Toyota and the world

First off, let’s tear down the semantic spider web. What exactly is an IMV? Simply put, IMV is an acronym for "Innovative Multipurpose Vehicle". What then is a multipurpose vehicle? It’s the kind of vehicle that deviates from traditional expectations — often combining the best attributes of sedans and utility vehicles in one package. For our purposes, Toyota made sure to use the prefix "Innovative" to stress an important advancement in their current project — the fact that this new generation of vehicles has been developed with very specific markets in mind. Shut up and spell it out, you say? How about we give an example? Here are the IMVs available in the Philippine market today — the Toyota Hilux and the Toyota Innova. Ah, that piqued your interest…

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the size of Mt. Makiling, you’re probably aware that the new Toyota Hilux and the Toyota Innova have been making brisk business in the Philippines of late. Motoring aficionados are also very much aware that these vehicles are virtual "firsts" in the local automotive industry. In other words, we’ve really never seen anything like them in their price range before. Ha! All of the sudden the words "Innovative Multipurpose Vehicle" don’t seem too alien now, do they?

Officially launched in Australia over the second weekend of March, the IMV project introduced a number of Asian motoring journalists to a very interesting bunch of vehicles and processes that practically proved how serious Toyota is in catching up with the great American duo (General Motors and Ford) in the worldwide sales race. Not that Toyota isn’t visible enough as it is. As Vince Socco, general manager of the Marketing Services Department of Toyota Motor Asia Pacific stressed during the said launch, "Toyota sells in more countries than Starbucks Coffee and McDonalds." He isn’t exaggerating. Toyota has customers in all the continents around the world save for Antarctica, and its vehicles are available in over 140 countries. Those are some staggering numbers, indeed.

But the said numbers aren’t nearly enough. This aggressive Japanese enterprise knows that if it is to make a serious run for the top, it has to localize its efforts to suit the needs of the diverse auto markets around the world. And this is where the IMV project comes in.

Targeted Efforts

Steven Covey of the "Seven Habits" fame stresses that one of the keys to a successful endeavor is for a person or entity to "begin with the end in mind". Well, let’s go back as far as we can to see where Toyota started with the IMV idea. Realizing that there are many countries in the world where the road environment is still improving (Can you say Philippines?), Toyota decided to initiate its IMV program to address the needs of a group of buyers who needed affordable yet high quality cars that could support their daily lives given such road conditions. And seeing as to how such conditions were found mostly in developing countries like those found in our region, Toyota decided to embark on a project that traces its roots to the region itself.

This is where all the "innovation" begins. As Toyota is a Japanese entity, the regular practice is for an original prototype vehicle to be produced in Japan, then copied in regional plants when production begins. For the IMV project, no such prototype was built, at least not in Japan. In Thailand and Indonesia, where Toyota has large manufacturing facilities, the IMV project was developed from scratch. It was in these countries where the five IMV models (another one of which is scheduled to debut in the Philippines soon) were designed — with road conditions and other factors like climate and local taste and needs being taken into consideration. Sourcing of materials was then distributed throughout the region to ensure that Toyota would be able to obtain the highest quality parts for the most reasonable prices (Asahi, a Philippine supplier, for example, builds the windshields for the IMVs). It was a carefully calculated system that had to be adhered to in order for such a complex task to be completed, but Toyota has been known to persevere. The result of more than 600 suppliers working in congruence with a quality-oriented entity can now be seen in the roads of the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Reaping the Rewards

At the launch, the members of the Filipino contingent were in agreement that the fruits of Toyota’s groundbreaking efforts were evident in the local sales numbers. Both the Hilux and the Innova were, after all, leading their respective segments before we left for the Land Down Under. Socco, however, stressed that it wasn’t just Toyota that stood to gain most from the IMV project, but the local buying public as well. Which made sense. With the price range and the model variants available, the Hilux and the Innova have set new standards for buyers of brand new vehicles in the Philippines. Various needs and budgets have been addressed, and with the apparent entry of yet another IMV model, a new niche might yet be made.

The confidence in the IMV project within the Toyota organization is so pervasive, in fact, that no less than Shigeru Takayanagi, one-time Toyota Motor Philippines president and current senior vice president of the Marketing Planning Division of Toyota Motor Asia Pacific, stressed that the IMV project will be a portent of things to come for Toyota. "Using the IMV project as a benchmark, a new era of global projects is beginning, and the growth this will bring to the people and countries involved will also help Toyota to grow as an automobile manufacturer," he said. That, in a nutshell, is how beginning with the end in mind is bound to get you places.

Our subsequent test drives of all IMV variants proved that Toyota did their homework in looking after the Southeast Asians’ needs and preferences. We’ll feature the punishing and not-so-punishing exercises the IMVs went through in a future article. Suffice it to say, the vehicles did not disappoint — which is short of saying that at least from our perspective, the IMV project has gotten off to a great start. From the looks of it, Toyota has this going global thing right down pat. The automotive powers that be had better be wary. This is one Japanese enterprise that’s bound to take over the world, one car market at a time.