A recent visit to Japan on behalf of the Risk and Insurance Management Society revealed high interest in risk management in general, and the effects the discipline could have had on Toyota in particular, the president of the society says.
Terry Fleming, director of the division of risk management for Montgomery County, Md., described his trip to Japan–his first–as "fabulous. We saw a lot of interest [in risk management]. They are really keyed in to ERM [enterprise risk management]."
He said Japanese members of RIMS support the association by attending the conference every year as well as RIMS sessions in Japan. Mr. Fleming said he gave two talks, in Tokyo and Osaka, and had about 200 attendees the first day and more than 100 on day two.
Mr. Fleming said interest was keen on what is happening with Toyota–which has had massive recalls of several models of autos in the United States–and "how ERM and risk management would have helped, or maybe failed in the ongoing Toyota debacle."
He said the general consensus in Japan is that Toyota's engineers either ignored risk management protocols, or that senior-level management knew about the problems and chose to ignore them and just deal with claims as they came in.
Interest in Toyota in Japan is elevated, as Toyota "is almost their national company…it's the brand of the country, almost," Mr. Fleming added.
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