Toyota Had Faced Critical Issues On Its Product Marketing Essay

Toyota had faced critical issues on its product which the company has to recall its car due to faulty brake. The company has been forced by US government to recall its entire cars. According to product-reviews.net, the car that has been listed to recall are 2004-2009 Prius, 2005-2010 Tacoma, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2006-2010 IS 250 and IS350, 2007-2010 Camry, 2007-2010 ES 350 and 2007-2010 Tundra. As a result, Toyota market sales in USA have dropped 9% in February. Toyota has attempt discounts for top selling models car like Camry inclusive of zero financing for five years to win its customer mind.

In order to planning good marketing plan, Toyota has to use SWOT matrix evaluation to increase its market sales in US. In the SWOT matrix analysis, Toyota may able to know what strategy should be implemented to battle with its major competitors. Below is the SWOT matrix analysis for Toyota;

According to SwotMatrix.com, SWOT analysis is as an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. These four factors make up the SWOT MATRIX. A SWOT analysis should not only result in the identification of a Toyota’s core competencies, but also in the identification of opportunities that the firm is not currently to take advantage of due to lack of appropriate resources. Toyota has to list down its internal factors which consists of strengths and weaknesses, and external factors which consists of opportunities and threats.

One of the strength that Toyota have is the firm has strong brand name. Since the company is the seventh largest car manufacturing company in the world. In addition, the company has established for almost 70 years in automatic industry. Therefore the company has good and strong brand name in customer’s mind.

Other than that, Toyota also has good competitive advantage where this company deliver same benefit as competitor but at a lower cost. This has given the company competitive advantages enable the firm to create superior value for its customers and superior profits for itself.

Apart from that, Toyota also has good skilful worker, good production, and good product line. All these strengths will be used in the SWOT matrix analysis.

4.1.2 Weaknesses

However, the absence of certain strengths is not enough to cover the weaknesses of Toyota in USA. One of the weaknesses is percentage of sales in US drop. This decline has given huge impact to Toyota market share where their market share has been taken by other competitor.

Other than that, due to the declining sales in US, the firm has bad market image in customer’s mind neither to stakeholder’s mind. In addition, poor performance of its product has added up Toyota’s weaknesses.

4.1.3 Opportunities

The opportunities for Toyota will the external factors that help the company to achieve its objective. For Toyota, the company has the opportunity to recall its car to do alteration. This opportunity gives chance to Toyota to recover its bad image on stakeholder’s mind and customer’s mind.

Other than that, Toyota is also offered by USA Swift Market Analysis Response Team (SMART), a team of specially technician trained to conduct onsite inspection. In addition, Toyota also plans to increase number of technology in North America. Moreover, the opportunity for Toyota to win back its customer’s mind and stakeholder’s mind, the firm will incorporate with a brake override system (BOS) into new production models.

4.1.4 Threats

In contrast, although Toyota has numbers of opportunities but threats from outside has waiting to beat the company. One of the threats is consumers taste has shift away from the firm’s product.

Moreover, the emergence of substitute product from other competitors has gives a huge threats to Toyota. Other than that, changing of purchasing power by customers is also threats to Toyota since the firm has faced an accident on its product. Besides that, Toyota additional threats to its company on safety regulation procedures charged by USA government.

All these listed internal and external factors, the firm now may know what strategies should be use by using SWOT matrix as below;

STRENGTHS

Strong brand name

Good competitive advantage

Skilful worker

Good production

Good product line

WEAKNESSES

Declining sales

Bad market image

Poor performance

OPPORTUNITIES

Product recall

USA SMART team

Increase number of technology in North America

Incorporate with Brake Override System (BOS)

SO Strategies

SO strategies are strategies that are using Toyota internal strength to take advantage of external opportunities. One of the strategy that can be extract from here is Toyota may use its skilful worker to corporate with SMART team to enhance their quality of product.

WO Strategies

WO strategies are strategies that improving internal weaknesses by taking advantage of external opportunities. For instance, Toyota bad market image weakness will be recovered by incorporate with BOS to develop good product.

THREATS

Shift of consumer taste

Emergence of substitute product from competitor

Changing of purchasing power

Safety regulation procedure charged by USA government

ST Strategies

ST strategies are strategies that use firm’s strengths to avoid the impact of external threats. For example, Toyota strength is on its good competitive advantage may help the firm to reduce the emergence of substitute product from other competitors such as Nissan and Honda.

WT Strategies

WT strategies are strategies that defensive tactics aimed at reducing internal weaknesses and avoiding external threats. For instance, Toyota has to rebuild its bad market image to avoid the shift of consumer taste to another brand.

Table 4.1 SWOT matrix analysis

4.2 STRATEGIC POSITION FOR TOYOTA

Based on the SWOT analysis above, Toyota is aimed at becoming an organization which has the core competency of the company. There are; resources, skills, knowledge, and technology that they have to remain the seventh largest car manufacturing in the world. Even though Toyota is under dilemma of its product recall, the firm is able to stay in this industry. The reason that makes this company remain in automotive industry is its competitive advantage. Toyota products are mostly manufactured with low cost of production. This enables the company to sell its car cheaper than other brand. The company is also serving same benefit as other cars that might having very high in cost. For instance, Honda Company is selling its product with high cost compared to Toyota but both companies are giving same benefit of driving to customers. This difference has made Toyota compete with other competitor such as Nissan. In addition, the competitive advantage has relationship with the environment in USA. Parallel with advance technology in USA, Toyota able to re-create its market shares by change the relative cost position of competitors in industry. This is because Toyota will seize the opportunity offered by USA SMART to let them corporate to enhance Toyota technician skill.

4.3 CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, analysing internal and external factors of the company is important to guide the firm on implementing right strategy to its company. SWOT analysis is the appropriate way to be used in analysing these factors to project new strategy for Toyota. By listing all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, Toyota able to choose which strategy is suitable for the company to use in order to recover its bad reputation. This SWOT analysis is also able Toyota to know which strategic position should be posing by the company in the future. In addition, to ensure Toyota survive in its dilemma, competitive advantage is helping this company to stay longer in this industry battle. Therefore, Toyota is aimed its internal growth which strengthening of its own position on the existing market.