Title: Toyota Profit Rises With Threat to Detroit
Author: Jathon Sapsford
Reference: Wall Street Journal
Presenter: Volkan Gulen
As you start your business, you need to constantly be looking in the news, seeing
where there is competition, where there is a need and what people won't pay for. An
example of this is the automobile market. As US companies are increasingly
losing sales because of overseas competition, Toyota has invested $9 million
overall to have an estimated export of cars increasing to over a million in 2006
and beyond. This is because Toyota has realized that based on rising oil
prices; fuel efficiency is rapidly outpacing the need to have the latest SUV. Add
that to the fact that Japanese vehicles generally are seen to last longer and
be safer, and it is no wonder that companies like GM are going bankrupt fast.
So you need to always be looking at the road ahead. It is also helpful
to find the niche market that no other company has delved into. An example
is Trader Joe's food market. All of its products are picked for their marketability
and can only be found in their stores. Trader Joe's thus does not need
to compete directly with other big chains like Stop and shop.