Page 229 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

and regain trust and market share, but that will be a continuing
long-term battle. Edward Niedermeyer, editor of The Truth about
Cars site, notes that the competitive landscape has gotten more
difficult for Toyota as a result of the crisis:

Toyota was operating with a halo. And that halo is gone.
It’s opened up the market for a lot more competition.
In a numerical sense, Toyota sales haven’t gone down as
much as they might have, but in a strategic sense it’s in a
much, much tougher fight sales wise than it might have
been. The strategic loss shouldn’t be underestimated.

Anwyl expresses it this way:

Toyota was the brand of default. [People] would buy
their vehicles because they didn’t want to have to think
about [the decision]. They knew they made good cars.
This [crisis] has raised questions, and people are think-
ing about [their choices] more than they did in the past.

In other words, real harm was done, harm that will have to be
repaired over years. That’s why the steps that Toyota has taken to
improve, not just claw back to its old level of operations, matter
so much. That’s an important lesson of turning crisis into oppor-
tunity. In the next chapter, we’ll look at more of the lessons that
others can learn from Toyota’s experience.

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