The deified Sony, finally fell down

Prior to the rise of Apple, Sony in many people's eyes, once represented a combination of technology and fashion, at that time, it produced the world's first transistor radio, Trinitron, Walkman, Vaio notebook computer, PlayStation game ... Numerous epoch-making electronic consumer products, are born from this Japanese company. Even the narcissists and critics of jobs who don't see too many good examples in their eyes are the public Sony fans.

But, in the past decade, Sony, which has been "globalised", has had to face falling performance and Stringer, despite Sony's choice of foreigners to run Sony. So how is Sony's dilemma caused, and is it a management problem or a cultural issue?

When the Times in the development of society in progress, once the scenery of the unlimited Sony now has become a "bad egg" synonymous. All the news about Sony since 2014 seems to be not "loss" or "debt repayment".

In 2014, Sony's wholly owned subsidiary, Sony Computer Entertainment company, held 9.52 million shares of Square Enix holding company to be transferred to SMBC Securities, and obtained 4.8 billion yen (about 300 million yuan) transfer proceeds. In the previous March, Sony sold Sony's land and building facilities at the Palace Hill Technology Center, 5th, at a price of 7 billion yen to Sumitomo Real Estate Co. It is located in the Japanese Palace Hill area, the old headquarters of the NS Building and Hall 4th will also be sold at about 16.1 billion yen price-this is in the 2013 fiscal year will be the loss of 1 billion dollars to make up the shortfall.

The God-like company that Jobs had in mind

What's the matter with Sony? You know, Sony is the company that Steve Jobs worshipped: Since the 1980s, the latter has been Sony's die-hard powder. The company's design of Apple's production line has also been influenced by Sony. Until the ipod put an end to Sony's monopoly on listening to music, jobs has been unabashed in saying: "We love Sony and we aspire to be as good a company as Sony." ”

But by the year 2012, Sony's 15.57 billion dollar market capitalisation amounted to just 6.8% of Apple's 3.8% and Samsung Electronics.

Questions about Sony, as early as 1995, when Ohga as president, the outside and internal staff had a hunch: Sony's brand value, is its home consumer to provide electronic innovative products, the creation of 50, the company's personal relationship and deep feelings is the source of this innovation- As President of the well extension, Sony has had a historic hiatus and change since 50. To be aware, Sony's founder well Deep, "operation of the Saint" Sheng Morita two people kinship, similarly, they have to nurture the successor big Ohga as the family-this relationship allows them to each other and the company's low, crisis time firmly support each other, and finally win. But it interrupted the tradition, and he had not established such a family-like relationship with him, and his appointment was more susceptible to performance and board influence.

Sony's past innovations have been the result of all the people, including the founders, Sony engineers and everyone else--despite having Japan's most transparent and Westernized board structure, Sony's core has been a typical Japanese family-owned company. Personal relationships have long been a source of passion for such companies. If Sony were to say goodbye to its emotional history, what would it take to replace personal relationships with corporate culture incentives?

When the well came into office, there was a lot of doubt about that.

After the appointment of the well extension of the president has been urged to "reinvent Sony", but Inchong, because of the decline in performance, the Sony board in 2005 through the Stringer to replace the wells as Sony's new CEO decision-the history of the "break", refresh the record of the well himself, The appointment of the gold lattice even broke the Japanese company's practice of choosing Japanese managers.

How has Sony changed from one Japanese company to another?

① has talked about Sony's future ahead of the well, "We are always talking about a global Sony, but we are actually a company headquartered in Japan with a large organization in the United States." There is a fundamentally different way of governance in the United States and Japan, and we tell ourselves that we are here to operate in our own way, but the world outside is too different. "Under the guidance of this mode of thinking, the American company under the jurisdiction of the United States has finally become a fully independent operation of the entity."

② because Sony's US companies accounted for 13% of the group's total profits in 2005, the film, music, and games under the control of the company accounted for only 25% of the group's total revenue, but a contributor to major profits outside the financial business. Sony's business in the US is far better than its headquarters in Japan, its growth engine, driven by performance and market considerations, coupled with the trend of globalisation, stringer.

Interpretation 1: The rivalry between the American model and the Japanese model

But will Sony become an international company if it is run by European and American managers? In fact, Sony's change is not a case, but the entire Japanese electronics company model and the U.S. corporate model of the competition, the key point is the "new economy."

