Keiretsu and Chaebols Keiretsu – a group of closely related Japanese companies, often with interlocking ownership. Traditionally, there have been both horizontal and vertical keiretsu. Horizontal keiretsu center on a main bank and their companies span various industries. Vertical keiretsu center on a major manufacturer, like Toyota, and include its various suppliers and wholesalers. The keiretsu encourage its members to award contracts to sister companies and cooperate with each other for the overall good of the keiretsu.
The keiretsu dominated the Japanese economy in the last half of the twentieth century. More recently, however, the keiretsu have been losing their grip, and the long-term business relationships of the keiretsu are fraying. When written in Japanese, keiretsu comprises two characters, meaning “system” and “row”. Thus the term keiretsu is now used more generally to mean an alliance of companies and individuals that work together for mutual benefit Chaebols – The chaebol are the large, conglomerate family-controlled firms of South Korea characterized by strong ties with government agencies.
The name, which means business association, is properly pronounced jay BOL but the spelling pronunciation chay bol is considered acceptable by Korean speakers. There were family-owned enterprises in Korea in the period before 1961 but the particular state-corporate alliance came into being with the regime of Park Chung Hee (1961-1979). The chaebol were prohibited from owning a bank. The Park regime nationalized the banks of South Korea and could channel scarce capital to industries and firms it saw as necessary for achieving national objectives.
The government-favored chaebol had special privileges and grew large. This gave the impression of economic success for the chaebol that was not always valid. In some cases chaebol grew not because they were profitable but merely because they could borrow vast funds. When the international economy took a downturn these debt-ridden businesses were in trouble. In 1999 one quarter of the manufacturers in South Korea did not earn enough to meet the payments required for their debt. In recent years there has been the growth of mid-sized corporations which are outside of the chaebol arrangement.
For example, Appeal Telecom was started by a former employee of Samsung, Lee Ga Hyoung. Appeal Telecom is manufacturing and marketing cell phones and has risen to the top in its field. In Germany the mid-sized corporation make a great contribution to the economy and there is no reason that such firms could not be an important element of the South Korean economy. How can Toyota regain its position in the hearts and minds of consumers after the massive car recalls beginning of this year? Toyota Turns To Twitter To Repair Its Image
Toyota has been dealing with negative backlash from the massive safety recalls of its vehicles; and is even suffering in terms of sales. The Japanese auto giant has launched a branded channel on TweetMeme, in partnership with Federated Media, which aggregates and organize Twitter conversations regarding Toyota. Called Toyota Conversations, the site brings together the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, from news articles to press releases. The site also shows visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter.
And the channel includes a Featured Tweets from Toyota’s Twitter account and press room as well as AdTweets, which are Tweetmeme’s retweetable ads for Toyota Negative news no more? As most of the top stories that are being aggregated on the site, that most of them is positive and thus doesn’t match that of the negative news that seemed to match the general tone of the media writing about Toyota, which has been quick to criticize the car company for its manufacturing mistakes.
With Tweetfeel ( Twitter sentiment application), it seem that Toyota has chosen this as it can be step up to pick only certain news sources which may be positive to them. And by looking at how Twitter has influence things between numerous brands, Toyota has chose to follow suit and this allow Toyota not only to monitor and track what is begin said about Toyota but to influence and participate in the conversation. The main ideas behind Toyota utilizing Twitter are: 1) To help stem the tide of negativity and 2) To deal with the backlashes that have been heaped upon it during the car recalls period.
Toyota’s twitter site does mainly revolves around assimilating the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, such as news articles and press releases, while showing visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter. Akio’s Plan Akio Toyoda is the president and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation Lately, Toyota has not lived up to the high standards we set for ourselves. I am deeply disappointed by that and apologize. That is why I am personally leading the effort to restore trust in our word and in our products. 1.
Launch a top-to-bottom review of our global operations to ensure that problems of this magnitude do not happen again and not only meet but also exceed high safety standards. 2. Ensure that our quality-control operations are in line with best industry practices. 3. Aggressively investigate complaints we hear directly from consumers and move more quickly to address any safety issues we identify. You have my commitment that Toyota will revitalize the simple but powerful principle that has guided us for 50 years: Toyota will build the highest-quality, safest and most reliable automobiles in the world.
