2025 WRI Results: Toyota Soars, Honda and GM Improve, Others Decline

[Transcript]

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I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales with over 35 years of experience in our beloved auto industry and a commitment to empowering fellow leaders to be their best authentic selves.

Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.

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to the Plante Moran WRI Study: 2025

What exactly do the suppliers think of the OEMs, and what do they need to do to improve? And our stellar panel lineup today is Sig Huber, Chief Commercial Officer at Elm Analytics. Sig has a deep background in supplier relations, both at Toyota and Stellantis. Sig, welcome back.

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[00:02:15] Jan Griffiths: Dave Andrea, Principal at Plante Moran, and the owner of the WRI. Dave, welcome back.

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[00:02:27] Jan Griffiths: And Dr. Angela Johnson. Angela has an extensive career with General Motors, and is now a Principal at Plante Moran, and the new owner of the WRI. Welcome, Angela.

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[00:02:44] Jan Griffiths: Let's get into it. Dave Andrea, what have we got? What do the results look like for the WRI 2025?

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So, the ranking remained the same: Toyota, Honda, General Motors, followed by Nissan, Ford, and then Stellantis. But the gap—the three really broke apart from the bottom three.

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[00:03:58] Dave Andrea: We were in the field between mid-February and mid-April. If you look at the roll-out of all the tariffs— I mean certainly it wasn't until April and May here that we knew what the auto sector specifically was going to be hit.

If we would take the survey today, the numbers would certainly change. But if you think about the processes, the way that each individual OEM handled the tariffs that was in place, right? So I don't know that the order would've changed at all. But certainly tariffs may have hit the top.

The other piece to think about here as well is this—that this is really a representative sample of the entire supply base. So where tarrifs certainly are a huge, huge issue for OEMs, first off, and then in turn their suppliers. But for some others, it may be a second-order issue. It's more about unintended costs, or it may be about warranty issues, or it may be all those other issues that the vehicle manufacturers and the suppliers deal with day in and day out.

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[00:05:35] Angela Johnson: I wish there was a magical answer for that, but they're really doing the things that they do well—even better.

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[00:05:44] Angela Johnson: That's making the difference in setting them apart. They increased all around. They particularly increased in their buyer characteristics—that’s those enabling behaviors. Things like accessibility, responsiveness, buyer knowledge, helping the supplier resolve issues. That took a steep jump up for Toyota this year. Last year, they were behind Honda and GM, and this year they're back on top. And I believe those behaviors helped propel them to the top of the overall board. They were able to lean into the relationship they've established and better create win-win outcomes for their suppliers.

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[00:07:09] Sig Huber: You know, Toyota has a very unique culture —the Toyota Way— which is based on two fundamental pillars. One is mutual respect, and the other is continuous improvement. And it's a culture that pervades every department, every person in the company.

They spend a lot of time and effort making sure that people within Toyota are aligned with the Toyota Way and working in their day-to-day jobs with respect to consistency with the principles of the Toyota Way. And I think that is really an advantage when it comes to supplier relations, because it fosters the types of things that are measured in the survey.

The other thing about Toyota is they have a very long-term perspective on things, and when it comes to their relationships, they're not always looking for a short-term solution. They're looking for what's best in the long term and what's best to continue to improve the organization as an extended enterprise—not just thinking of themselves as a company and the suppliers are separate. They really view the supply base as an extension of their enterprise and act accordingly.

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And I can liken it to suppliers have become so used to a level of consistency and predictability that if it at all isn't there, or they perceive it to slip, then it comes to the top of their concerns that they're voicing for the OEM to address. So, as they are stabilizing operations, as suppliers are working with their US versus their Japan operations, we see comments on wanting to get the same level of consistency and predictability that they're used to from Toyota headquarters out of their North American operations—and at the same time, looking for more autonomy their local operations. Sig, how does that play in with your experience?

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And that goes for predictability in management, predictability in approach, predictability in production schedules. There's a whole host of things that suppliers really want their customers to be predictable because then they can plan their businesses around it.

And with Toyota, they have their predictability. And you know, by contrast, if you compare, say, with Stellantis—they had a lot of challenges and rumors about the CEO leaving, and then the CEO left, and who's gonna be the new CEO. There's a lot of uncertainties there, which create hesitation, I think, in the minds of the suppliers. Not knowing who they're dealing with or how things are gonna change—and that creates in their minds, I think, a sense of risk.

