Exclusive One-on-One Interview With Toyota’s Jim Press
05-01-07 | 09:58 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Super Moderator
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 30,117
Likes: 226
From: Canada
Exclusive One-on-One Interview With Toyota’s Jim Press
Exclusive One-on-One Interview With Toyota’s Jim Press
by Michelle Krebs
It’s been an eventful month for Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor North America.
Earlier this month, Press was named the first non-Japanese to the Toyota Motor Corp. board in Tokyo; about a year ago he became the first American to head Toyota Motor North America. And then, just this week, Toyota surpassed General Motors for the first time in history in global car sales; a move long expected but not clear when it would happen.
In an exclusive one-on-one interview with AutoObserver Thursday, Press shrugged off both events as not terribly significant.
Toyota’s No. 1 spot, he says, is not a milestone or accomplishment; rather it is the result, he claims, of doing what Toyota does: building quality, reliable cars with good value and taking care of customers.
He calls his role as the first non-Japanese on Toyota’s board an evolution and inevitable as the carmaker grows as a global company with the bulk of its sales outside of Japan. He sees his role as a conduit for communications between Toyota in North America and back to Japan and from Japan back to North America.
He adroitly responds to critics who charge the now No. 1 Toyota faces challenges as it grows, such as risking becoming complacent or even arrogant, stretching its lean human resources beyond their limits and missing promising opportunities due to its leanness.
As for the future of Toyota in the global auto industry, he predicts in another 10 years, only about a half-dozen major auto companies will exist –- and Toyota will be among them. And future drivers will be tooling around in plug-in hybrids of all kinds.
Here’s a transcript of Press’ exchange with AutoObserver:
This week Toyota surpassed General Motors as the No. 1 automaker in the world in terms of sales. What does that milestone mean for Toyota?
Not much. It’s not really a milestone. It represents the results of what we’ve been trying to do -- build better cars, better value, take care of customers. We’re really not responsible for what happens at other companies. For us, it’s not a sales race. We think more about focusing on our own business plan. The other thing, honestly, a quarter does not make a year. It’s really not, in our minds, a milestone or accomplishment.
Does being No. 1 bring with it new challenges, new responsibilities?
It’s not because of that. But as our company continues to grow and expands our footprint, it is more incumbent on us to re-double our efforts to improve the things that got us here, like making sure our quality improves, our efficiencies get better, our cost-saving efforts pay off, our innovation and technology investments pay off and we’re able to cycle those into production...customer service at the dealership improves. All the things that are the factors of success continue to become more important as you get bigger. And we never want to appear to the customer as a big company; we want a more customer-friendly attitude and environment. Those are all challenges that come with size, and, as we grow, those are our challenges.
A lot of our growth has been outside of the U.S. A lot of our growth has been by entering markets where we were not represented before. We’ve had expansion in Europe and in China. We’re growing in Mexico. And we’ve entered market segments that we haven’t been in before. A lot of the growth is a continuing expansion or presence as demanded by customers. If the demand is there, we’re increasing our capacity to meet that demand. The key aspect is as demand grows we do our best to satisfy it. We call that growing with honor.
Toyota has its critics. I'd like you to address some of their charges. For instance, one is that Toyota is prisoner of its own success. That the seeds of Toyota’s future problems are planted in its success of today.
Those are traps you have to avoid. Those are traps you can fall into as a large organization that’s growing, definitely. Complacency and believing your own headlines are the worst things that can happen. We have to avoid arrogance. We have to continue to be worried about the things that need to be fixed, not take pride in the things that are taken care of. We’ve got to make sure that we focus on getting better. We have a saying that the good news can wait. We want to focus on issues that need to improve. People outside the company may consider complacency or arrogance could set in. But from inside the company, we see so many things we aren’t doing very well and that we could do better. That’s our focus -- on doing a better job. We work for the customer. Our customers are very demanding bosses. Satisfying them is a never-ending quest that we’re committed to.
Some critics charge that Toyota is too lean. One Japanese official said Toyota has a “human resources crisis.”
