Problems of IS and IT in Toyota Motor Sales

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Summary of the Case
Statement of the Problem
Proposing a Solution
Learning Application
References

Introduction

The case study titled The Big Fix is all about the IS and IT issues that Toyota Motor Sales, USA, faced in 2003 and solved with the help of its CIO Barbra Cooper the same year (CIO, 2009). The big fix is all about fixing the company’s inside issues associated with accountability, resource allocation, and IT integration in every single sphere of Toyota Motor Sales, USA’s activity (IDG, 2009). The analysis of this very case study of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, will allow seeing the management issue, approaches to its solution, and implications of those approaches for further management development.

Summary of the Case

The case under analysis, i. e. the Big Fix at the Toyota Motor Sales, USA, focuses on the organizational issues that this branch of the Japanese car maker Toyota faced in 2002 and 2003 (Wailgum, 2009). The major case character is the Toyota Motor Sales, USA CIO Barbra Cooper whose radical policies and decisive leadership style allowed the company to overcome its challenges. Seeing that IS and IT departments of the company were failing, lacked organization, control, and integration into the corporate structure, Cooper reformed those departments. She started with the introduction of the new IT vision, appointed divisional information officers (DIOs) to every department, and achieved the complete accountability of the IS and IT to the company’s executives so that they knew where every cent of the IS and IT money went (Wailgum, 2009).

Statement of the Problem

The major problem that the CIO Barbra Cooper faced on coming to the Toyota Motor Sales, USA, was the poor organizational integration of the IS and IT departments (CIO, 2009; Wailgum, 2009). Simply to put it, the company did not use its IT, did not know where the funds allocated to IT went, and could not rely on its IT department in cases of software demand. The workers of the IT department and other departments were in poor contact, and the company’s executives always wondered why IT required so much funding. The major challenge for Cooper was to reform Toyota’s IT to solve these problems (IDG, 2009; Wailgum, 2009).

Proposing a Solution

After the case consideration it is difficult to propose a more relevant solution than Barbra Cooper proposed and implemented. The Toyota CIO, as well as specialists from ORRJEFF (2009) and UFLIB (2006), considers radical reorganization as the best way to solve IT deficiencies and problems. What Cooper did was to eliminate the then existing IT structure and create a new one in which every staff member had his/her clear goals and extended, or completely changed, number of functions. DIOs were assigned to every department where IT was used to trace the solution’s success. In a year this initiative allowed bringing the Toyota’s IT to the highest performance level. So, basically this is the best solution that can be proposed for the above stated problems.

Learning Application

The major reason for the proposed solution to work is its integral character. In other words, the IT department was separated from the rest of the company because of its poor organization. The proposed solution is to reorganize the whole IT department and integrate it into the company’s structure so that IT staff could trace the use of IT in other departments, while the latter could see where the IT department directs the funding it receives. Thus, the proposed solution is a win-win option for both the whole company and its IT department.

References

CIO. (2009). Toyota’s Big Fix: An IS Department Turnaround. Web.

IDG. (2009). The Big Fix. Web.

ORRJEFF. (2009). IT Reorganization. Web.

UFLIB. (2006). Draft IT Reorganization Plan. Web.

Wailgum, T. (2009). The Big Fix. Web.

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Problems of IS and IT in Toyota Motor Sales

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