Whereas with Toyota, they have this consistency that pervades even changes in positions. They have a brand new head of purchasing that's just started—I don't know, two, three months ago. Ryan Grimm, he's been there a long time, and he's got a great disposition, and I have no doubt that he's gonna continue the path that Toyota's been on. And we'll continue to take supplier relations seriously and improve them as they go forward.

And the suppliers sense that too. They understand that even though there's a change in the head of purchasing, it's going to be very, very similar to what they've been used to in the past. I think that creates comfort, and that creates Toyota as being more of a desirable customer of choice than others where there's a lot less predictability.

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[00:11:29] Angela Johnson: Toyota drilled out to its suppliers, not just 52-weeks of visibility to part number level—they also rolled out combining about 75 manual spreadsheets and different systems into a one-stop shop for suppliers to manage all things: EDI, capacity, and schedules.

What's really interesting about what they did—they’re not the only OEM doing that—but what I found interesting about their timing, and it's quite impressive when you look at the screens that they've produced, the written feedback we got from the suppliers in the survey indicates that suppliers wanted to see more schedules from Toyota.

They were very explicit on, "Hey Toyota, we need better visibility," and Toyota delivered. I fully expect that to impact positively their schedules next year—their their WRI scores.

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[00:12:33] Dave Andrea: Without a doubt, it does. It starts showing the interconnectedness of sales and marketing, dealer inventories, to production builds, to production schedules that purchasing is responsible for.

Toyota always had the most level production schedules. Where they became un-Toyota-like was when they started to adjust their production volumes around and schedules around, and it became more costly to serve Toyota. This is getting back a bit to the old Toyota.

One thing I would really emphasize is about consolidating their supplier portals and where the suppliers get information from. It's easier to obtain, and secondly, it's gonna be more accurate because it's all more consolidated than going to several different portals.

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[00:13:52] Jan Griffiths: Consistency, transparency, predictability—we're talking about trust feeling of security, of safety, being able to forecast, as you said, your business. A supplier wants to know what's coming at them, and they have to trust that data. They have to trust the process.

I feel that with Toyota, and certainly the three OEMs at the top of the pack, that they handle that through empowerment down to the buyer level—that there's a lot of trust internally, and buyers are able to make decisions their own. Whereas the three OEMs at the bottom don't have that. Is that a fair assumption, Angela?

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They evaluate those through the bottom-line impacts of the OEM decisions. And where the OEMs are able to manage those better—with the supply base to collaborate better—those OEMs improved. Where the stronger relationships did not exist for Nissan, Ford, and Stellantis, those bottom-line impacts became a bigger issue—one more issue on top of a really big pile of challenges.

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It's a small nuance, but if you add up all of those occurrences, that's where it gets powerful.

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[00:17:10] Sig Huber: I think that's right. I made a comment earlier about the culture and the Toyota way. It pervades all levels of the organization, and it creates that consistency in behavior and the ability for buyers to behave in certain ways that in other organizations they might not be able to.

And it also comes down to the alignment of goals and objectives. And in other companies, the different departments tend to be misaligned in their goals and objectives, right? Finance has a very different set of goals and objectives than purchasing, and that they have a very different set of objectives to supply chain—and manufacturing has its own set. And it tends to be more siloed in other organizations because of the lack of that consistent culture. And that's one of the things that I think that Toyota Way really brings to Toyota as far as an advantage in managing their relationships.

Another point I wanted to make from the survey results that I found interesting was that the companies that historically have been better—the top three—actually distance themselves from the others in a time of crisis. And one of the advantages of having strong supplier relationships is that, when times get difficult, it makes it easier to collaborate. And that seems to have come through loud and clear in the survey results this year when things got difficult with the tariffs. One group acted one way and one group acted a different way—and it produced very, very different results in the eyes of the supply base.

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[00:19:13] Sig Huber: Angela, based on your background, what do you see that happened at General Motors when they really turned things around with respect to supply relations? Because they used to be at the bottom of the list—not at the bottom of the list, but in the bottom tier. And when Steve Kiefer came along and really embrace supplier relations, they really changed in a very rapid manner in their approach to dealing with suppliers. You were there at the time, what did you see, and how did they actually effectuate the change to become so effective?

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To your point earlier, Sig, you're spot on. History and research have told us that when the economy gets bad, when the industry's really struggling, OEMs revert back their embedded ways of managing suppliers.

If that's true, then for GM, we would expect, with all of the turmoil, to see more emphasis on old-school behaviors—and that’s not present. Instead, we see more suppliers talking about them like they talk about Toyota in Honda.

