Marketing Information System: case of Toyota Motor Corporation - Essay Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents Toyota 2 Primary Marketing Problem 2 Three Sources of Secondary Information 3 Proprietary & Corporate Information 5 Importance of information 5 References 7 Toyota Toyota Motor Corporation is a renowned Japanese automobile company. The automobile giant having its headquarters in Toyota, Aichi, Japan, was established by Kiichiro Toyoda in the year of 1937. Toyota entered USA market by doing joint venture with General Motors in the year 1984. Cumulative production of vehicles has reached 100 million in the year 1999. They entered into robotics market during 2004. Toyota has sold more than three million hybrid vehicles across the world during 2011 (Toyota-global, n.d.). Primary Marketing Problem Every marketing plan has four dimensions in terms of product, price, place, promotion. Place regards to distribution network maintained by companies. Toyota emphasizes on just in time (JIT) inventory control and lean operation. Place plays important role to create suitable lean operation across all the plants of Toyota. Supply chain management plays a pivotal role in maintaining a proper inventory function. Maintaining the first P (product) of marketing is the main problem for Toyota. Tsunami on March 11 has clearly impacted the car company, which has higher sales volume in Japan with respect to competitors like Nissan and Honda. The Japanese automobile company has projected a profit margin of $3.5bn for next 1 year which is almost fifty percent lower than previous year’s projection. The company will certainly lose its position as volume leader in terms of car production during 2011, and might fall behind General Motors and German player like Volkswagen. Analyst forecasted drop of one percent in global sales for Toyota in the year 2012. The problem is regarding the production process of Toyota. They need to integrate supply chain network with production process to counterbalance the problem. Toyota fails to create quality in production process and for this reason they are struggling to earn respect of value driven European customers. Toyota failed to create safety value associated with car model for customers. According to Kelley Blue Book, value of used Toyotas is down by 3% and it will decline further 1.5% in near future. Sales volume Toyota Prius hybrid is declined due to low demand among customers. Retail price of the hybrid model has touched its nadir. The company has witnessed almost sixty percent drop in retail price due to poor value delivery process. Toyota cars lacks in safety, design and fuel efficiency. They need to upgrade value chain in production process (Bernstein, 2010). Three Sources of Secondary Information Reports created by government agencies or syndicated research association can be used as secondary data sources. Nielsen and Arbitron or any professional associations do research on automobile market and these data can be easily accessed by the car company. Authenticated census data can be collected from government websites like CIA. Customer behavior report can be accessed from report published by AC Nielsen or Boston consulting group or ZS associates. Research reports of American Marketing Association are publicly available and Toyota can use them to design a strong marketing information system. Many researchers use company websites to create secondary database. Research report of custom research firms can be used by the car company. Custom research firms publicize research report in news paper, magazines or other types of print medium. Periodicals and books can be used as an excellent source for secondary knowledge. There are more than thirty books on integrated communication are available on website and they can be used to create strategic communication model by Toyota. Secondary research report created by vendors or independent companies can be used as data source. Commercial data sources can be used by Toyota for secondary research. Many market research companies like A.C. Nielsen works on syndicated data. Research report of A.C Nielsen is based on market level data in terms of market competition; competitor’s pricing strategy, customer’s purchase behavior, automobile market dynamics, brand equity of car makers, latest trend used in the field of integrated marketing communication. Deutsche bank works as research agency on financial transactions like merger acquisition, foreign direct investment and financial market trend. Toyota can use research data published by deutsche bank to plan financial activity and monitor competitor’s movement. Commercial data sources also cover research data associated public opinion. Toyota can use previously published public opinion research to understand purchase behavior. Public opinion data can be used to create brand equity in terms of increasing customer engagement. Toyota needs to know purchase pattern for particular car models. They can use last six months daily sales report of various car retail stores. Pattern of purchase can be understood by analyzing sales data. Even the concept of customer life time value (CLV) can be used to understand purchase pattern in terms of profitability. Previously published customer life time value data can be used by Toyota to forecast future profitability of each customer. CLV gives valuable insight to understand purchase behavior of customers. CLV research data will help the automobile giant to design future framework of customer relationship management. Secondary information can be used increase equity of the brand with respect to other competitors (Kotler, 2010, p. 127). Proprietary & Corporate Information Proprietary Information indicates the value of confidentiality is associated with particular document owned by the company. Generally, there is very limited access to documents classified as proprietary by outsiders. CEO and few top level managers can access propriety information. It can be termed as trade secret of the company. Toyota can collect two types of propriety information to increase efficiency of secondary research. Marketing information of the competitors like planes of product introduction, dates of product launch competitive position of other car makers, strategic as well as tactical plans of competitors, new product development system and structure of customer incentive program is required for strategic planning. Research and Development data like performance and technical specification, latest design of competitor’s car model, process diagram of production plant of competitors. Corporate information like sales data of competitors, stock market data, company snapshots, share holders percentage can be used by Toyota create a sustainable design of marketing information system. Importance of information No organization can prepare marketing strategy without using proper primary market information. Primary data helps marketers to understand market dynamics, competition level. Marketing strategy depends on reliability of collected data. Companies need to do macro environment analysis before taking any strategic initiative to enter new country. Macro environmental analysis (PESTLE) can be done with help of primary data. References Bernstein, S. (2010, February 9). Toyota Faces a Massive Marketing Challenge. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/09/business/la-fi-toyota marketing10-2010feb10. Kotler, P. (2010). Marketing management. (13th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education. Toyota-global, (No Date). History of Toyota. Retrieved from http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/. Read More