Toyota case write-up
Akio Toyoda, the President and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation, hired you as a consultant to critically review and enhance Toyota’s digital business strategy. His goal is to ensure that the firm is pursuing a digital business strategy to survive and thrive in the firm’s dynamically changing, disruptive competitive landscape. To introduce you to the digital transformations underway at Toyota, he shared with you a report prepared by MIT’s Center for Information Systems (CISR):
• Van der Meulen, N., Mooney, J.G., and Beath, C.M. (2022). “Digital in the Driver’s Seat: Accelerating Toyota’s Transformation To Mobility Services.” MIT Center for Information Systems, WP NO. 454.
• The elusive goal of sorporate outperformance by Janamitra Devan, Matthew B. Klusas and timothy W.Ruefli
• Reframing the Dominant Quests of information systems strategy research for complex adaptive business systems
Akio Toyoda appreciates the very detailed report of MIT CISR. However, he suspects that the firm’s internal and external stakeholders might be lost in the details of this report and fail to see the big picture of the firm’s digital business strategy. He requests your help with the following:
Q1: Deconstruct and explicate the key pillars of Toyota’s “digital business strategy” for surviving the threats posed to its leadership position by disruptive technologies, business models, and market forces; and for exploiting the new opportunities opened by these forces.
Q2: What might be missing, or what would need significant changes in the current digital business strategy for this strategy to enable Toyota to survive and thrive in its dynamically changing and disruptive competitive landscape?
Please build on the concepts covered in the readings below as well as facts and evidence in the MIT report in framing your responses to Akio Toyoda’s requests.
Writing criteria:
1. How well does the write-up utilize, apply, and integrate relevant frameworks and concepts in analyzing the questions, developing, and justifying answers, conclusions, and recommendations?
2. How well does the write-up utilize case facts and evidence in support of its decisions, conclusions, and recommendations?
Case write-up format:
• For the write-up, list the question number you are answering (e.g., Q1) and answer the question immediately. Do NOT reproduce the write-up question on the answer sheet to conserve space and word count.
• Write up to 700 words, single-line spacing, 1″ margins on all sides, Verdana font type, and 10-point font size.
• Proofread your write-up to identify and correct any writing quality problems
Sample Solution
Toyota Motor Corporation’s digital business strategy consists of four key pillars that focus on leveraging technology to survive and thrive in a dynamically changing, disruptive competitive landscape. The first pillar is focused on exploiting the new opportunities gained through technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) to create innovative products and services that can help maintain its market share or gain additional market share. For example, Toyota launched the “Smart Mobility” platform in 2017 to provide customers with access to connected cars and mobility-as-a-service options like ride sharing or carpooling.
The second pillar involves creating an agile organizational culture by improving operational efficiency with cloud computing and big data analytics while at the same time providing employees with greater autonomy in decision making processes. This emphasis on agility helps Toyota quickly adapt to changes in customer needs, shifting industry trends, as well as rapidly evolving technologies.
The third pillar is dedicated towards developing an effective ecosystem for collaboration between internal teams, external partners, suppliers etc., which allows for increased innovation due to improved communication between all stakeholders within the company’s value chain. Finally, the fourth pillar focuses on enhancing customer experience by utilizing advanced technologies such as AI powered chatbots/voice recognition systems so that customers can easily interact with Toyota’s various products/services.
Overall these four pillars are meant to help Toyota remain a leader within its industry despite any disruptions caused by new entrants or technological advancements; while also helping it take advantage of any potential new opportunities created from them.
