Issues are the events that are outside the power of the organization. It may affect the organization in some way or the other and the organization must manage the issues in appropriate time. The issues pertaining the organization will naturally affects its vision, mission and values of the organization and also the clients and share holders of the organization. It also affects the management, financing and also the organizational design of the organization.
Issue management is the important task of every organization. It is the major element which is involved in the strategic management objectives. The issue management in an organization involves three major functions. The issue managers have to first collect and monitor all the related information and then analyze and classify the issues involved and then take appropriate actions so that the issue does not reoccur. The results have to be evaluated at a later stage. (Hogan & Rettie, 2002).
The issue management process will help the organization to identify and to record the issues properly. The identified issues are properly documented and the impacts of each issue are determined separately. The issues are then prioritized and their status is also reported accordingly. All the issues are reviewed and the solutions are being identified and further steps are being implemented quickly. Using the issue management process the staffs may be assigned actions so that the issues identified can be resolved in the appropriate times by taking necessary actions.
The main examples of the issue management are issues related to the deficiency in funds, tight deadliness and insufficient resources. Irrespective of the circumstances, the issue management process helps the management to get consent and take action to solve the problem in time. (Issue management process, 2003).
After identifying a issue, it is been classified and ranked. The issues may be either external or internal to the organization. These isses are identified by the issue management staff and is reported to the management I time, so that the impact of the issues can be reduced to an extent. The issue management team of the organization gathers and assesses additional information and they ensure that all the significant information is made available for developing solutions and taking corrective action.
The issue management is managed by the issue manager who connects the lower level and the higher level staffs with the issue management. The major tasks of the issue manger include the collection of the information from outside the organization and give the summary to the management. It also collects information from the staffs with in the organization and also from the share holders. The issue manger gives advice to the staff how to capture the communication of the critical information, and also co-operates along with the staff to process the information before it is forwarded to the management team.
It also produces an problem evaluation monthly to the management committee and also analyses the issue logs and reports. It also works along with the staffs of the information technology in order maintain and share the information timely. There are different stages in the issue development process. The issue will emerge at a stage when the public expectation is different from the organizational performance, if there is any dissatisfaction on the part of the public regarding the performance of the organization. This consists of the emerging issues.
Toyota Motor Corporation is the worlds fourth largest and Japan’s largest automobile manufacturing company. It was a late participant into the car manufacturing company. Before its entrance into the market there was already well established manufactures in the car manufacturing sector like the General Motors and the Ford. Sakichi Toyoda was the founder of the Toyoto Corporation, and in the later years, his son Kiichiro handled the business.
The first product made by the father was in fact an automatic loom which his son patented in England when he went there to study about automobiles. In 1933, an automobile department was added to the company which was then known as the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. The famous logo of the company was created in 1936 and Toyota Motor Co Ltd was formed in 1937. The world famous and very much copied just in time system was adopted by the company in 1938.
Toyota started operations in the US in 1956 and has never looked back in any of the markets it has operated since then. In 1982, the Toyota Motor Co Ltd and the Toyota Motor Sales Co Ltd was merged to form the present Toyota Motor Corporation. The company also entered the Formula 1 (F1) racing in the year 2002. (History of Toyota, 2008).
In the beginning stages and also in the stages of its growth, it has faced many issues related to finance, human capital and also due to heavy competition from its competitors. It inversely affected the sales and also the profitability of the organization. The profit of the Toyota declined due to the effect of many factors like the regulatory issues, intense competition, modify in the value of the Japanese currency and the other currencies in which Tokyo had business connections and also due to the increase in the research and other development costs. The company during its establishment phase invested a huge amount in the technology and man power.
It has adopted various measures to improve its manufacturing, production and also human resources. This has lead to crisis in the initial stage. Due to globalization, it also faced tight competition from its competitors like ford and general motors. The measures adopted by the company to improve its production landed in complexity because of the deficiency in the man power due to globalization scenario. It the process of improving the quality it also faced huge increase in the cost. In order to improve quality and cost reduction along with raising the productivity of the organization, both the employees and the managers experienced huge pressure which they never experienced in the past.
All these problems has been identified, and has been tried to reduce it. For this rthe first step taken was that the number of board members in the existing management was reduced so as to help the board in having a better decision making process. Through reducing the members of the board, the exchange of ideas in- between the board members are increased and help them in better decision making. The company also arranged for a new post of the managing officer so as to handle the middle level and the lower level mangers and also help them to handle the day to day operations there by reducing the excess pressure on them.
The management also hires local employees to the post of senior officers so that they will be knowing the pulse of that area and know the tastes and preference of the people in that area. This help the organization to develop the business in each area and attain more profit. They also encourage overseas employers to manage. (Mighty Toyota’s growing pains: The Japanese juggernaut must confront internal challenges, 2004).
It has tried out new policies and procedures in the areas of manufacturing, product development, human resources management etc. In order to solve the crisis situation due to heavy competition in the market, the management of Toyota decided to produce the cars according to the local tastes and the company stated producing the cars according to the preferences of the consumer in that particular regions. This has brought great success to them. Toyota was successful in attaining its number one position in the automobile industry. Compared to its competitors, Toyota had improved technology and it has got strong bench marks for providing valuable service to its customers.
The product development is an extensively capital intensive work for the Toyota Manufacturing company. But the Toyota tried to bring new models of cars timely according to the tastes and according to the regional needs. They standardized their products under their brand name. It’s the brand name of Toyota that brought huge business in their hands. It has developed a Lean product development strategy so as to overcome the huge costs involved in the production of the products. It also introduced a product planning division, which use Matrix structure with numerous functional specialists.
The Matrix structure adopted by Toyoto has combined the features of the divisional and functional organizations. This brought success to the production policy of the Toyoto. They also faced the problem of regional risks due to the changes in the laws an regulation and other government policies. This also affected the profitability of the Toyoto’s operations. This laws pertaining to the vehicle safety, fuel economy and emission in turn has affected the cost of the vehicles. Toyota introduced the environmental risk management process, which forms part of the environmental management system of Toyota. In order to manage the issues related to the negative environmental impacts, Toyoto developed such a management system. It also developed incident management system so as to reduce the hazards and other incidents.
Toyoto also faced many financial issues due to the fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates and the local interest rates. In order to mange the financial issues arising from the changes in the interest rates, the Toyoto manufacturing company started issuing derivative instruments. (Enterprise risk management at Toyota, 2008).
References
Enterprise risk management at Toyota. (2008). ICMR Center For Management Research. Web.
History of Toyota. (2008). Toyota Motor Corporation. Web.
Hogan, Mike., & Rettie, Claire. (2002). Issue management. Web.
Issue management process. (2003). Method123: Empowering Managers to Succeed. Web.
Mighty Toyota’s growing pains: The Japanese juggernaut must confront internal challenges. (2004). Chief Executive. Web.