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World Inc. Excerpts
Chapter 4:
Toyota and the Search for the Superior Car
In 1913, Henry Ford launched the revolutionary mass production of automobiles that changed society forever. Ford, a genius in maintaining high standards of quality while dramatically boosting industrial output, understood that some form of standardization was essential to increasing productivity. His efforts helped make automobiles an ubiquitous product that has dominated travel ever since.
Ironically, Henry Ford was the primary source of inspiration for Japanese businessman Eiji Toyoda, the founder of the Toyota auto production system and companies. Mr. Toyoda (his family name is actually spelt with a "D," not the now well-known second "T") took the American drive for production efficiency and transformed it into a more sophisticated science focused on reducing the type and amounts of materials going into their automobiles. Without once using the word "environment," Mr. Toyoda created a global empire that now embodies efficiency, lean manufacturing, and lower and lower levels of pollution. What Mr. Ford did for the turn of the 19th century, Mr. Toyoda did for the turn of the 20th.
Toyota created an example of how multinational corporations can respond to social and environmental pressures along with financial obligations and, in the process, embed sustainability into its products. This is the heart of the concept of Social Response Product Development, and that is why so much of this book is devoted to the Toyota story. This new, more social capitalist philosophy is driving Toyota toward the top of an industry that could very well be the key to our collective long-term survival; the transportation industry will be instrumental in cleaning our air and finding renewable sources of fuel.
Toyota is engaged in Social Response capitalism — and being successful and making a huge profit — not because they are trying to be nice. The prime motive is not the fostering of good public relations, a motive that can quickly become twisted. Don't get me wrong: Toyota has nothing against good public relations. But the core of its product strategy lies in its reading of public needs, in advance, to anticipate and build long-term markets for its products. Toyota wants to make a profit; they do not see their anticipation of public needs as a philanthropic distraction from making the profit, but the key to its ultimate success. Other companies are beginning to follow in Toyota's footsteps, which, as we've discussed, is an indication of the probable endurance of these socially responsible products. These products are not an extra or frivolous endeavor outside of the main business of making money, but rather the very essence of a smart survival strategy. And now the planet depends on superior products such as the Prius.
