The approach Sony continues to take is one of concentrating on continual process improvement to become more agile and resilient in the face of environmental factors (Olenick, 2010) while at the same time seeking to comply with national requirements for sustainability and green initiatives including supply chain compliance (Svensson, 2009).
Legal Factors -- Sony has a culture that embraces learning as a virtue, and continually strives to gain insights from the experiences of other Japanese companies and their legal and regulatory lessons learned. The case mentioned earlier of Toshiba Machinery Company and their sales of unauthorized milling machines to the Russians decades ago still is a foundational element of Japanese ethical training for managers (Ohishi, Naoto, 1993). As the United States and other western nations have continually seen the level of compliance and reporting escalate up through government edict, Sony has continually had to increase its focus on contract management and legal expertise across multiple geographic regions. The costs of this are among the highest the company incurs from a subsidiary standpoint, yet Sony senior management believes that ethical conduct is part of their brand and without it; they would lose the trust of both customers and governments globally.
Internal Analysis
Despite the global recession of the last three years, Sony continues to show financial resilience and the ability to bounce back from significant financial losses in 2009. During their last fiscal year, the company grew 4% year-over-year. If currency fluctuations are taken into account, Sony would have grown at a 13% rate from 2009 to 2001, an impressive ramp given the losses they experienced in 2009 (BusinessLine, 2010).
This financial growth was driven by Sony's core competencies in the areas of LCD television production, with sales up 19% year-over-year, and high-end Viao laptops, the sales of which are up 24% year-over-year (BusinessLine, 2010). These two product families are where the majority of R&D investment continues to be made by Sony, with heavy emphasis on HDNA technology and low power consumption laptops to meet the European Union green computing requirements (Chang, 2010). Most significant and illustrating these core competencies for the company, operating profit increase to ¥69B, up from an operating loss of ¥33B in the previous year. Sony management credits this significant revenue turn-around to the emphasis on process improvement and re-engineering, two critical areas of focus within the LCD TV and laptop business units (Olenick, 2010). The well-known Sony PlayStation 3 sold 3.5 million units in 2010, which is an improvement over previous years where the PlayStation did not sell over 3 million units (BusinessLine, 2010).
An internal analysis of Sony's financial performance also shows that the company has successfully been able to accurately discern just what R&D, sourcing, supply chain and production processes need to be modified quickly and thoroughly for the company to gain revenue coming out of 2010 (BusinessLine, 2010). Personal electronics including cameras, netbooks and MP3 players continued to gain market share and contribute to the turn-around in earnings from 2009 to 2010.
The internal analysis of Sony indicates that it has exceptional strength in research and development (R&D), accuracy and agility in defining which processes need to be changed and why (as is the case with LCD TVs and PCS0, and also has exceptional control over their distribution networks and channels globally. These results also indicate that the cost of manufacturing at Sony is higher than average for the industry, as their volume to profit levels are low compared to high tech electronics companies (BusinessLine, 2010). This is due to the high costs of operating in Japan and having the majority of its subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and the U.S., two countries that are relatively expensive to operate in.
SWOT analysis
Based on a thorough assessment of Sony's operations, its innate strengths at innovation and the relatively high cost to manufacture relative to competitors, the following SWOT analysis has been completed. Sony's strengths, as has been mentioned multiple times throughout this analysis, are their exceptional command of the innovation and R&D process. The structure of the organization itself as an enabler of innovation is clear, as it leads Japanese manufacturers in patents and in pace of innovation (Chang, 2010). Additional strengths include an exceptionally strong brand and geographic breadth of distribution channels. Sony's weaknesses a very high cost to manufacture and coordination of business units to mitigate losses quickly. Sony excels at process improvement yet cannot move quickly enough as an organization to alleviate the losses it incurred in 2009.
Sony's opportunities include a growing global and consumer industrial electronics...
His income level is reasonable enough to allow him to afford to buy a product that is at least average priced. Another threat that needs to be dealt with is the fact that the age category we are addressing is most predisposed to change. People in this age group have a tendency to change their car once every a couple of years, change the electronics around the house, change the
The direct selling strategy will be a website that will include a product configuration application. A distribution partner portal will also be created which gives distributors and dealers the ability to customize the Liberta Ultralight in quantity for their customers as well. The use of channel strategies to actively promote the use of mass customization as a product differentiator will also be accomplished through intensive dealer and channel training
Each calendar at this point would cost $5.45 Developing costs for pictures taken with digital cameras will be approximately $75. This cost adds approximately $.04 per calendar Costs for placement of 1500 books in the library will be $8,175 + $3,270 (40% mark up) to total $14, 171 for calendars sold through the library calendars. Each calendar now $9.45 + $.04 for developing photos = $9.49. The remaining 500 calendars
Marketing Windows VISTA - Marketing Plan The primary consumer base for Microsoft VISTA would be current Windows systems users who are in need of an upgrade of their current systems. Perhaps some users missed out on the last marketing blitz for Windows XP and now they realize that if they do not upgrade, they cannot use the basic, much less latest options open to PC users today. Rather than use the
The age range will be between 25 and 64, and there are a lot of doctors and other professionals such as professors and lawyers in my area making this a good choice. Approximately, then between 3% and 5% of these individuals will take their dog to daycare if it is available. By adding boarding and grooming services, I can increase the number of clients available to me by 300%-600%
This is a valuable social and interpersonal skill, which will help kids to grow into effective and cooperative adults. Goals: The approach of the Kids n Clicks program will function on a personal, educational, and technological platform. Personal assets kids can expect to gain from the program include: Increased self-confidence, self-esteem, and independence; Respect for each other, the community, and technological equipment; The ability to work effectively as team members and leaders; The ability to give
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now