Strategic Supply Chain Management and Logistics: Toyota as Case Study

INTRODUCTION

Toyota Motor Corporation is one of the largest, most reliable and popular brand in the automobile industry. However, the company is experiencing a drastic fall in its product techniques and profitability due to its goal of becoming the number one automobile maker in the world. It was recorded in the last financial year that ended in March that Toyota Company made a net loss of $4.3 billion, its first time since 1950. Also, as part of the company’s problem is the lost of its once seemingly unstoppable market-share momentum in the global market with the target of 15% which fell to 13.1% in 2007 and now below 11.8%. Other competitors like VW, Hyundai KIA, are now taking advantage of the company by winning over its customers.

However, in order to stabilize the company and to save her from a continuous loss in both image and profit realization, I am appointed as a supply chain management consultant to the president to submit a detailed report on how a good supply chain management can help improve the company and restore its image and standard in the world of automobile making industry.

To present a good report on how supply chain management can help improve the company, I strategized some areas of impact to look into which are;

Assessing how information technology could assist integration of different parts of the supply chain.

Evaluating how information technology has contributed to the management of the supply chain of the company and also assessing the effectiveness of information technology in managing the supply chain of the company.

Furthermore, I will look into the role of logistics in supply chain management of the company, evaluating its procurement practices and discussing the factors that must be considered when improving logistics and procurement practices of the company.

Finally, I will formulate a proposal to develop a plan of strategy to improve Toyota’s supply chain, assess how a supply chain improvement strategy will benefit the overall business performance and explain how barriers will be overcome in the company when implementing the supply chain improvement strategy plan.

Assessing how information technology could assist integration of different parts of the supply chain of Toyota Motor Corporation

Supply chain management of Toyota Motor Corporation is a huge system of process of managing every aspect of the company’s products and activities from the procurement of raw materials from various suppliers to delivering the end products to the end user and other dealers and wholesalers worldwide.

One of the major significant impacts of Information Technology relates to the quality of information available within the frame of supply chain.