Toyota's stakeholder responsibilities and company strategies

Toyota Meets Stakeholders Objectives

Toyota Corporation is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world and it is headquartered in Japan. Founded in 1937, this company services clients all over the world. Despite its position as a leader in automobile production, Toyota was mired in a controversy that revolved around safety issues. When the severity of these issues increased, Toyota began the recall of its vehicles since late September 2010 and this has tarnished the reputation of the company in a big way. Its sales has also dropped because people are unsure of its safety (Associated Press, 2010). This controversy coupled with the global meltdown forced the company to ask for a 200 billion yen loan from the Bank of Japan (Willacy, 2009). All this had a huge impact on the confidence of stakeholders in the company and so, Toyota is taking additional steps to meet their expectations. Toyota's stakeholders includes its shareholders, customers, suppliers and distributors, employees and local communities and so, the strategies have to be multifaceted to meet the responsibilities of each of these varied groups (Friedman & Miles, 2006).

Strategies

The primary aim of Toyota is to accept responsibility for its mistakes and rectify them and also, it is taking steps to rebuild its reputation in the eyes of the stakeholders and the entire world. The Toyota president and grandson of the founder, Akio Toyoda, bowed before the media and the entire world and apologized for the company's mistakes. "President Akio Toyoda repeatedly attributed Toyota's quality/safety problems to its rapid growth which outstripped its human resources. He said the company could not train enough personnel to keep up with its rapid growth. He acknowledged that a misguided strategic focus at the company warped the 'order of Toyota's traditional priorities' so that the stress on product safety and quality first, and sales volume and cost second, became inverted as Toyota began rapidly expanding a decade ago" (Cole, 2010, p.1). In the light of these issues, the company has hired more testers and engineers who are working hard to fix the pedal brakes to make it safer on the road. These actions have helped Toyota to slowly regain the confidence and trust of its customers.