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Despite the repeated epidemics, chip supply crisis, serious internal volume in the stock market and other multiple difficulties, the Chinese auto market still withstood the pressure, with a slight increase of 3.1% year-on-year, ending the overall decline in sales of the Chinese auto market for three consecutive years.
Many industry analysts attribute this result to the hard work of independent brands and the emergence of new energy categories.
But as the lyrics of the annual hit song "Lone Brave" wrote, "Who says that standing in the light is the hero". Although the market share of mainstream joint venture brands fell from 51.1% to 45.6%, it cannot be generalized. Truly forward-looking joint venture brands can not only maintain "independence" under the lamination of their own brands, but also quietly carry out "elephant turning" when electrification and intelligence are swept.
For example, FAW Toyota. From the perspective of production and sales, in 2021, FAW Toyota achieved annual production of 832,000 vehicles, an increase of 7% year-on-year; sales of 860,000 units, an increase of 8% year-on-year, is one of the few joint venture brands that can achieve positive growth in both production and sales.
At the beginning of 2022, FAW Toyota also set a higher goal for itself - to achieve annual sales of one million vehicles.
Sales volume is often a hard indicator to measure the success or failure of enterprises, but in the process of achieving sales, the efforts made by enterprises have never been single, from research and development to production, from sales to marketing, from internal management to user operation, layer by layer, around the whole industry value chain that leads the whole body, which is indispensable.
Whether it's summarizing 2021 or looking ahead to 2022, these are crucial.
The ability to overcome capacity dilemmas
If in the past, car companies were worried about not being able to sell cars to squeeze inventory, then for mature car companies, they may be more worried about the shortage of parts: how to deliver on time. In 2021, the biggest pressure on car companies will come from a series of chain reactions caused by chips, epidemics, heavy rains, and floods.
To see the big picture, we may wish to take FAW Toyota as a foothold to see how it overcomes supply chain difficulties and brings production capacity up to the established standards. According to the official statement, in order to maximize the supply guarantee, FAW Toyota has implemented multi-level penetrating management for Tier 1 suppliers and related chip suppliers, and has recovered 175,000 chip resources for the whole year through risk grading control and high-level interview promotion.
Of course, to maximize the procurement advantage or to combine strong and powerful, FAW Toyota put forward more than 70 kinds of proposals to ensure that the procurement efficiency is maximized, many of which are eventually transformed into implementation plans and play a practical role.
Within the brand, FAW Toyota has also built a special collective decision-making system, covering the whole process of procurement through the demand-side budget committee, the project establishment committee and the procurement committee at the procurement end, combined with the party committee, the economic management committee, the collective decision-making of major procurement projects and controllable checks, and through digital platforms such as part procurement system, special adjustment system, group electronic trading platform and e-mall, covering the whole process of procurement to ensure compliance and efficiency of procurement behavior.
While making every effort to cope with procurement difficulties, FAW Toyota is also accelerating plant construction and capacity improvement. For example, in response to the repeated epidemics, FAW Toyota organized several rounds of nucleic acid testing and vaccination for all employees, and advocated employees to celebrate the Spring Festival, summer break and eleventh festivals on the spot to ensure smooth production after the holiday.
At the same time, FAW Toyota has also established a supply, production and marketing integration promotion system and emergency response mechanism to ensure that important information does not stay overnight, plan capacity matching in advance, turn monthly plans into weekly plans and daily judgments, compress the logistics response cycle, and maximize production.
Throughout 2021, FAW Toyota's many high-quality production bases around the world have also completed their operation plans ahead of schedule. For example, the Chengdu factory Asia Dragon successfully rolled off the production line, reached two peak production shifts within 44 days, and the capacity utilization rate reached 136.5%; the Tianjin base Crown Land Release was mass-produced a month in advance, promoting the strong return of the Crown brand.
Under such production capacity pressure, FAW Toyota has set a new quality record with its rapid strain mechanism and reaction ability. In 2021, FAW Toyota's sales and service satisfaction continued to improve, and the three models of the China Quality Association, Corolla, Rongfang and Vios, were ranked first in the market segment.
Such an efficient supply chain system fully reflects the inherent strength of FAW Toyota.
In order to achieve "million sales", production capacity naturally cannot be delayed. In 2022, while coordinating supply assurance and continuing to implement a collective decision-making system, FAW Toyota will also establish and formulate medium- and long-term strategies, adjust new product production strategies to ensure resource supply, and accelerate the construction of localized supply systems in Changchun and Chengdu by strengthening the control of the whole life cycle/whole value chain.
Increase the intensity of new product research and development and launch
Reviewing 2021 will find that although the epidemic has brought great challenges to the launch of new cars, FAW Toyota's pace of promoting new products has not slowed down. In the past year, FAW Toyota has successively launched heavyweight new vehicles including Crown Land release, Asia Lion, new Corolla, Rongfang PHEV and Lingfang. Among them, Crown Land Release and Ling Fang have been forced to subvert the traditional listing method due to the epidemic, changing from offline to online.
Although the time is rushed, the effect is not weakened. According to the data, the cumulative sales of Crown Land Release from August to December reached 25173 vehicles; the cumulative sales of Lingfang, which focuses on exquisite and elegant routes, reached 7929 vehicles last year, usually with a three-month sales adaptation period on new cars, and Lingfang quickly entered the state as soon as it was listed, becoming an important force.
