Toyota Business to Business

1834 Words8 Pages
Business-to-business marketing TOYOTA 1.“Each company is enmeshed in a network of customer, supplier and other relationships. These relationships are the means by which it can benefit from the resources of its suppliers, customers and others and through which it gains access to the resources of the wider network.” That being said, each relationships that a company maintains either with its suppliers or its customers, has different characteristics, such as the level of involvement, the type of relationship, etc. Therefore, a lot of factors affect the relationship that a company has with its suppliers and affect also its distribution system. In the following text, I will analyse Toyota’s relations to its suppliers, discuss the multi-national distribution solutions and explain the changes in the network and what impact will these changes have on Toyota. In the first place, the procurement policy by Toyota is based on three fundamental criteria. The first on is “Fair competition based on an open-door policy”, which means that Toyota is open to any potential supplier, regardless of nationality, size, etc. The second criteria is “’Mutual trust leading to mutual benefits”. Thus, Toyota believes in encouraging long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with its suppliers. That is achieved by the intense communication and the shared business knowledge between Toyota and its suppliers. The last criteria is “Local sourcing”, which means that Toyota wants to contribute to the local economy of the host country of its activities. In addition, to make sure that the delivery of the parts to the manufacture is as efficient as possible, Toyota operate a “milk-run” service picking up parts from different supplier location. All of this while using the “just-in-time” to upkeep the production. This activity facilitate the relationship and the coordination between the supplier
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