Other accomplishments suggested Toshiba's technological foresight in solving global and domestic problems. Toshiba began production of equipment for uranium fuel enrichment for use in nuclear power plants, marking an important step towards Japan's acquisition of a domestic nuclear fuel supply.
These many successes realized under Shoichi Saba were overshadowed by a scandal involving Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary half-owned by Toshiba. According to Washington sources, the subsidiary sold submarine sound-deadening equipment to the then communist Soviet Union. The equipment made detection more difficult and forced NATO to modernize its antisubmarine detection equipment.
While Toshiba claimed that it was not able to control the subsidiary's daily operations, the sale broke a Western law concerning the sale of technologically advanced equipment to Communist countries. Two executives at the subsidiary under investigation were arrested and four top-ranking officials resigned.
The Japanese government prohibited the subsidiary from exporting products to the Soviet Union for one year and repealed its right to sponsor visas for visiting personnel from Eastern-bloc countries.
Senate vote to ban the import of Toshiba products for three years. Joichi Aoi, a former senior executive vice-president, assumed Toshiba's presidency. Ironically, the anti-Japan mood roused by this episode may have revitalized morale at Toshiba. Perhaps to compensate for the loss of the U.
In the latter years of the s, Toshiba began offering its integrated circuit technology to the Chinese Electronics Import and Export Corporation to assist in development of television production.
A joint venture with General Electric furthered this effort, with a special emphasis on large home appliances. But with the new decade came new economic imperatives, especially those created by a global recession and the rising value of the yen. Toshiba Chairman Aoi and President Fumio Sato employed a variety of strategies in the hopes of reversing this downward course. A reorganization focused on fostering interaction between and flexibility among the company's hundreds of operations.
In line with industry trends, the leaders worked to shorten product development cycles, lower production expenses, and more closely monitor consumer demands. They also moved to further diversify Toshiba's consumer product line, 50 percent of which was still in color televisions. The company worked to shift its emphasis to such high-potential products as cellular communications, multimedia, and mobile electronics. Amid all these changes, however, the company planned to continue its liberal use of strategic alliances for mutual benefit.
One of the company's key alliances in the early s was with Time Warner Inc. The two companies began developing an industry standard for DVDs, or digital videodisks, CD-like disks capable of holding full-length films for play on television screens via players. Toshiba then introduced its first DVD players and DVD drives for computers in , becoming the first company to do so.
In another alliance with a U. In June Taizo Nishimuro took over as president of Toshiba. With a background in marketing and multimedia Nishimuro became the first chief not to have an engineering background. The new president already faced the difficulty of contending with a Japanese economy in a prolonged state of stagnation, a situation soon compounded by the fallout from the Asian economic crisis, which erupted in mid The company's consumer electronics and semiconductor sectors, facing fierce international competition, were buffeted by sharp declines in prices and demand.
In September , even before these dismal results were released, Toshiba unveiled a multiyear restructuring plan that was radical by Japanese standards. About 6, jobs would be trimmed by March through attrition and hiring cutbacks. The most dramatic changes were a wide-ranging restructuring of operations.
The company began placing some of its more peripheral businesses into joint ventures with other firms. In January its glassmaking subsidiary a direct descendant of one of the company's founding light bulb businesses was merged with a subsidiary of Asahi Glass. Another of Toshiba's early business areas, electric motors, was the subject of another tie-up that same month, when the company and Mitsubishi Electric merged their large electric motor divisions into a joint venture called TMA Electric Corporation.
However, production capacity was crippled by bombing raids targeting factories. As production recovered in the postwar years, the company focused initially on heavy electrical machinery and then returned to making smaller electrical equipment as reconstruction progressed. New sales subsidiaries were established to strengthen sales capabilities and exports to Southeast Asia began.
Sales and profits grew quickly as Toshiba created novel products, developed original technologies, expanded existing factories and built new production facilities to supply fast-growing markets. Overseas sales and manufacturing subsidiaries were established to develop the international business. The ratio of overseas sales gradually rose. Other initiatives to improve production technology, maintain high quality, save labor and shorten delivery lead-times contributed to significantly higher profits.
This involved concentrating resources in sectors with growth potential and new businesses, while selectively promoting growth in mature or declining sectors through reform and restructuring. Toshiba are a large consumer and industrial electronics manufacturing company based in Tokyo, Japan. Toshiba has historically been a major playing in the Japanese electronics market and is responsible for a number of both Japanese and world firsts within the industry.
Toshiba was originally founded back in and known as the Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co. The newly merged company was not officially named Toshiba until This was until it faced a debilitating accountancy scandal in profits had been accidentally overstated for seven years , followed by the bankruptcy of its nuclear power division Westinghouse Electric Company in only acquired in These included its medical devices business which produced MRI, ultrasound and X-ray equipment, and its memory chip making division, was snapped up by Canon in The Toshiba that emerged from this double blow has grown stronger and more resilient with a more narrowed focus on just six divisions;.
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