Business Communication Toyota

INTRODUCTION

Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) was established in September 5, 1995 and officially started operating as an affiliate of Toyota Motor Corporation (Japan) from October, 1996. TMV's headquarter is located in Phuc Yen, Vinh Phuc province with two representative agencies in Hanoi and Hochiminh city. Its main operation is manufacturing and assembling cars with daily big volume of more than 100 cars. As a large company of more than 1000 workers, the issues of communication are extremely important to TMV. The company itself is aware of communication importance, which is the most evident in its attempt to increasingly take advantages of innovative means of information dissemination. Notwithstanding, TMV has still encountered some obstacles of ineffective approaches to internally communicate. Especially, with a typical feature of factory, TMV operation depends mainly on 3 main divisions, composing of Production, Marketing, and Finance, which require a complicated system of internal communication generating various problems such as lack of two way communication; time consuming related issues, or being labor-intensive.

This paper aims at finding out common means of business communication used in TMV, especially focusing on their drawbacks and simultaneously making some recommendation. The research scope is conducted in Toyota factory in Phuc Yen, Vinh Phuc. The report's main contents will be divided into two main parts, including brief explanation of internal communication channels within the organization, and further details of their downsides.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to Wikipedia, Communication is often defined as an exchange of information. True communication requires a two-way process (a dialogue, not a monologue). Internal communications including all communication within an organization may be oral or written, face to face or virtual, one-on-one or in a small group.

Effective internal communication - which can be said to be "downward, upward, and horizontal" - is a vital means of addressing organizational concerns. Good internal communication helps to establish formal roles and responsibilities for employees. Any organization failing to create an effective environment of communication will face the risks of declining performance. There exist numerous studies suggesting examples of effective communication inside corporate. However, it is hard to find out a research about existing ineffective communication in a specific organization and suggestive solutions to improve the situation. Clearly, there is room for more research in this aspect of business communication.

METHODOLOGY

• Primary data:

Primary data were collected by conducting both unstructured for administrative staff and structured interviews whose contents follow the questionnaires for Production Administration Department (PAD). The interviewees include some employees from Administrative staff (mainly from HR department with 2 people) and from production division (PAD with 8 people) and all of them completed the questionnaires before moving on interviews.

? Secondary data:

Firstly, some brief and general information on corporate or internal business communication was collected and synchronized through some academic books (see the reference list). Later on, a certain amount of information on Toyota Motor Corporation (the whole Toyota system) in general was found out on the Internet (http://moven.wordpress.com) and used as a basis for following flow of research.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1. Results

Raw data:

+ Questionnaire reply: 10 respondents

? 1st Q: 5 choose options # 4 and 5 (check information on Notice board >=1 per week)

? 2nd Q: All of them opted "No" for their answer (the information quoted is very necessary)

? 5th Q: 5 people revealed that they encountered spammed letters/notes. And 3 of the rest complained that Lotus Notes are not used on the intended purpose.

? 7th Q: there are 5 replies to the issue of time-consuming and 5 to pressure. And 1 respondent realizes that he faced language barrier when he communicated with their seniors.

+ Interview:

Unstructured questions for Administrative staff:

(See Appendix 03 for the list of questions)

? There are 3 major means of communication including Written communications, meetings, and Visualization

? Their