Goal

Necessity to have a first-mover advantage in such a competitive situation, especially concerning

middle-size firms (pie chart, show that Toyota has a large market share, but that all the other
are close to one another). Which means that all these same-size companies take the risk to be
overcome by other companies of approximately the same dimension. I am not saying that we
exclude Toyota from our presentation : Japans biggest car producer needs a long-term
strategy. Still, the company does not need to be as sticked to his strategy as its competitors ;
not only can they fail, but they are big enough to minimize the risks, by investing in different
directions (a costly solution, but perhaps the more likely and the less dangerous)
History shows that technological advance must be important enough to constitute a real first-
mover advantage. (Nissan had the advantage earlier on comparing to Toyota with the Insight,
but the technological advance was not sufficient to maintain a constant advantage on its
competitor : the Lexus took over again)

We are now at a turning point for Japan car industry:
-technological one : most of the technologies that were for a moment just one day
possible are now ready to be used for massive production
-energetic one : the energetic choices that are made at the moment are crucial, since
there is still an uncertainty on the principal source of energy that is to be used in the future
-economic one : most of the car firms just recovered from the financial crisis and from
the tsunami schock (plants stopped months long) (and, in the case of Toyota, from the recalling
scandal, and from the problem with the floods in Thaland in 2012) : they are number one in the
world again). The possibility of growth and renewing is now.


The equilibrium to be found has to be sustainable. Which means that, if we bet on a technology,
we have to make sure that it is going to give us a long-lasting advantage, for at least 10 years
(similar to the one Toyota took on all the other brands concerning the hybrids ; see where they
are now).
Still, we are not in the short-term : the objective is rather chosing the right technology for the
future, than immediate profit. We are looking for first-mover advantage, not market share : once
you got it, you can exploit it the way you want.
Plus, the Japanese market in itself is not a problem : it is completely dominated (96,5% of the
domestic market is owned by Japanese brands (30th country out of 30 for the openness to
foreign brands)); when you have the advantage over the other Japanese brands, you own the
Japanese market.

The important thing is that the right technologic choice also offers insights for development in
the world market. 40% of the production of Japanese cars is exported. 16.3 million vehicles
exported from Japan to the United States. In contrast, US automakers have been limited to
exporting only 183,000 cars and trucks to Japan since 2000. The closed structure of Japanese
market has to be taken in account. Imports from Japan now represent over 15% of the US auto
market : every step forward in the Japanese market is implicitely a market share gained within
these 15% in the United States (and even more, see the hybrids have conquered new
customers among the Americans)

Next door, in China, now the worlds largest auto market, the number one automaker is a US
company, General Motors, which sold 1.3 million cars and trucks in 2009. These market shares
are also potential targets.
Emerging markets are still indecise about the type of cars appealing to them. Japanese car
brands have to take it into account : emerging markets are a target too.

Goal : Gain by 2030 a first-mover advantage to maintain a sustainable market-leading position
in the world car market

The goal is actually rather a technologic goal than a business goal : all the rest is a
consequence of the implementation of the right strategy from that point.

http://americanautocouncil.org/sites/default/files/Japans%2BProtected%2BAuto%2BMarket.pdf

http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/global-business/continuity-and-change-in-japans-
automotive-industry#.U6AqPY1_se4 (this graph for the internationalization of Toyota sales)