I don’t think “too lean” is the word [sic]. If we err, we’re not going to err on the side of excess capacity or excess resources. Interesting that the mother of invention is created by need. One of the reasons we’re as efficient as we are is that we’re used to operating in small footprints. We’re used to operating in an environment of insufficient supply of raw materials and resources. So it creates a discipline to make sure we’re making the best decisions of optimizing the resources available. And when you are growing, obviously you’re contending with the allocation of scarce resources. On the other side, the advantage to that is efficiencies and better utilization. It also reflects the company’s commitment to grow our own, create our own resources, understand them, have them be our DNA. Our engineers, for example, come in at a junior level that lets them understand, grow, learn. That allows them, as they mature, to become more productive, more efficient and to create products in our own vision. That’s an advantage of not adding too many people too quickly at a senior level.
But critics say the danger of Toyota’s leanness is its inability to capitalize on new, promising opportunities.
There are probably opportunities that we don’t take advantage of, that’s true. But we’re committed to growing within the capability of our organization and maintain the things that got us here -– the quality, reliability appeal value.
Another criticism -- Toyota is reluctant to look at new ways of doing things. It has an aversion to change. It’s sort of the “why change something that’s not broken” environment. Do you agreement with that assessment?
No, I don’t. My feeling is the quality of our management is totally top notch and focused on the business of the future. They make decisions that anticipate the future. Therefore we’re not in a state of constantly confronting problems and changing directions but we’re executing a strategy and plans that have been envisioned in the past. The approach the company takes is a more conservative decision-making process that tries to avoid wrong decisions and therefore it takes longer to make decisions. But once a decision is made, the quality is better and the organization is aligned with it. Execution is then painless, quick and accurate. The term “reluctant to change” is not fair. Cautious, yes. We have a saying that before a Toyota person crosses a bridge, we check every rock. So far, that’s been a pretty good approach.
Give some examples of change then.
Ten years ago, the company made a significant change by investing in hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles. Nobody else did it or was doing it. That has really paid off the last couple of years. They made the change not in a crisis or because of a problem but because it was the appropriate time and the future dictated that for good business.
We added Scion. We’ve done a lot in terms of innovation in our plants. We’ve been adding capacity; we’ve got 600,000 units coming onstream right now. Those are decisions you could call change, but are really an execution of a plan.
Critics also say Toyota operates an environment of political correctness where dissenting opinions are frowned upon. For instance, you don’t tell the emperor he’s naked.
Oh no. The emperor is constantly asking, “Tell me how my clothes look.” An example of that is the change in my status. As it was stated to me, that change is an effort to improve communications directly to the top and to the board so they know exactly what is going on and what the current situation is. The company’s feeling that good news can wait is true. Look at the shop floor and our pull-cord system [that workers use to stop assembly line for problems]. That’s a quick way for the emperor to figure out there’s a problem. People who have a political agenda and maybe don’t share information are not rewarded. It’s just the opposite of what you say.
Let’s use the Internet as an example. Toyota focuses a huge amount of attention on its dealers and dealerships, whereas the market is shifting to shopping on the Internet. One of your luxury competitors has noted a substantial decline in showroom traffic, despite a surge in sales, because customers do 75 percent of the work on the Internet. The perception is that Toyota lags in regard to the Internet.
The dealer organization is one of our greatest assets. They have been a key component not only of our success but more importantly our direction and for feedback. They reflect the customer. The investments they make in facilities -– over $2 billion in the last couple years -- and success they’ve had has allowed them to add organizational depth and capabilities as well as facilities and processes that allow them to be big businesses on their own. The Internet obviously plays a key role, but our dealers are really the masters of the Internet.
Are they? Some sense Toyota dealers view the Internet as their competitor.
They are the masters of the Internet, not masters of lead generators. The Internet is a great source of information for customers to arm themselves to make informed decisions. They use the Internet well for that. Customers who wish to can use the Internet to interface with the dealer.
It’s also hard to generalize because of our broad scope of customers. Scion customers are very Internet savvy, and our dealers run with that. We have Scion customers who never go into the dealership, except to pick up their car. Scion is designed to be Internet-friendly. Lexus is heavily Internet [dependent] in terms of repeat customers. We would agree with our luxury competitors in that regard on the importance of the Internet, and we do see a lot of upfront work done by [customers] on the Internet before they come to the showroom. But the Toyota customer base chooses less Internet activity. It’s substantial but not as much as Scion.
