As Toyota continues to take a beating in the world's media and, no doubt, in its showrooms throughout the world, one question looms large: where do they go from here?
It has been a spectacular fall from grace for the world's biggest carmaker, made even worse by some appalling business and public relations decisions. First, and most serious, is the disclosure that the company put growth ahead of safety. Suddenly, it is not only the owners of Toyota cars that were part of the massive global recall, but owners of all Toyotas who are possibly now questioning whether or not their cars are safe. This is a very real problem that the company has to face: how to win back trust from consumers.
It has to be said, the PR disaster of the last few weeks is not the best way to go about it.
After seemingly avoiding the media like the plague for a couple of weeks, Toyota president Akio Toyoda finally attended a press conference in Japan on 5 February, during which he offered a perfunctory apology and a slight bow. Surprisingly, the Japanese media laid into him, calling his bow flippant and his apology too little, too late. He appeared again four days later looking as though he could quite happily strangle everybody in the room. He is clearly not happy in front of the cameras, but somebody should really tell him that pulling faces and answering questions with the attitude of a teenage schoolboy is not the best way to behave. In Japanese companies there are very few people who would dare say anything of the sort to the president. And therein lies the problem.
There are no doubt many people within Toyota who believe that the company has handled this crisis in a poor way. It is the world's largest automaker - for the moment - therefore it is nonsense to try the tired excuse that Japanese companies work differently to western ones and that their way of dealing with things has been misinterpreted. If Toyota was only operating in Japan, it wouldn't be such a problem, but it is not: it is a global company and it is time it started acting accordingly. This includes public relations exercises. The reaction of the Japanese media demonstrated that they were not prepared to accept a short bow and apology, so it goes without saying that western media, consumers and politicians surely wouldn't.
Toyoda did himself some favours by agreeing to appear in person before the US Congress, but many people cannot shake the feeling that he did so under duress. He made his opening address in English, but answered subsequent questions in Japanese through a translator. This, in itself, is not a problem - it is clearly easier for him to communicate in his native language, but when being pressed for straightforward answers he gave long, technical ones. The questioners could hardly contain their impatience with the meandering from the Toyota representatives, at one point demanding a straight 'yes' or 'no'. Later on, however, facing Toyota staff in America, Toyoda did a lot to improve his image when he said he believed "that Toyota has always worked for the benefit of the United States. I tried to convey that message from the heart, but whether it was broadly understood or not, I don't know." He also showed that he seems to now fully grasp the extent of the problem, adding that "[w]e at Toyota are at a crossroad. We need to rethink everything about our operation."
It remains to be seen where the company goes from here. One thing is for sure, however; safety must become the priority once more and the company must take a serious look at how to handle its PR in future.
