Page 32 - Toyota Under Fire
P. 32
ONE
The Most Admired
Company in the World
It is essential that our global leadership team embrace
the concepts of the Toyota Way as we achieve our business
goals in host countries which have a wide variety of cus-
toms, traditions, and business practices.
—then president Fujio Cho in the
preamble to The Toyota Way 2001
As 2007 ended, it would be no
exaggeration to say that Toyota was on top of the world. While
you could argue whether it was the largest car company in the
world, depending on what measurements you used, there was no
question that it was the dominant car company globally. Toyota
was the firm that all others benchmarked themselves against.
It was far more profitable than its major American competitors.
In fact, it had been continuously profitable for almost 50 years, a
record that rivaled that of any global 1000 firm and was unheard
of in manufacturing industries.
Its growth and profitability were driven by its extraordi-
nary record of quality and customer satisfaction. It dominated
annual quality awards and value-for-money rankings. Toyota’s
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