We’ve created a system where it is up to the customer to configure the sales process and the purchasing process and the dealer interface. Customers configure that. If they want high touch, they can. If they want to be low touch, they can.
Explain your new role as the first non-Japanese on the board of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC).
My role is more of an evolution. It is more involved in being an effective conduit of communications from the North American market into the decision-making process at TMC as well as being able to understand and communicate back to the North American operation TMC’s thinking. That way we can have a better understanding, more efficient communication and more efficient operations that are more aligned. By providing that, the North American operation can be more self-reliant in a way that it is supportive of TMC and TMC’s overall strategy, goals and objectives. We have the ability to be more independent, and we can better understand and operate under the guidelines of Toyota’s worldwide operations. It is [Toyota Motor Corp.'s chairman Fujio] Cho’s way to think globally, act locally. I can be the connection to that local market to think globally and act locally.
Do you consider yourself a change agent?
No. I think it is a role we’ve been providing but this allows us the next level up of decision-making and input. A change agent is a factor in a turnaround situation or crisis. I think probably what I’m trying to do is be more of a conduit of a learning organization -- both the learning organization at operations locally and a learning aspect of the global operation so we’re making the right investment decisions, overall guidelines and strategies.
Can you give an example of an issue with which you might become involved as a conduit between the two entities?
For example, understanding the growth plan in terms of investments in product and manufacturing, communicating the needs of our local market while understanding the global resource allocations of TMC. I’d connect those two up so they don’t get out of step but are going in the same direction.
Is it significant that you are the first non-Japanese on the Toyota board?
I think that it’s inevitable because Toyota has grown globally and become a global organization and is deriving the bulk of the volume no longer in Japan. It was a matter of time of having somebody with experience and time within the company. Even though in American terms I’ve been with the company a long time –- I’m 60 years old with 37 years with Toyota, I’m fairly young in terms of time with the company compared with those on the board.
It was a process also of the company growing confidence in the North American operation to be more self-reliant and growing confidence in the non-Japanese in the North American operation who have the capability, understanding and virtues of the Toyota Way.
So as a global company, might there be a European or a Chinese on the Toyota board someday?
I would think the door has been opened. My task is to not screw it up and set a good precedent for people to follow!
With Toyota No. 1 in sales, does Toyota’s face to the external world change? Toyota’s operated under the radar screen and is now under the microscope.
First, we don’t feel like we’re No. 1. And we haven’t been under the radar screen for a while. A lot of attention has been given to our company. We’re growing our understanding of external affairs. The company’s operation doesn’t have to change. The only thing we have to understand is how we communicate what we’re doing in the right way. For example, the mission of Toyota has always been focused on improving and contributing to society, investing in the local economy where we do business, building better quality, efficiency, relations with business partners and dealers.
We’re about philanthropy and generosity. We’ve always invested in environmental and safety technology. We’ve done those things because they are the right things to do for society. But we’ve never developed a muscle of exposing that or marketing that. We never had to or even thought about it. Some companies who maybe don’t do those things do the publicity to make it look like that kind of company. We don’t have to do that. All you have to do is turn the lights on, and you can see what we’re doing.
That’s the thing we’re learning to do –- how to communicate. It’s not in our nature. We’re fairly modest. We don’t see ourselves in the light of what we’re doing right, but we see ourselves as what we need to do better. That’s what we need help with –- how to properly communicate who we are.
So what’s happened, because we’re not glib and public relations savvy, we wind up in a situation where other people define us. We don’t have a chance to define ourselves. And the detractors define us in the worst way they can. We need to get better at defining ourselves.
With your No. 1 sales position, are you concerned about a political backlash?
Obviously, we’re always concerned about the way we’re seen in the eyes of all of our constituents. Our customers like what we’re doing; we’ve had very positive growth because the demand is there. We’re growing because we’re building the kinds of products they want with good quality, reliability and value and our dealers are giving good service. In terms of the political environment, other people are trying to define us. We need to communicate a level of understanding who we are and what we aren’t.
What’s your vision for Toyota and automotive landscape in another decade?