In the car market, Corolla is still the evergreen of the car market, the Corolla family sold 330,280 vehicles a year- and the Asian Dragon sold a total of 123,525 vehicles last year, an increase of 111% year-on-year; the Asiatic Lion, which has been on the market for less than a year, has gradually stabilized, and last December it set a new single-month sales record with 4,620 units.
In the SUV market, in addition to the crown land release and Lingfang, FAW Toyota has also introduced two new energy models, the Rongfang Dual Engine E+ and the Yize Dual Engine. Among them, Rongfang still lived up to expectations, with a year-on-year growth of 117%, a cumulative sales of 203,410 vehicles to carry the banner of FAW Toyota in the SUV segment.
More importantly, faw Toyota's "twin engine family" has also reached 201,597 vehicles in the whole year; the proportion of TNGA product sales has reached 89%. At this point, the implementation of the three major strategies proposed by FAW Toyota in 2021, namely the "TNGA Strengthening Strategy", the "Crown Brand Renewal Strategy" and the "New Energy Strategy", has achieved initial results.
In addition to the insight of FAW Toyota into the needs of users, there are also changes in the management system for R&D and the coordination of organizational operations by various functional departments.
In 2021, FAW Toyota cultivated local planning, design and trial production test capabilities through the Asia Lion design business, the early development of the Asian Dragon and the development of various special edition projects, and compiled the "FAW Toyota New Product Birth Process" and the "FAW Toyota Local Development and Operation Manual".
At the same time, FAW Toyota has also established a multi-department linkage system such as functional department, manufacturing site, toyota technical center, etc., to improve management efficiency by focusing on the implementation of refined large-scale management, and to achieve controllable management of all project management by strengthening process control.
These have played a crucial role in improving the speed of new product development and promotion.
Compared with 2021, 2022 may be able to bear the title of FAW Toyota's "product year". Official sources show that FAW Toyota will launch 9 new cars in 2022. Whether it is a traditional fuel vehicle or a new energy field, it will bring more high-quality cars to users.
In January this year, Corolla Ruifang has been officially launched as the opening year of FAW Toyota, and in the future, FAW Toyota will also launch the first model of the TOYOTA bZ pure electric exclusive series based on the exclusive platform of e-TNGA, bZ4X. In terms of traditional energy, FAW Toyota has also launched a number of new vehicles to further consolidate its base plate advantages.
Determination to deepen institutional reform
In the past, the main battlefield of automobile marketing has always been offline, mainly because products with high prices and long use cycles such as automobiles require a long decision-making cycle and repeated offline experiences. However, under the epidemic, the real economy has been hit, and the flow of customers in stores has plummeted, forcing car companies to shift their attention from offline to online.
Of course, in FAW Toyota's view, from offline to online, in addition to the "co-creation, sharing, empathy" experience plan extended on the basis of social networks, as well as marketing measures such as the "vertical ice and snow" test drive experience of all models, it is also necessary to truly link enterprises, users, and dealers through digital intelligence upgrades.
In 2021, FAW Toyota will quickly launch a number of products such as super APP based on the principle of less complex, more reuse, and more efficiency, and the coverage of digital and intelligent services will be increased from 70% to 90%, which will greatly improve the efficiency of lead management and service reception.
Behind the digital intelligence of channels, FAW Toyota has also promoted integrated management and digital and intelligent reform covering the overall situation internally, and has formed a functional construction plan that includes three aspects, mechanism construction, ability improvement, and atmosphere creation, ten major elements, and characteristics, and clarified the main responsibility of the horizontal and vertical matrix promotion system and the construction of various department systems, and the functional construction is promoted in an orderly manner.
In terms of digital and intelligent construction, FAW Toyota has also quickly introduced advanced methodologies through the establishment of a company-level digital committee to form a digital panoramic planning map with customers as the center and around the strategic objectives of core business value streams in a way that empowers co-creation, and creates a digital operation base that supports the scale of production and sales of millions of vehicles.
At the same time, we will focus on the improvement of digital intelligence awareness, comprehensively carry out training and empowerment, and continue to improve the ability of employees to solve digital intelligence.
It is said that talent determines the upper limit of enterprise development, in 2021, FAW Toyota will break the solidified thinking mode, introduce a post management system, re-fix the post, advocate full competition for the post, the capable one is on the mediocre, and introduce the performance management system, improve the salary distribution and exit mechanism, and stimulate the morale of employees with more work.
FAW Toyota said that in order to further deepen corporate reform, it will take value creation as the basis and efficiency improvement as the key to further release the efficiency of the reform. For example, the establishment of FAW Toyota Talent Evaluation Center, improve the talent closed-loop management system, establish a reserve team, form a reasonable cadre talent echelon, and strengthen the training of professional talents to accelerate the growth of emerging business talents.
At the same time, we will consolidate the management foundation of "control, operation, process and organization", promote the vertical functions to run through the end, horizontal production and marketing research and development of the three main value chains, and build an agile operation and management structure for the implementation of the company's strategy and the realization of customer value.
epilogue
When it comes to how Toyota has succeeded in China, "lean management" has inevitably become the answer with the highest vote. This management theory, which was originally extracted from the production management system, has penetrated into all aspects of Toyota's corporate management.
It is precisely because of its confidence in "lean management" that FAW Toyota can not be insulted in the heavily involved stock automobile market and steadily transform along the established strategic pace.
In the next market competition, how will FAW Toyota consolidate its existing advantages? And how to smoothly carry out electrification transformation and digital intelligence reform? Maybe we can all find the answer in 2022.