In February 2005, when Toyota appointed Katsuaki Watanabe as the new president of Toyota, many people speculated that he would be a "defensive" CEO, with a steady style and not many surprises.
Due to its rapid development in the American market, Toyota has become a political and diplomatic goal of the United States and Japan. Toyota Motor Corporation appointed Katsuaki Watanabe, a low-key supply manager, as its president, which was a safe choice at that time. Others believe that Katsuaki Watanabe's appointment reflects that after 65,438+00 years of rapid growth, the management's attention to cost control has changed. However, judging from Katsuaki Watanabe's actions in the past two years, Toyota's purpose goes far beyond this. At the same time, people's impression of Katsuaki Watanabe's low profile is not the whole of his personality.
A few days ago, Toyota invested $654.38+02 billion in a new factory in Texas, USA. The factory produces full-size tundra pickup trucks. At the ceremony of the new car's off-line, Katsuaki Watanabe showed his enthusiasm unexpectedly, which surprised the American media.
"Many people speculated that he was a weak leader, but he surprised everyone," said Takagi Nishi, an analyst at Morgan Securities in Tokyo.
Nevertheless, Katsuaki Watanabe is still the least-known president of Toyota for many years. After working for more than a year, his fame is not as good as that of his two predecessors. Hiroshi Okuda is famous for its political sensitivity; Fujio Cho's manufacturing technology and passionate personality made him a celebrity in Kentucky, where Toyota's first American factory was located.
Watanabe Jiezhaotong is often not interested in the occasions where auto giants need to appear. He didn't attend the north american international auto show in Detroit in 2005. He attended only one reception at the Paris Motor Show in September this year.
Stick to one's opinion
Toyota has repeatedly rejected many mergers and acquisitions and alliance proposals. However, in 2005, Katsuaki Watanabe overcame many obstacles and bought shares in Fuji Heavy Industries and Isuzu.
Some people think that Toyota's two mergers and acquisitions are a helping hand to GM. Because General Motors wants to sell its subsidiaries to raise cash. But Katsuaki Watanabe believes that in the long run, this action will benefit Toyota more. In Subaru's M&A transaction, Toyota absorbed more engineers. The number of engineers in a factory in Indonesia alone has increased by 50%. In 2007, Toyota predicted that the annual output of Camry in Indonesia would exceed 654.38 million.
Katsuaki Watanabe said that the merger of Isuzu Motor Company enabled Toyota Motor Company to acquire diesel engine and four-wheel drive vehicle technology, and compete with leading American and European companies in these two fields.
Katsuaki Watanabe told the media that the goal of Toyota Motor Corporation is not to add trouble to the troubled American automakers, but to win over consumers who have already bought Toyota cars and also own GM or Ford trucks.
Make every effort to meet the challenge.
Katsuaki Watanabe likes classical music and once joined the university choir. He used to work in the sales, finance and manufacturing departments of Toyota Motor Corporation. When he joined Toyota Motor Corporation from 65438 to 0964, his first job was to manage the staff canteen in the human resources department.
Management, especially procurement, contributed to Katsuaki Watanabe's continuous promotion. When Toyota Motor Corporation expands in North America, Europe and Asia, the procurement work becomes more important. In order to eliminate repeated purchases, Toyota Motor Corporation began to implement a cost reduction plan named CCC2 1.
In the past 10 years, Toyota has pushed its suppliers to continuously reduce prices and costs through this plan, saving about 10 billion dollars in parts procurement costs. Katsuaki Watanabe has expanded its procurement scope to suppliers outside Japan, such as buying steel from Posco, and signed more orders and contracts with Delphi. In order to reduce business expenses, he forbade his subordinates to book expensive hotels.
Katsuaki Watanabe attaches great importance to communication with customers and low-level employees of the factory, which is one of the secrets of Toyota's great success in the American market in recent two years.
When visiting a factory in San Antonio, Texas, Katsuaki Watanabe only stayed for two days and spent most of his time visiting users. He inspected the new pickup truck factory and 2 1 suppliers supplying the factory. Gary Convis, vice president of North American manufacturing at Toyota, said that Katsuaki Watanabe asked newly hired workers and middle managers about the new factory. Instead of having dinner with local officials, Katsuaki Watanabe had lunch with the manager of the parts factory.
Toyota Motor Corporation is studying whether to establish new factories in North America, Asia and Europe. However, Katsuaki Watanabe was very cautious about this and made no statement. In addition, as GM and Ford introduce more crossover models and small cars, whether Toyota product types can meet the changing market demand is also one of the difficult problems facing Katsuaki Watanabe.