They're still pushing back on a lot of those old-school behaviors. There's a lot to be gained in GM by aligning across engineering, manufacturing, finance, and purchasing. The fact that they were able to increase this year—that their scores went up those enabling behaviors, and supplier-as-a-partner, feeling equitable, win-win outcomes, over three vice presidents—tells you they are starting to turn the ship, looking at a real culture change.

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[00:21:56] Sig Huber: I had conversations with suppliers when Steve was leaving and they were a little guarded and a little concerned about what was the direction gonna be with the changes. And it's continued in a very positive direction, which is wonderful for the company, and I think there's probably some very interesting lessons for everyone there as to how were they able to maintain that momentum.

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They're out there, they're working personally to build trust in the supply base. With the transition at Toyota to Ryan. With the transitions that we've seen at GM—from Steve to Shilpan to Jeff—you're seeing that consistency in values, in behaviors.

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[00:23:56] Angela Johnson: You're absolutely correct. When we study supplier relationships, it's pure connections that mean so much. And they mean a lot at every level. If there's harmony at the top levels of both organizations, it can overcome what might be challenging the lower levels of the organizations. And conversely, if there's not harmony in the top levels, it may challenge work that two peers who get along wonderfully at a buyer level are able to accomplish.

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The thing with the engagement piece, I think, is twofold. One is, they are supporting these types of behaviors, right? They're aligning to get that from the top level down through the buyers' office. But then, it's also an accessibility aspect of this too. And that's one that where Steve Kiefer, I think, you know, stepped out. He was at the supplier conferences. He was accessible.

And I would put Marlo Vitous at Stellantis in the same camp, right? She did not hide from the issues that Stellantis was facing—we all knew them. She didn't hide in Auburn Hill. She was out, and she was encouraging her buyers to get out as well.

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[00:25:42] Jan Griffiths: Oh, so there you go. So, the data supports it, right there.

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[00:25:47] Dave Andrea: But she's one person, and you have to get the rest of the organization and functions aligned with her.

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So, I was at an event with Marvin Washington from Stellantis, and he was very, very humble on stage and talking around these types of topics and saying, "Look, we want your feedback. We wanna understand how we're being difficult for you. We want to get better. And, you know, we don't always like to hear everything you say, but we need to hear it and we want you to tell us."

It was a very, very sort of raw and open, and a very fresh approach to what we've seen in the past from them. I think there's some good things coming from them as we go forward.

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[00:27:34] Sig Huber: They have a new COO for North America, Antonio Filosa, and you know, he's rumored to be on the shortlist to be the CEO. And he's a purchasing guy—actually, he was manufacturing and then he was in purchasing. I worked with him very, very closely when he ran purchasing in Brazil, and he is a very charismatic guy. The suppliers really trust him and enjoy working with him. And he already has done quite a few things with suppliers, with the supplier advisory council, and is making his presence known to the supply base—which is gonna pay big dividends, I think, in the survey come next year for sure.

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[00:29:06] Dave Andrea: Yeah. And so, even if they have a better process and even better payouts on tariff recovery. A supplier looks at Stellantis in total —all of those costs that Angela just ran through—against what I received back on tariffs. And if it's still outweighs the other costs, that's where they may not get full credit for what they put in place on tariff recovery.

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[00:30:24] Dave Andrea: And without a doubt, going back in the history to Chrysler (FCA), to looking at Cerberus and all those other kinds of things, you can see that there's one of a personality-driven organization, it's been them. And so, depending upon who's in that chair for Vice President of Purchasing, their numbers swing back and forth because they don't have that kind of structure that we've talked about on a corporate basis—certainly Toyota and Honda have that in place. And it looks like GM is getting into that realm.

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[00:31:43] Angela Johnson: Ford was a combination of a thousand little declines. There wasn't anything in Ford's data that stood out that said, "Hey, they got worse in this." Like, each of the other OEMs had something that stood out. For Ford, was—everything just got worse. Leading that was supplier perceptions of communication.

So again, where are they going? What is the production plan? How much visibility do suppliers have to their business plan, and where do they fit in—so, frankly, they can plan their own operations?

That seemed to lead the pact with Ford, as well as—some of these we talk about—cost to serve, some of these unintended costs driven by their organizational complexity. They have part of their operations in different regions around the globe. Inherently, it was causing inefficiencies in the things that suppliers were hyper-focused on, like simply getting paid. Can I find the person to help me resolve my payment? And then, can we talk to each other in the same language? And how knowledgeable are they to get my issue fixed? Those simple things just chipped away at Ford's score.

