Within a few days, the new TLS system started to provide eye-popping results. For example that
Toyota, the system helps managers discover that Toyota was getting billed twice for a specific
rail shipment (an $800,000 error). Overall, Toyota USA managed to increase the volume of cars
it handled by 40 percent between 2001 and 2005, while increasing head count by just 3 percent.
In addition, in-transit time was reduced by more that 5 percent. Word of the success of TLS’s
new BI quickly spread throughout Toyota USA and then all over the company, and many others
areas of the company started to adopt BI. For example, the former manager of TLS, who now
runs the Toyota Customer Service Division, uses dashboards in his office, as do chief financial
officers (CFOs) and other top executives throughout Toyota (e.g., to better manage expenses,
purchasing, and so on).
It is clear now that the more people who use data analysis tools, the more money Toyota
can earn. The TLS system was upgrade in 2003 and 2005, and tools are continuously added as
needed. Thanks to the new TLS system and other BI, the parent company, Toyota Motor
Corporation, reached the highest profit margin in the automotives industry in 2003. Also,
Toyota’s market share has increased consistently. (Incidentally, Toyota, which is an agile
company, will start to produce consumer-helping robots-that is, service robot for the elderly-in
the year 2010.)
Finally, an independent study by IDC, Inc., about the justification of business
performance management (see Chapter 9) and BI system indicates that Toyota achieved a 506
percent return on its BI investment. The median return on investment [ROI] for the 43 other
Fortune 500 companies that participated in the study was 112 percent.