Andre Correa
MGT490
Dr. McDermott
Assignment 1

Toyota Motors Company

Toyota Motors Company (TM) is a Japanese-based, publicly listed multinational company. Its world headquarters is located in Toyota City, Japan, and Akio Toyoda is its current CEO. He has been in the position since 2009. The company manufactures a diverse line-up of vehicles all around the globe. The vehicles range from small cars and sedans, to SUVs and trucks. However, Toyota does not only makes cars. The company has three main business segments. One segment, and perhaps the one that people are most familiar with, is the automobile segment. This segment constitutes of the design, manufacture and sales of automobiles. The other division represents the financial segment of the company. This segment establishes financial services related to the sales of the company’s products, as well as the leasing of vehicles and equipment. There is a third, non-automotive, business segment. This segment involves the design, manufacture and sale of housings, as well as information and communication business. The company’s philosophy is to seek continuous improvement, or kaizen. Its global vision is their commitment to quality, while providing constant innovation and respect for the planet.
Formally, Toyota is in the auto manufacturers industry, under the consumer goods sector. The automobile segment is its largest division, and the company carries three different brands: Toyota, Scion, and Lexus. The Scion brand is marketed to the younger generation, while the Lexus brand is marketed for people looking for “prestige luxury.” The company operates 75 manufacturing plants across 28 countries globally, and markets vehicles in more than a 170 countries, thanks to the support of a 320,000 strong workforce. There are seven Toyota regional headquarters spread out the globe: three in North America, one in Europe, and another three in Asia. North America’s regional headquarters are all located in the United States, the one in Europe is located in Belgium, and the ones in Asia are located in Singapore, Thailand and China.
I would like to point out that one of the US regional headquarters is located very close to this area; it is located in Erlanger, KY. The plant is called TEMA, and it is responsible for Toyota’s engineering design and development, R&D and manufacturing activities in the US, Mexico, and Canada. Also, the Georgetown, KY manufacturing plant is Toyota’s largest plant outside Japan, and it builds the Avalon, Camry (both normal and hybrid), and the Venza sedan crossover.
Toyota depends heavily on sales from North America and Japan. According to the company’s annual report for the fiscal year of 2012, Japan accounted for 39.2%, and North America accounted for 25% of total sales. Asia (except Japan) accounted for 16.8%, and Europe accounted for 10.3% of global sales. Latin America, Oceania, and Africa accounted for 8.7% of total sales. According to Yahoo Finance, the company’s total revenue for the 2012 fiscal year was of 226 billion dollars, an increase of 26% compared to the same period last fiscal year. The company also sold 9.75 million cars globally in that same year, setting a worldwide record.
Toyota has been the leader of car sales for the past three years, except in 2011, when an earthquake and a tsunami hit Japan badly. During that time, Toyota suffered, and ended the year in third place, behind Volkswagen and General Motors. However, in 2012, the company bounced back taking the top of the ranking again. Toyota sales in the United States surged 27 percent. In Japan, sales rose 35 percent, helped by government incentives for fuel-efficient cars. In Europe, sales went up 2%. Those increases were enough to offset a decline in sales in China, where Japanese businesses have been hurt by consumer boycotts due to a territorial dispute between the two countries.
Toyota’s most profitable products are the Toyota Camry, Corolla, and Prius. Their single most