Over at Automotive News [registration may be required] Hans Greimel reports that the newish president of Toyota isn’t seeing all sun and roses like in those Prius ads:

Toyota is ‘grasping for salvation’ as losses continue, chief says

Founder’s grandson says company is too big, distant from customers

Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda said his money-losing automaker is “grasping for salvation” as it struggles to return to profit.

The world’s largest car company was once targeting annual sales of 10 million vehicles but now expects sales of 7.3 million this year, down from 8.97 million in 2008, Toyoda said today at a news conference here.

Citing the five stages of corporate decline outlined by Jim Collins, author of How the Mighty Fall, the Toyota chief warned that his company has slumped to stage four, which Collins calls “grasping for salvation.”

“We are grasping for salvation,” Toyoda said, adding that the company already has spiraled through the first three stages: (1) hubris born of success, (2) undisciplined pursuit of more and (3) denial of risk and peril. His self-admonitions echoed the apologies commonly made by Japanese executives who take responsibility for financial turmoil or corporate scandal.

{…}

“When you get to this level, it makes it difficult to return to profit on sales growth alone,” he said.

Toyoda repeated Toyota’s aim to return to profit at the parent level “as soon as possible,” even as it expects global sales to fall 18 percent from 2008 to 7.34 million vehicles this year. That would leave about 30 percent of the company’s production capacity unused.

My, my . . . doesn’t that look a lot like the GM of old? You’d think that the Japanese would have learned that lesson as they saw the great U.S. automotive giant slowly collapse into insolvency, but it becomes apparent that hubris, thy name is the mega-international-corporation.

Oh and BTW — This isn’t gonna help much!

Technorati Tags: Toyota, Akio Toyoda, grasping for salvation

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