Katsuaki Watanabe, 64, is regarded as a "transitional CEO". "Katsuaki Watanabe is a' transitional CEO' who took over the job before Akio Toyoda was able to take over," said Yokoi Yu, a former Toyota accountant and now CSM Worldwide analyst. When the time is right, Katsuaki Watanabe can easily be replaced. "Akio Toyoda is in charge of the Internet business of Toyota Motor Corporation, including the automobile business in China, and served as the executive vice president of Toyota Motor Corporation last year. This is a position that is easy to move to the highest position. However, I believe that before leaving office, Katsuaki Watanabe will do something amazing.
Visit Katsuaki Watanabe.
Dream of building a car and traveling around the world with full gas.
According to this plan, by 2008, the annual output of Toyota cars in North America alone will reach 6.5438+0.84 million, and the global output of Toyota cars will reach 9.65438+0.08 million. By then, Toyota will surpass GM and become the world's largest automobile company.
63-year-old Katsuaki Watanabe gazed at the downtown area of Tokyo with many high-rise buildings through light brown glasses and a huge glass curtain wall. Outside the window was the rolling traffic on the viaduct.
"Make a car that can travel around the world with a full tank of gas." Katsuaki Watanabe dreamed of his car.
Katsuaki Watanabe speaks very fast. A few months ago, American Businessweek named Katsuaki Watanabe "the most outstanding leader in the world business in 2005". The commentary of Businessweek wrote: "Although Watanabe's dream of becoming a professional baseball player as a child did not come true, he succeeded on a bigger platform."
The financial report released by Toyota Motor Corporation on the 7th of this month shows that its sales revenue in the first half of fiscal year increased by 65,438+05.3% compared with the same period of last year, reaching 97 billion US dollars. Net profit rose by 36.2% to a new high of $6.57 billion. Toyota therefore predicts that the net profit for the whole fiscal year will reach $654.38+$03.3 billion. If the goal is achieved, Toyota will become the most profitable company among Japanese automakers.
"I hope to live with my dreams." 1October 24th, 10, Katsuaki Watanabe told China Business News at Toyota's Tokyo headquarters. This is his first interview with China media since he became president of Toyota last June.
"What is a good automobile product?"
On the first day of Toyota's interview, the company's environment minister Yitian showed their own "Earth Charter" to reporters.
Yitian said that in Toyota's view, automobile products should be maximized in preventing greenhouse effect, preventing air pollution and effectively using resources, so as to minimize carbon dioxide and automobile exhaust emissions and promote resource recycling.
"What is a good automobile product?" Katsuaki Watanabe said, "It is friendly to the environment and people, making people feel convenient and comfortable."
The reporter noted that in Toyota, the process of environmental protection is also a process of constantly creating benefits.
In Toyota's wholly-owned automobile recycling factory, the reporter saw that the crushed scrapped cars were transported into the factory and put into the automatic disassembly assembly line by huge grab buckets, and then metal, plastic and automobile fragments were recycled. It can handle scrapped cars 1200 vehicles, recover 400 tons of iron and car fragments 150 tons every day, and recover 700 kilograms of pure copper every day. The annual net profit of the recycling factory exceeds 6,543.8 billion yen.
From June, 5438 to October, 2005 10, Japan began to implement the automobile recycling law, aiming at promoting the recycling and reasonable disposal of scrapped automobiles. This law stipulates the responsibilities and obligations of automobile production enterprises and relevant departments respectively. It is required that automobile manufacturers must be responsible for receiving, recycling and properly handling freon, airbag and automobile debris of scrapped automobiles.
Katsuaki Watanabe believes that at present, there is still room for China manufacturers and consumers to improve their understanding of automobile culture, and there is no R&D system for automobile core technologies. The urgent task is to do two things well: one is to reduce emissions, and the other is to save fuel.
In order to provide the most suitable car for China market, it is necessary to carry out technical development together with China technicians. However, Katsuaki Watanabe admitted that Toyota has not officially set up a research and development base in China. "But I think it will definitely be necessary in the future."
"wring the last drop of water from the towel"
"The' dream car' I mentioned is undoubtedly an important measure to improve the quality of enterprise products." Katsuaki Watanabe believes that these measures will eventually help to expand the scale of enterprises.
After Toyota became the second largest automobile company in the world in 2003, the industry always thought that it was only a matter of time before it surpassed GM to become the world's largest automobile company. Toyota also plans to increase Japan's overseas production capacity by 40% on the basis of 2005 and reach an annual output of 5 million vehicles by 2008.