In 10 years, the global shifting among the large corporations will arrive at the point that there are five, six or seven equal-size companies that carve up the business. There will be continued growth and auto demand in the world that will fuel expansion in the industry. But the cost of implementing innovative technology, environmental and safety features, and improving efficiency of operation will burden companies to the point the high cost and high capital-intensive nature of the business will allow only certain companies to exist. The five, six or seven companies will be some niche operators and some mass-market full-line operators. Toyota will be one of those. We’ll be positioned of trying to be the best to take care of the customer and build best product to the long-term benefit of society. We will be known as the company that continues to commit itself to improving society in any way we can.
What will my 15-year-old be driving in 10 years; and what will your toddler grandchildren –- besides driving a Toyota -- be driving when they are old enough to drive?
Ten years from now, your children will be driving a plug-in hybrid powered by diesel, ethanol or blended fuel. My grandchildren will drive plug-in hybrids powered by hydrogen and fuel cells.
About Jim Press
I first got to know Jim Press in the mid 1990s when he was general manager for Lexus. I particularly remember attending the press preview for a redesigned ES model. I was seated next to Jim for dinner at the Laura Ashley-outfitted Keswick Hall in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our discussion centered the lack of passion in design of Lexus models then. Press acknowledged that shortcoming.
During the night, a hurricane slammed Charlottesville; the storm had been predicted but arrived more quickly than forecasted and took an unexpected turn, putting us in its path.
No deaths or injuries occurred, but Charlottesville shut down. Roads flooded, the electricity went out and trees fell, including one that knocked out the hotel’s new generator.
Those of us attending the event sleepily trudged out of our hotel rooms in PJs and with bed head, greeted by elegant candelabras lining the halls and stairways. We waited around for the power to come on and the roads to be cleared, but that didn’t happen.
So Toyota sent troops out in SUVs to clear trees from our drive route, and the show went on. Press, not nearly as adept at oratory and public relations as he is so skilled at today, improvised his schtick, doing his slide show in the dark -– with no slides.
Little did I know then that Press would rise through the ranks of Toyota as he has and have so many "firsts" before his name. And surely, he didn’t know that either when he was a kid tooling around in go-karts and roadsters in Kansas.
Press was born in Pasadena, California, but his family moved to Prairie Village, Kansas, when he was 7. He graduated from go-karts, the first of which he acquired when he was 8, to a beat-up 1928 Ford Roadster he got in 1959. From that moment, Press, once a mechanic, has said he was in love with cars.
After graduating from Kansas State College (now Pittsburg State University) in Pittsburgh, Kansas, with a degree in business administration, Press joined Ford as management. He then followed his boss to Toyota in 1970. He intended to learn the business and then become a dealer. In 1989, Press did a stint with Jim Moran, a dealer who established Toyota’s Southeast distributorship. Moran, an inductee of the Automotive Hall of Fame, died this week.
Press then held a number of positions at Toyota, including general manager of Lexus. He then was named president and COO of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., where he had overall responsibility for sales, marketing and distribution for Toyota, Scion and Lexus products in the United Sates. Press was the first American president of TMS.
Press also became the first American president of the New York City-based Toyota North America (TMA) last year. TMA is the holding company created in 1996 to be responsible for Toyota's North American sales, engineering and manufacturing operating units.
Press was the first international automotive executive elected to chair the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry's top trade group. He has received the "Distinguished Service Citation Award" from the Automotive Hall of Fame and has been named an industry "All-Star" leader by both Automotive News and Automobile magazine. In 2004, Fortune magazine called him Toyota's "secret weapon," saying he "arguably has as much influence over the course of the American auto industry as anyone else alive."
When Press is not on the job, he can be found in the air or in the water.
Press is a certified commercial pilot and was president of Toyota's Aviation Business Development Office in the early 1990s. During that time, he was also responsible for AirFlite –- a fixed-base operation in Long Beach, California. Press told me he isn’t getting as much air time to be as competent as he’d like but he is flying in New York and Thailand, his new wife’s homeland.
But he doesn’t miss his time in the pool, swimming at least once a day. Press is a Masters swimmer and a triathlete. He was awarded the Gold Medallion by the International Swimming Hall of Fame and he belongs to the Los Angeles and Peninsula Masters swim team. He also lived on a powerboat off the California coast for 14 years. Over the years, he’s also been involved in auto racing and riding motorcycles.
