Though Toyota ’s September sales were not off by as much as some of its Detroit and Japanese rivals, the automaker’s new president, Akio Toyoda, says that the company is “grasping for salvation” during this dire stretch.
Toyoda cited the five stages of corporate decline organized by How the Mighty Fall author Jim Collins by warning that his company has entered the fourth step.
The automaker is on the edge of “capitulation to irrelevance or death,” Toyoda said at a news conference in Tokyo. “ Toyota has become too big and distant from its customers.”
Toyoda did cite one factor beyond his ability to alter that has led to his company’s financial troubles: The weak dollar to yen exchange rate.
“When you get to this level, it makes it difficult to return to profit on sales growth alone,” he told reporters.
