Internal discipline has been a cornerstone of the Toyota’s success, enshrined in the ‘Toyota Way’ and its pioneering approach to lean manufacturing. This is an approach much admired and adopted in many different companies around the world. It has delivered many outstanding results but no one approach, however well deployed, will ever be the secret to success.
For many brands a consistent approach to quality and quality control is not a differentiator. We would call it a ‘hygiene factor’, vitally important but something expected by the customer. With hygiene factors constantly delivered, many organisations look to position their brand in a unique space, based on the fundamental understanding of their target customers and their emotional and rational needs.
For Toyota however, the ‘Toyota Way’ and relentless pursuit of quality was its differentiator. Whilst other brands may have claimed ‘style’ or ‘ultimate safety’, Toyota’s brand was the byword for quality and reliability. A straightforward and compelling position for those millions of customers who have those attributes at the top of their automotive shopping list.
So for Toyota, peerless quality is not a hygiene factor, it is a ‘brand imperative’, an essential for the company to deliver consistently and the cornerstone of the brand. That is why the problem of sticking throttles and subsequent product recalls resulted in this assessment in the Sunday Times; “What started out as a notable recall has turned into a fully fledged media and marketing disaster”.
That this should happen to Toyota, of all brands, seem inconceivable.
Whilst Toyota will hopefully deal with the short term problems, and the longer term building of their reputation, there are lessons for all of us.
Lesson 1:Customers should be the focus of the quality agenda
The most obvious is the need to align all the operations of the company to the values of the brand. No one yet knows how this problem started but somewhere deep in the organisation, a decision has been taken that has created an action which is not aligned to those brand values.
Quality improvement is an established discipline for most companies, and they deploy various models and tools to do this. Often the focus is cost and efficiency, and in these difficult times you can understand why. Unfortunately it is too easy for the customer to be lost in the whole approach. Processes are changed driven by efficiency alone and ultimately the brand suffers. Interestingly one of Akio Toyodas’s comments this week was to say that the company had become too distant from its customers. The ultimate result is a significant hit on its financial performance and a reputation in major need of re-building.
Lesson 2: Brand Alignment and its early warning signals.
The second lesson is one of alignment. Michael Esiner said a brand is built ‘cumulatively over time, the product of a 1000 small gestures’. This means that every part of the business has a role in building the brand. Mistakes happen and no-one gets everything right but with great early warning devices disasters can be avoided.
The people who work in the organisation see problems first; the small decisions, the change in process, the focus of quality control etc. If they fully understand the brand vision and what this means to their customers they become the brand ambassadors who see misalignment as it starts to happen.
If we have a means to listen to them and act on the evidence then we have a chance to ensure behaviours, processes, product and services remain aligned and ultimately contribute to a customer experience that matches the brand promise.
It could mean that some changes; however attractive from an efficiency standpoint, may have to be ignored for the good of the brand. Of course this means the cost will remain in the company, but the true cost of an action that fundamentally damages the brand is likely to dwarf any efficiency saving.
The Broken Promise
Of the many issues, phrases, claims and counter claims amongst all the political parties, one phrase has been used on a regular basis; the broken promise.
Political parties have talked about others breaking promises and of course their determination not to break the promises that they make. View article >
Out of tune
So; they have got their positioning spot on, I buy into their values and personality whole heartedly, I love their visual imagery and they stand out on the high street. What fantastic retail branding! Totally aligned, I salute thee brand and my custom is your reward. View article >
