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Further to Ed Niedermeyer’s comments on local content of cars, Toyota announces changes to the most precious content of all: Who’s in the top slots of their presences abroad. In one fell swoop, Toyota replaced leading positions in the U.S.A. and Europe with local content.
In a press release, Toyota said the company” is stepping up the appointment of local personnel—with intimate knowledge of local conditions—to senior management positions.” Here’s the table of recent changes:
Appointment of Local Personnel to Senior Management Positions at Overseas Affiliates
| Company | Title | Holder | Current Holder | |
| North America | Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc. | President | Chris Nielsen | Kenji Fukuta |
| Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana, Inc. | President | Norm Bafunno | Kazumori Oi | |
| Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. | Chairman*1 | Steve St.Angelo | – | |
| President | Wil James | Steve St. Angelo | ||
| Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. | Chairman*1 | Real C. Tanguay | – | |
| President | Brian Krinock | Real C. Tanguay | ||
| Europe | Toyota Motor Europe NV/SA (TME) | President | Didier Leroy | Tadashi Arashima |
| Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey Inc. | President | Orhan Ozer | Tamer Unlu | |
| Toyota Motor Manufacturing Poland SP.zo.o. | President | Carl Klemm*2 | Kenji Manabe | |
| *1Newly created position; *2Effective as of April 1, 2010 | ||||
2 Comments on “Toyota Raises Board Level Domestic Content...”
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I believe that this will be a good thing. It’s not a matter of nationalism or racism here, but approach to business and engineering.
In cost management matters, Americans are taught to ask themselves, “how can I make the same quality of product for less money?.
Japanese are taught to ask themselves, “how can I make the product better for the same money?”.
Ultimately neither approach can ever be successfully obtained.
However let’s look at the long-term consequences of each:
The American approach keeps price down but with gradually diminishing quality and features.
The Japanese approach improves quality and features but price creeps up.
The American approach has literally killed GM, and was starting to nibble at the edges of Toyota reputation. The interiors of the Camry have been really cheap in the last few years and we need not mention the accelerator scandal.
So, I believe that this is in the best long-term interest of the company, and, in fact, I recommend it to GM: hire some Japanese executives. Oh, and they cost less that their U.S. equivalents too.
Reminds me so much of that old joke re. the difference between heaven and hell…
HEAVEN :
* The police are British
* The chefs are French
* The mechanics are German
* The lovers are Italian
* and it’s all organized by the Swiss.
HELL :
* The chefs are British
* The mechanics are French
* The police are German
* The lovers are Swiss
* and it’s all organized by the Italians.