Toyota Motor Corp., waylaid three years ago by a recall scandal whose aftershocks hurt sales, is pushing hard to repair its reputation.Under pressure from CEO Akio Toyoda and its critics, the Japanese automaker is delegating more responsibility and autonomy to regional managers, including promoting a former General Motors Corp. executive to its governing board of directors.
Gone are the days when prices for vehicles to be sold in the United States and Canada are set at headquarters in Nagoya, Bob Carter, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.’s senior vice president of automotive operations, said Thursday. Regional managers have been making those calls since January.
Three years after a spate of problems mushroomed into a global embarrassment for Japan’s No. 1 automaker and the scion of its founding family, Toyota is restructuring a network of functional and regional silos blamed for exacerbating the mess. Its twin legacies are big legal bills and an agonizing reappraisal of processes that proved to be less vaunted than their hype.
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