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Akio Toyoda and Shigeki Tomoyama (the former president of Toyota Connected) launched GAZOO Media Service Corporation (GMSC) with a clear foresight of a future in which IT and the automotive industry would become inseparable. Akio Toyoda shared, “The automobile business isn’t over once a car has been sold. Maintaining a relationship with the customer and the car that has been sold should be an essential part of its foundation.”
Thus began the journey 25 years ago in Japan to build a connected mobility company with a steadfast focus and intent of using IT to create touch points with customers. They sought to optimize dealership experiences, shortening the time it took to get cars to customers. That evolved to creating customer kiosks at convenience stores in Japan.
GMSC members continued optimizing processes, negotiating with convenience stores, launching business development teams and working with dealers on customer and dealer pain points. Their pivotal work helped GMSC evolve and become Toyota Connected, a strategic business unit of Toyota. Having expanded across seven other regions around the world since 2004, each Toyota Connected entity today continues to uphold its commitment to create an ever-better mobility society and ‘Pursuing the Ultimate Customer Satisfaction’ for a connected, human-centered future.
Toyota Connected India (established as Gazoo Media Services India-GMSI) in 2011 continues its presence in India 14 years on, delivering on its vision to empower sustainable mobility and deliver elevated customer experiences.
Uma Keshav, Senior Director, Legal and Compliance, was one of the first members to join the company in 2011. Her experience has been one filled with a myriad of experiences across different roles, projects and organizational structures.
When asked about the first day at the company, she shares, “The company has grown tremendously since I joined over 14 years ago. When I joined the GMSI team, we were only a 4-member team. It was a small set-up back then; everyone did everything with a strong sense of ownership, and a true founder’s mindset— one that I personally helped me feel so closely connected to the foundations of the company in the early days.”
Toyota Connected India took over eCRB and Sales Logistics Integrated Management (SLIM) services in India in 2012 and subsequently launched India Telematics in 2015. With each year, small incremental improvements were made to enhance capabilities and strengthen the team, and the team size grew as well. Uma reflects how joining in the early stage meant she could play a direct role in shaping the company’s culture, processes, and growth. The vision of leadership and the potential to learn by taking on diverse responsibilities was really what motivated her through the early years.
“The learning curve was undoubtedly high, but it required a complete shift in mindset. While it was difficult in the beginning, this transformation became a strong foundation for how we approached work and problem-solving in the years that followed”, she added.
A constant Kaizen (continuous improvement) mindset and Hansei (self-reflection) is the spirit of Toyota Production System and represents the values that Toyota has long treasured. “Even in a small office setup, we were encouraged to think with a global perspective, maintain high professional standards, and act with integrity. This instilled a sense of responsibility and pride in my role, and it motivated me to align my work with the larger mission of the company,” remarked Uma.
With each year, Toyota Connected India expanded its portfolio of capabilities, increased focus on Software and Data-Driven Mobility and partnerships with global Toyota entities.
Swetlana Chitranshu, Lead Engineer, Systems and Solutions, joined Toyota Connected India in 2017 and has since worked directly with our client, offering production support to enable and empower dealerships. Looking back, she reminisces of the close-knit team, the hand-on support and guidance from her managers that made navigating the world of Toyota and Toyota Connected highly rewarding. Over the years this experience has only enriched further. She remarks fondly on how close collaboration, and continuous improvement have always remained central to how we operate.
“Through weekly cross-team meetings to daily team catch-ups, I have learnt how important building alignment and consensus across various stakeholders and partners is to our culture, within Toyota Connected and other Toyota entities. For me personally, these skills have developed through actively learning and adopting the kaizen mindset,”, she reflects. “When I first joined, I knew very little about the Toyota Principles and the Toyota Ways of Working. I often found myself not in the know and was always asking people around me…trying to figure out what some of the terminologies meant. Having now lived them, worked through them and applied them across every project, problem and solution, they have inevitably become second nature”, Swetlana remarks.
As operations in India strengthened, GMSI increasingly became empowered to think beyond their role as a support entity and geared up to become a software and data-driven mobility enterprise. This led the way to greater collaboration with the North America team. In 2018, GMSI was officially renamed to Toyota Connected India, ushering in a new era of software development and engineering for Toyota in India.
Toyota Connected India set up its engineering hub in Chennai at the IIT Research Park to redefine mobility with innovative products, technology, and personalized services— revolutionizing the Toyota, and Lexus vehicle experience. Coupled with a people-first approach, through progressive policies, meaningful benefits, and a values-driven culture that empowers everyone to thrive — this commitment has earned us recognition as one of India’s Great Places to Work (Ranked 14th), the Best Workplace for Millennials, and a top workplace for innovation.
Mohan Raju, Manager, Admin Operations, who has been part of Toyota Connected India since 2016 recounts the buzz and excitement during this transformative period for the organization. “This new period for Toyota Connected India was incredible. The change in the company name bolstered a sense of confidence for us as an organization. It reinforced our identity within the Toyota group of companies and set us off on a path to grow exponentially. I was so excited about the new opportunities that were coming our way. From supporting teams to scale up, to creating best-in-class facilities for top talent that was joining us across two locations— it has been phenomenal to be actively contributing to the Toyota Connected growth story.”
Having been part of the Toyota Connected India for nearly a decade, Mohan shares that it is Toyota Founder Sakichi Toyoda’s ‘5-Whys’ principle that guide him through his decision-making. “It’s really a simple tool for RCA, but I think it can very well be applied to a lot of things at work. To start off identify the problem and ask why it happened. Then ask why the next thing happened. And so, on until you get to the true root cause of your problem. He called it the five whys, because usually you will land at the problem’s root cause by the fifth question,” he shares. This process-driven approach to tasks, combined with measured action and qualitative self-reflection, continue to be the practices that we aspire to uphold every day.
When asked to describe their journey at Toyota Connected India, Uma, Swetlana and Mohan have called it ‘pivotal, ever evolving and transformative’. The foundations they laid out, practices they embraced and the contributions they continue to make alongside our talented community of engineers, specialists and experts helps Toyota Connected India today to realize its vision to empower sustainable mobility and deliver elevated customer experiences.
This year, as Toyota Connected celebrates its 25th Anniversary, we set ourselves up to celebrate our founder’s legacy by honoring the passion that built the past 25 years and strengthening our bonds as we head toward the future.