Press and his new wife, Suwichada, live in New York City. Together they have six children: Robert, Jason, Christopher and Elizabeth, Guy and Nong. He also has grandchildren.
http://www.autoobserver.com/2007/04/...ive_oneon.html
.
by Michelle Krebs
It’s been an eventful month for Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor North America.
Earlier this month, Press was named the first non-Japanese to the Toyota Motor Corp. board in Tokyo; about a year ago he became the first American to head Toyota Motor North America. And then, just this week, Toyota surpassed General Motors for the first time in history in global car sales; a move long expected but not clear when it would happen.
In an exclusive one-on-one interview with AutoObserver Thursday, Press shrugged off both events as not terribly significant.
Toyota’s No. 1 spot, he says, is not a milestone or accomplishment; rather it is the result, he claims, of doing what Toyota does: building quality, reliable cars with good value and taking care of customers.
He calls his role as the first non-Japanese on Toyota’s board an evolution and inevitable as the carmaker grows as a global company with the bulk of its sales outside of Japan. He sees his role as a conduit for communications between Toyota in North America and back to Japan and from Japan back to North America.
He adroitly responds to critics who charge the now No. 1 Toyota faces challenges as it grows, such as risking becoming complacent or even arrogant, stretching its lean human resources beyond their limits and missing promising opportunities due to its leanness.
As for the future of Toyota in the global auto industry, he predicts in another 10 years, only about a half-dozen major auto companies will exist –- and Toyota will be among them. And future drivers will be tooling around in plug-in hybrids of all kinds.
Here’s a transcript of Press’ exchange with AutoObserver:
This week Toyota surpassed General Motors as the No. 1 automaker in the world in terms of sales. What does that milestone mean for Toyota?
Not much. It’s not really a milestone. It represents the results of what we’ve been trying to do -- build better cars, better value, take care of customers. We’re really not responsible for what happens at other companies. For us, it’s not a sales race. We think more about focusing on our own business plan. The other thing, honestly, a quarter does not make a year. It’s really not, in our minds, a milestone or accomplishment.
Does being No. 1 bring with it new challenges, new responsibilities?
It’s not because of that. But as our company continues to grow and expands our footprint, it is more incumbent on us to re-double our efforts to improve the things that got us here, like making sure our quality improves, our efficiencies get better, our cost-saving efforts pay off, our innovation and technology investments pay off and we’re able to cycle those into production...customer service at the dealership improves. All the things that are the factors of success continue to become more important as you get bigger. And we never want to appear to the customer as a big company; we want a more customer-friendly attitude and environment. Those are all challenges that come with size, and, as we grow, those are our challenges.
A lot of our growth has been outside of the U.S. A lot of our growth has been by entering markets where we were not represented before. We’ve had expansion in Europe and in China. We’re growing in Mexico. And we’ve entered market segments that we haven’t been in before. A lot of the growth is a continuing expansion or presence as demanded by customers. If the demand is there, we’re increasing our capacity to meet that demand. The key aspect is as demand grows we do our best to satisfy it. We call that growing with honor.
Toyota has its critics. I'd like you to address some of their charges. For instance, one is that Toyota is prisoner of its own success. That the seeds of Toyota’s future problems are planted in its success of today.
Those are traps you have to avoid. Those are traps you can fall into as a large organization that’s growing, definitely. Complacency and believing your own headlines are the worst things that can happen. We have to avoid arrogance. We have to continue to be worried about the things that need to be fixed, not take pride in the things that are taken care of. We’ve got to make sure that we focus on getting better. We have a saying that the good news can wait. We want to focus on issues that need to improve. People outside the company may consider complacency or arrogance could set in. But from inside the company, we see so many things we aren’t doing very well and that we could do better. That’s our focus -- on doing a better job. We work for the customer. Our customers are very demanding bosses. Satisfying them is a never-ending quest that we’re committed to.
Some critics charge that Toyota is too lean. One Japanese official said Toyota has a “human resources crisis.”
I don’t think “too lean” is the word [sic]. If we err, we’re not going to err on the side of excess capacity or excess resources. Interesting that the mother of invention is created by need. One of the reasons we’re as efficient as we are is that we’re used to operating in small footprints. We’re used to operating in an environment of insufficient supply of raw materials and resources. So it creates a discipline to make sure we’re making the best decisions of optimizing the resources available. And when you are growing, obviously you’re contending with the allocation of scarce resources. On the other side, the advantage to that is efficiencies and better utilization. It also reflects the company’s commitment to grow our own, create our own resources, understand them, have them be our DNA. Our engineers, for example, come in at a junior level that lets them understand, grow, learn. That allows them, as they mature, to become more productive, more efficient and to create products in our own vision. That’s an advantage of not adding too many people too quickly at a senior level.
