How Korean car makers beat out the Japanese - Fortune
Last week, Hyundai and Kia’s achievement was made official: Korean cars had eclipsed Japanese autos in quality. Power rated the mass-market auto brands tops for initial quality, with Kia just behind No. 1 Porsche and Hyundai, No. 4 behind Jaguar. The strategies that Hyundai and Kia used to leapfrog Japanese brands like Toyota and German brands like Mercedes-Benz proved not just straightforward, deliberate and stunningly effective – but more or less transparent to those who bothered to watch. The remarkable reversal of fortune that vaulted Hyundai and Kia past the Japanese auto industry, in terms of the initial quality of their vehicles, can be traced to three factors. Hyundai – which controls the two affiliated South Korean brands – recognized that quality was poor and that without vast improvement the automakers had no chance of succeeding in the U. S. In 1998, Hyundai enacted a consistent and dedicated... Krafcik joined Hyundai in 2004 served until 2013 as chief executive of its U. S. operations. Don Southerton, a U. S. -based specialist in Korean culture and a consultant to Hyundai and Kia, explained in an interview that “both companies maintained a single message about quality that hasn’t wavered in all those years, supported by the... Source: fortune.com
