General Motors and Toyota
Comparative Organization Analysis

Organizational Theory
Week 3
May 2013

Table of Contents Introduction 3 Organizations and Industry Context 3 Firm Structures 6 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats 9 Insights from the Structural Frame 14 Conclusion 15 Illustrations 18 Works Cited 21

Introduction General Motors (GM) and Toyota are both well-known companies in the automotive industry. They offer quality products to their customers and try to maintain the high standards of each of the companies. General Motors and Toyota offer vehicles of different models but are used for most of the same purposes. Throughout this discussion, the following topics will be …show more content…

"The idea is to provide customers with product and service information along with essential maintenance tips and other information." Toyota says customers will also be able to communicate with their friends and family via services like Twitter and Facebook and will also be available on smartphones, tablets, and similar devices.
Firm Structures
General Motors In 2010, General Motors announced they would be restructuring their North American organization with a flurry of key leadership changes across their core North American brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Buick-GMC (Luft, 2010). They stated that they would be moving away from a combined sales and marketing organization to one that enables the company to engage experts in each respective role. This means that they would be matching more qualified personnel with the jobs that require more expertise. They believe that this would place a great emphasis on GM's hopes that these changes would lead to an increased focus on their customers. By placing a greater direct responsibility on the company executives, they are bound to lead to better results in sales and marketing. GM North America's organizational structure, or multidivisional matrix structure, (Figure 2) was put into effect on March, 2, 2010. In March 2013, Toyota Motor Corporation announced that it would be implementing executive, organizational, and personnel changes to further