But critics say the danger of Toyota’s leanness is its inability to capitalize on new, promising opportunities.
There are probably opportunities that we don’t take advantage of, that’s true. But we’re committed to growing within the capability of our organization and maintain the things that got us here -– the quality, reliability appeal value.
Another criticism -- Toyota is reluctant to look at new ways of doing things. It has an aversion to change. It’s sort of the “why change something that’s not broken” environment. Do you agreement with that assessment?
No, I don’t. My feeling is the quality of our management is totally top notch and focused on the business of the future. They make decisions that anticipate the future. Therefore we’re not in a state of constantly confronting problems and changing directions but we’re executing a strategy and plans that have been envisioned in the past. The approach the company takes is a more conservative decision-making process that tries to avoid wrong decisions and therefore it takes longer to make decisions. But once a decision is made, the quality is better and the organization is aligned with it. Execution is then painless, quick and accurate. The term “reluctant to change” is not fair. Cautious, yes. We have a saying that before a Toyota person crosses a bridge, we check every rock. So far, that’s been a pretty good approach.
Give some examples of change then.
Ten years ago, the company made a significant change by investing in hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles. Nobody else did it or was doing it. That has really paid off the last couple of years. They made the change not in a crisis or because of a problem but because it was the appropriate time and the future dictated that for good business.
We added Scion. We’ve done a lot in terms of innovation in our plants. We’ve been adding capacity; we’ve got 600,000 units coming onstream right now. Those are decisions you could call change, but are really an execution of a plan.
Critics also say Toyota operates an environment of political correctness where dissenting opinions are frowned upon. For instance, you don’t tell the emperor he’s naked.
Oh no. The emperor is constantly asking, “Tell me how my clothes look.” An example of that is the change in my status. As it was stated to me, that change is an effort to improve communications directly to the top and to the board so they know exactly what is going on and what the current situation is. The company’s feeling that good news can wait is true. Look at the shop floor and our pull-cord system [that workers use to stop assembly line for problems]. That’s a quick way for the emperor to figure out there’s a problem. People who have a political agenda and maybe don’t share information are not rewarded. It’s just the opposite of what you say.
Let’s use the Internet as an example. Toyota focuses a huge amount of attention on its dealers and dealerships, whereas the market is shifting to shopping on the Internet. One of your luxury competitors has noted a substantial decline in showroom traffic, despite a surge in sales, because customers do 75 percent of the work on the Internet. The perception is that Toyota lags in regard to the Internet.
The dealer organization is one of our greatest assets. They have been a key component not only of our success but more importantly our direction and for feedback. They reflect the customer. The investments they make in facilities -– over $2 billion in the last couple years -- and success they’ve had has allowed them to add organizational depth and capabilities as well as facilities and processes that allow them to be big businesses on their own. The Internet obviously plays a key role, but our dealers are really the masters of the Internet.
Are they? Some sense Toyota dealers view the Internet as their competitor.
They are the masters of the Internet, not masters of lead generators. The Internet is a great source of information for customers to arm themselves to make informed decisions. They use the Internet well for that. Customers who wish to can use the Internet to interface with the dealer.
It’s also hard to generalize because of our broad scope of customers. Scion customers are very Internet savvy, and our dealers run with that. We have Scion customers who never go into the dealership, except to pick up their car. Scion is designed to be Internet-friendly. Lexus is heavily Internet [dependent] in terms of repeat customers. We would agree with our luxury competitors in that regard on the importance of the Internet, and we do see a lot of upfront work done by [customers] on the Internet before they come to the showroom. But the Toyota customer base chooses less Internet activity. It’s substantial but not as much as Scion.
We’ve created a system where it is up to the customer to configure the sales process and the purchasing process and the dealer interface. Customers configure that. If they want high touch, they can. If they want to be low touch, they can.
Explain your new role as the first non-Japanese on the board of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC).