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And that takes a ton of time and on both sides—on the OEM side and the supplier side—to participate in that. But if I have to make three phone calls to find out who it is that works your payment system, that's communication too. I could turn up the frequency on those external communications, but if my internal communications are bogged down, it overwhelms the response to negative.

It's an organization and systems issue. And by that, I mean it's an organization and systems issue from the standpoint that, one, the Vice President of Purchasing had reported up to the CFO. And so, that puts pressure on her purely on the financial end of the spectrum.

The second piece is this issue of decisions are made geographically. And so, if they've concentrated a purchasing organization —some of their decision-making— in India, and in Mexico, the speed of decision making gets slowed down. Particularly in a time we're talking about here—in crisis— you want your tooling payments paid on. It's the blocking and tackling. Why incur other costs on the suppliers when they have enough costs to deal with? Those are the things that, I think, they have to fix in the organization. And then, as Angela's saying, the people will come along.

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[00:35:39] Angela Johnson: You know, I'm gonna give the most unpopular answer ever—they got 'em back in the office. I'll tell you why I say that. Reading the data a couple years ago, particularly for GM—read the supplier verbatims. What are they saying? 'Buyers aren't in the office.' Why aren't your buyers in the office? Get your people back to work so we can meet face to face."

Didn't see that this year. Did not see a word of it from the top three—they’re back there. Their scores went up on accessibility. Go visit the supplier. Have the discussion in person. Old school, but it worked.

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[00:36:48] Angela Johnson: Even one of the teams pointed out this was their first year that they had really brought their buyers back three a week, and they have believed that made a difference in their interactions with their supply base as well.

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[00:37:19] Angela Johnson: That does stand out a lot. When buyers don't know their supplier's part, it's one of the first things the suppliers seem to mention.

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[00:37:38] Sig Huber: I have a perspective because I worked at both Toyota and at Chrysler, and I've seen how the relationships are managed and I've seen the reciprocal side of it. How the suppliers manage the OEM relationships based on a customer that they have good relationships with, and one that's a little bit more strained.

And it was really surprising to me when I first started at Chrysler, how poor the suppliers actually treated Chrysler— in some ways, it's actually quite unfair. Which are some of the same allegations that are leveled against Chrysler in the way that they treat suppliers. And so, there's like a mirror type of relationship there.

When you have good relationships, you in fact are treated better, which makes the relationship easier to manage. And as a result of that, it's been discussed many, many times in the supplier relations surveys that when a company has good supplier relationships, they get the A teams from the suppliers, and they get better supplier performance.

From my experience, what I've just seen is over the past couple of years, those OEMs that are in the top tier for supplier relations have also been improving in their financial results. And those that are in the bottom tier have actually been on a downward trend.

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[00:38:54] Dave Andrea: And to Sig's earlier point about the Toyota Way and being in mutual respect, I think, Sig, that's what you just described, right? You know, in terms of the mutual respect of how the supplier treated Chrysler, is the way they feel that they got treated, right?

And I would go back to when Dan Knott went back into that role of Global VP and the type of respect though that he got—so it can turn around quick.

I believe that the OEMs need to care about this because we're in such a rapid revolution in the industry—whether that be on the product side, on the bill of material side, thinking about software and all those other types of things—such that the suppliers have limited resources, and so they are picking and choosing who to do business with.

And so, if you want to have the top engineering talent, the top financial resources, all of those things lined up in your supply base. That's where these partnerships, relationships—whatever word you want to use with it—pay off.

And the other thing I would challenge the OEMs with is: if they have their act together in terms of how do they work with their suppliers, it's basically the same principles in terms of how do they work with their labor force, how do they work with their government relations people, how do they work with their dealers. It gets that kind of predictability and consistency that we've been talking about across all of those functions.

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[00:40:57] Angela Johnson: Care because of the gap. Three went up, three went down. Those with better relationships get better results. Period.

ean this: scores come out May: 2025

[00:41:49] Jan Griffiths: There it is. Well, before we close today, I would like to take this opportunity say thank you to Dave Andrea for supporting me personally during my career in automotive and supply chain. He has seen me go through job changes and many different situations, and then launching Gravitas Detroit and the podcast.

Dave, I wanna say thank you for your unwavering support of me and my mission during my career. And I want to wish you a very happy and wonderful retirement. Your contributions—not only to me personally, but to this industry—are by many. You will be sorely missed. Thank you.

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[00:43:10] Jan Griffiths: Well, thank you. Thank you. So, with that, it's a wrap. Dave Andrea, enjoy your retirement. Angela, Sig, thank you for joining me at the mic. We'll see you next time.

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[00:43:21] Sig Huber: Thanks for having us.

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