Toyota's drastic overhaul to reportedly replace 40% of management
In an effort to slow the crash, Toyota Motor Corp. is undertaking a massive overhaul and management reorganization next month when Akio Toyoda takes over as president. Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota's founder, will be officially appointed on June 23 at the annual shareholder's meeting. With the new president in place, the Financial Times is reporting that the company will replace 40% of its senior managers and bring back Yoshimi Inaba, a former senior executive, to lead U.S. operations.
While the Japanese automaker is reportedly working on slashing costs by $8.22 billion, it reported the first operating cost in its 71-year history last week. As further evidence of the company's struggle in today's marketplace, Toyota's net loss of $7.87 billion in the latest quarter exceeding even GM's net loss of $5.97 billion during the same period.
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req. | Source Image: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
inteller 4:32PM (5/15/2009)
Seppaku...gotta love it. Here in the US we have to get the prez to remove top management.
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dukeisduke 4:38PM (5/15/2009)
Do honorable thing!
phoenix 4:33PM (5/15/2009)
"OMG that is like, soooooo impossible, because like, Toyota is like sooooooo awesome and they love trees so much and they make that totally perfect Prius and they're like, just soooooooo can-do-no-wrong"
***BANG***
Welcome to the real world, Toyota.
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Sea Urchin 5:20PM (5/15/2009)
Real world??? Is that the same world where management is held accountable? You know like Wagoner, 10 years of loses, 17 mil a year + 20 mil golden parachute.
inv4zn 5:57PM (5/15/2009)
lol, wtf
Christian de Saint Preux 4:38PM (5/15/2009)
We have given GM's downfall a lot of press... Time to put Toyota into perspective. The whole Auto-Market is downsizing, not just domestic market.
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jamie 4:40PM (5/15/2009)
Maybe Toyota should take a tip from Carlos Ghosn and just lay off 40% of the inefficient profit eaters. Anyone over 40 years of age goes first!
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halogenrepublic 4:42PM (5/15/2009)
If only we the people can do the same thing about the government...
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cj 5:13PM (5/15/2009)
We do in fact can do something similar.
It's called voting. We have 2 SOLID choices and we choose the president we think is going to ruin our country less than the other.
Level 4:43PM (5/15/2009)
The reason they are not selling cars is because they are not making good dependable cars, small compact cars and hybrids, they are making too many dinosaurs of trucks with big V8s they are not making what people want to buy...oh wait this is a Toyota post not a GM lol..
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Tyler 5:15PM (5/15/2009)
You speak the truth either way. Toyota is really loosing it's allure. Toyota cars are exceedingly adequate, they redeem e and excuse their blandness with laudable reliability. But, that's going down the tube. A Toyota without an insane reliability and dependability is not a car that's going to sell.
This summer, I bought a car. I looked at the Corolla, Civic, Focus, Elantra, Versa, and Cobalt. I wanted to drive it for at least a 100k miles. I test drove all the cars. The Cobalt was a penalty box with wheels. The Versa was nice, but I've heard too many horror stories about it's realibilty. The Focus was nice, but I didn't quite trust Ford. The Civic was too expensive and the dealer was terrible.
"Sir, we don't have any manual Civics."
"How about an SI"
"We don't normally do deals on the Civic SI"
"You're not really giving me a deal on the normal Civic"
"Sir, we're bringing a Civic around, do you want to look at our Pilot? We've got deals on those."
I was left to chose between the Corolla and the Elantra. The Corolla just didn't feel like a Toyota should. If I were to pay a premium and forgo driving dynamics and sport, I expect to be compensated with reliability, and I just wasn't perceiving that.
I ended up getting the Elantra because it's actually a zippy car with the manual and the warranty is nice.
I bet that there's enough people like me, who would take a less reliable car with a greater warranty, or people who think that Toyota's quality has declined in recent years.
mikecanada 5:45PM (5/15/2009)
A couple of weeks ago I put a post on here saying that in the next few years, the New big three would be Ford, Hyundai, and someone else, but not Toyota. Despite others that said I was a moron, I still think it could happen.
LesPaul1 4:44PM (5/15/2009)
@dukeisduke
"Do honorable thing!"
I'm assuming you're some redneck.
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dukeisduke 4:47PM (5/15/2009)
No, I remember seeing it in some movie, years ago. Maybe Shogun? The Japanese have become more Westernized, anyway, so you don't it as much anymore. I never thought it was a good idea, killing yourself because business went bad.
Erik 5:44PM (5/15/2009)
@LesPaul1
"I'm assuming you're some redneck."
I'm assuming you have no sense of humor.
2004m3driver 5:54PM (5/15/2009)
Doesn't Japan actually have one of the highest suicide rates? Dukeisduke is just making a reference to a westernized image of Japan which isn't all that far from reality. According to wikipedia they are ranked 9th in the world. Which isn't all that uncommon for a highly industrialized nation. Things are very competitive over there and their universities are some of the hardest to get into. Also employees over there tend to work at one company much longer than your average employee over here. So if they get fired it feels as if they are being removed from their own family.
why not the LS2LS7? 4:46PM (5/15/2009)
Toyota needs to get their eye back on what made them great in the first place. They made too many compromises in order to try to sell more cars than GM.
Toyota are no dummies, they just need to remember that they are in the business for profit, not just revenues and car counts.
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A-style 4:47PM (5/15/2009)
The picture would be much better if you cut the 3 guys on the left out and take the head of the fourth guy.
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Dave in MI 4:49PM (5/15/2009)
Better get rid of the right managers. Some of that management helped you become the largest automaker in the world. I don't know if losing sales in this market marks time to axe management that has helped you succeed in the previous years. Might be a knee jerk reaction. The market will recover. If you want to get the honey, don't go killin' all the bees.
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dukeisduke 4:49PM (5/15/2009)
Toyota builds some great cars, but they took their eye off the ball, and allowed quality to slip.
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