My role is more of an evolution. It is more involved in being an effective conduit of communications from the North American market into the decision-making process at TMC as well as being able to understand and communicate back to the North American operation TMC’s thinking. That way we can have a better understanding, more efficient communication and more efficient operations that are more aligned. By providing that, the North American operation can be more self-reliant in a way that it is supportive of TMC and TMC’s overall strategy, goals and objectives. We have the ability to be more independent, and we can better understand and operate under the guidelines of Toyota’s worldwide operations. It is [Toyota Motor Corp.'s chairman Fujio] Cho’s way to think globally, act locally. I can be the connection to that local market to think globally and act locally.
Do you consider yourself a change agent?
No. I think it is a role we’ve been providing but this allows us the next level up of decision-making and input. A change agent is a factor in a turnaround situation or crisis. I think probably what I’m trying to do is be more of a conduit of a learning organization -- both the learning organization at operations locally and a learning aspect of the global operation so we’re making the right investment decisions, overall guidelines and strategies.
Can you give an example of an issue with which you might become involved as a conduit between the two entities?
For example, understanding the growth plan in terms of investments in product and manufacturing, communicating the needs of our local market while understanding the global resource allocations of TMC. I’d connect those two up so they don’t get out of step but are going in the same direction.
Is it significant that you are the first non-Japanese on the Toyota board?
I think that it’s inevitable because Toyota has grown globally and become a global organization and is deriving the bulk of the volume no longer in Japan. It was a matter of time of having somebody with experience and time within the company. Even though in American terms I’ve been with the company a long time –- I’m 60 years old with 37 years with Toyota, I’m fairly young in terms of time with the company compared with those on the board.
It was a process also of the company growing confidence in the North American operation to be more self-reliant and growing confidence in the non-Japanese in the North American operation who have the capability, understanding and virtues of the Toyota Way.
So as a global company, might there be a European or a Chinese on the Toyota board someday?
I would think the door has been opened. My task is to not screw it up and set a good precedent for people to follow!
With Toyota No. 1 in sales, does Toyota’s face to the external world change? Toyota’s operated under the radar screen and is now under the microscope.
First, we don’t feel like we’re No. 1. And we haven’t been under the radar screen for a while. A lot of attention has been given to our company. We’re growing our understanding of external affairs. The company’s operation doesn’t have to change. The only thing we have to understand is how we communicate what we’re doing in the right way. For example, the mission of Toyota has always been focused on improving and contributing to society, investing in the local economy where we do business, building better quality, efficiency, relations with business partners and dealers.
We’re about philanthropy and generosity. We’ve always invested in environmental and safety technology. We’ve done those things because they are the right things to do for society. But we’ve never developed a muscle of exposing that or marketing that. We never had to or even thought about it. Some companies who maybe don’t do those things do the publicity to make it look like that kind of company. We don’t have to do that. All you have to do is turn the lights on, and you can see what we’re doing.
That’s the thing we’re learning to do –- how to communicate. It’s not in our nature. We’re fairly modest. We don’t see ourselves in the light of what we’re doing right, but we see ourselves as what we need to do better. That’s what we need help with –- how to properly communicate who we are.
So what’s happened, because we’re not glib and public relations savvy, we wind up in a situation where other people define us. We don’t have a chance to define ourselves. And the detractors define us in the worst way they can. We need to get better at defining ourselves.
With your No. 1 sales position, are you concerned about a political backlash?
Obviously, we’re always concerned about the way we’re seen in the eyes of all of our constituents. Our customers like what we’re doing; we’ve had very positive growth because the demand is there. We’re growing because we’re building the kinds of products they want with good quality, reliability and value and our dealers are giving good service. In terms of the political environment, other people are trying to define us. We need to communicate a level of understanding who we are and what we aren’t.
What’s your vision for Toyota and automotive landscape in another decade?
In 10 years, the global shifting among the large corporations will arrive at the point that there are five, six or seven equal-size companies that carve up the business. There will be continued growth and auto demand in the world that will fuel expansion in the industry. But the cost of implementing innovative technology, environmental and safety features, and improving efficiency of operation will burden companies to the point the high cost and high capital-intensive nature of the business will allow only certain companies to exist. The five, six or seven companies will be some niche operators and some mass-market full-line operators. Toyota will be one of those. We’ll be positioned of trying to be the best to take care of the customer and build best product to the long-term benefit of society. We will be known as the company that continues to commit itself to improving society in any way we can.
