to Toyota being able to create a brand image that is very strong and one that brings to mind quality, long lasting cars when a potential customer sees it. The strength of Toyota’s brand image has been seen in recent years with the recalls and problems Toyota faced in dealing with these recalls. Toyota was able to survive these problems because they had such a long and proven track record of quality and superior. Another, area that Toyota differentiates is in technology. Toyota was the first successful mass produce the hybrid car on the market when it released the Prius in 2003. Being the first to get their hybrid on the market allowed Toyota to gain a large portion of the market share in the area of hybrid

Its objective is to integrate people, process, and technology. Toytoa’s product development procedure is essentially different from a manufacturing process. Its backbone is not visible, but knowledge and information which are untouchable. The product development’s cycle time is much longer than hours. It usually takes weeks or even months. The production chains are non-linear and multi-directional. Workers are no longer manufacturing workers but specialists with high diverse technology. This product development strategy is viable for Toyota. This is because this strategy does help Toyota to prolong the life cycle of current product. For instance, Toyota Camry is a very successful current product which is prolonged its life. Camry has been made since 1980s. Camry is set at an middle-high level of family veichle. After 30 years development, Camry is still very famous all over the world. This cannot be separeted by Toyota’s successful product development strategy. One of the key features of the Toyota product development system is functional engineering managers. They are primarily teachers in the Toyota system, who are the most technically competent engineers, with the highest levels of experience. Toyota’s management group is consist of high educated experts. They were all engineers and their technical excellence is very famous. But recently, Toyota’s product development system does not work very well. In