What will my 15-year-old be driving in 10 years; and what will your toddler grandchildren –- besides driving a Toyota -- be driving when they are old enough to drive?
Ten years from now, your children will be driving a plug-in hybrid powered by diesel, ethanol or blended fuel. My grandchildren will drive plug-in hybrids powered by hydrogen and fuel cells.
About Jim Press
I first got to know Jim Press in the mid 1990s when he was general manager for Lexus. I particularly remember attending the press preview for a redesigned ES model. I was seated next to Jim for dinner at the Laura Ashley-outfitted Keswick Hall in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our discussion centered the lack of passion in design of Lexus models then. Press acknowledged that shortcoming.
During the night, a hurricane slammed Charlottesville; the storm had been predicted but arrived more quickly than forecasted and took an unexpected turn, putting us in its path.
No deaths or injuries occurred, but Charlottesville shut down. Roads flooded, the electricity went out and trees fell, including one that knocked out the hotel’s new generator.
Those of us attending the event sleepily trudged out of our hotel rooms in PJs and with bed head, greeted by elegant candelabras lining the halls and stairways. We waited around for the power to come on and the roads to be cleared, but that didn’t happen.
So Toyota sent troops out in SUVs to clear trees from our drive route, and the show went on. Press, not nearly as adept at oratory and public relations as he is so skilled at today, improvised his schtick, doing his slide show in the dark -– with no slides.
Little did I know then that Press would rise through the ranks of Toyota as he has and have so many "firsts" before his name. And surely, he didn’t know that either when he was a kid tooling around in go-karts and roadsters in Kansas.
Press was born in Pasadena, California, but his family moved to Prairie Village, Kansas, when he was 7. He graduated from go-karts, the first of which he acquired when he was 8, to a beat-up 1928 Ford Roadster he got in 1959. From that moment, Press, once a mechanic, has said he was in love with cars.
After graduating from Kansas State College (now Pittsburg State University) in Pittsburgh, Kansas, with a degree in business administration, Press joined Ford as management. He then followed his boss to Toyota in 1970. He intended to learn the business and then become a dealer. In 1989, Press did a stint with Jim Moran, a dealer who established Toyota’s Southeast distributorship. Moran, an inductee of the Automotive Hall of Fame, died this week.
Press then held a number of positions at Toyota, including general manager of Lexus. He then was named president and COO of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., where he had overall responsibility for sales, marketing and distribution for Toyota, Scion and Lexus products in the United Sates. Press was the first American president of TMS.
Press also became the first American president of the New York City-based Toyota North America (TMA) last year. TMA is the holding company created in 1996 to be responsible for Toyota's North American sales, engineering and manufacturing operating units.
Press was the first international automotive executive elected to chair the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry's top trade group. He has received the "Distinguished Service Citation Award" from the Automotive Hall of Fame and has been named an industry "All-Star" leader by both Automotive News and Automobile magazine. In 2004, Fortune magazine called him Toyota's "secret weapon," saying he "arguably has as much influence over the course of the American auto industry as anyone else alive."
When Press is not on the job, he can be found in the air or in the water.
Press is a certified commercial pilot and was president of Toyota's Aviation Business Development Office in the early 1990s. During that time, he was also responsible for AirFlite –- a fixed-base operation in Long Beach, California. Press told me he isn’t getting as much air time to be as competent as he’d like but he is flying in New York and Thailand, his new wife’s homeland.
But he doesn’t miss his time in the pool, swimming at least once a day. Press is a Masters swimmer and a triathlete. He was awarded the Gold Medallion by the International Swimming Hall of Fame and he belongs to the Los Angeles and Peninsula Masters swim team. He also lived on a powerboat off the California coast for 14 years. Over the years, he’s also been involved in auto racing and riding motorcycles.
Press and his new wife, Suwichada, live in New York City. Together they have six children: Robert, Jason, Christopher and Elizabeth, Guy and Nong. He also has grandchildren.
http://www.autoobserver.com/2007/04/...ive_oneon.html
.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
LexFather
Car Chat
10
03-31-05 09:51 PM