Japanese mode:

Since the 1970s, Japanese electronics companies have been frantically expanding and investing in technology-related industries, and their businesses have become so complex that they extend to all corners of traditional technology, from communications satellites to nuclear power plants to lithium-ion batteries and flush toilets. They use direct investment in fixed assets in the form of vertical production patterns that encompass all research and production processes, and like to constantly replace new equipment, plant and assembly lines to achieve greater efficiency – so Japanese companies have always been insensitive to making profits for shareholders, and they have emphasized the long-term and stable development of these companies, Provide lifetime employment for employees and allow many long-term unprofitable investments.

American model:

And American companies from the 1980s onwards, it is the development of IT industry, through the information to awaken traditional manufacturing, shorten the front and more focused on a single area. As the labor relations in the United States are relatively flexible and simple, they are constantly stripping and diverting businesses they consider unsuitable for operation or high-cost.

Regardless of the American model and the Japanese model is inferior, on Sony's development path, the U.S. model and the Japanese model of confrontation has always been a conflict.

2006, the former Sony executive director of the outer-Lang published articles, that KPI assessment destroyed Sony, is one example. In the article, the veteran remembers the "passion Group" of the well deep and prosperous Morita era, and believes that managers should be able to ignite the fire of technical developers and make them become the "madman" of technical devotion. He blamed Sony for its internal performance. The result is that "business results and monetary rewards are directly linked, and workers work hard to get more pay." "If you always say," You work hard, I'll give you a raise, "Sony employees will be like no spontaneous motives.

In the traditional Japanese management model, the story is very common, he put well deep and so on people's operation called "Elder type Management". The so-called "Elder" refers to the people with a respected reputation. The elders are the top leaders of the company, and the whole group will together to the goal. The management idea of the "Saint of management" Rice Inamori is similar to that for example, you must first unity, then explain the significance of positive work to life to attract people to work selflessly-the advantage of this management model is that it can inspire human's positive energy and potential, but it is difficult to practice in a similar religious experience. At a time of increasing individualism, if there are no charismatic and indeed commoners leaders, this model of management may be difficult to pass on and replicate-so far, the rice Inamori is not necessarily able to find a true heir.

The problem for Sony is not just that leaders are no longer passionate. The leaders call on employees to together after brainwashing, the question is, once together everybody goes to where to go, how to innovate? Is there any change in the rules of today's innovative game?

Interpretation 2: How creative the game rules change

In this respect, the board chairman of the Boston consulting firm Karl In his article, "lead in Creative Destruction", W. Stern replied, "We once thought that if we could have a long-term dominant share in the market, we would be successful." However, in today's market, this is no longer the golden rule. As the pace of market change is getting faster, people who play by the rules of long-term dominance will lose in the competition. We must constantly innovate the content and operation of the business. ”

What he said was proved by Steve Jobs ' Apple. Sony has not been overtaken by Apple in a sleep, and its successor has been chasing Morita's dream by merging record companies and creating better audition devices after Morita plans Sony's vision and entertainment empire. For instance, the acquisition of Besta's record section and MGM, the American Film Company, suggests that Sony is attempting to perpetuate the evolution of its own audiovisual eco-chain. When Jobs brought his ipod in 2001, Sony did not underestimate the enemy, but soon launched its own MP3 player.

But the complete ecological chain and industry dominance did not protect Sony-into an era of creative innovation, instead of trying to buy the record giants, Jobs has shown the record giants, including Sony, that they can work with his itunes Music store and provide them with effective measures to protect copyright. Sony, frustrated, admits: "It's our fault", and they worked with IBM a few years ago to create a similar online digital music store, "but we tried to design a perfect legal download, so it's not going to work."

Managershare+ Point of view: Japanese style of the pursuit of perfection and early layout of the way of thinking, in this complex, rapid and changeable business society has been impacted. In fact, most Japanese companies do not fall in the management capacity, their manufacturing process control and quality management capacity is still outstanding, but, as the environment changes, the rules of the game has changed dramatically, lean production, "TQC", "5S" and so on Japanese enterprises rely on the success of management tools, It is no longer the dominant factor in business. The American model captures the opportunity of traditional economy to new economy, innovates unceasingly, through nimble management and organization pattern, a batch of emerging enterprise such as Microsoft, Intel, Apple, only then become the industry rule of the maker.

The Wall Street Journal has criticized Sony for this reason: "The core problem for Sony is that many of the emerging products that make Sony unprepared require different technologies, such as hardware, software, content and services." These technologies are tightly protected within Sony, and it is hard to get departments working together to get results across the field. ”

For that, Stringer, the outgoing president of 2012, probably had a deep understanding that Sony's business had been slipping in the past few years.

Stringer himself has realized that "the diversification of Sony products, in that year played a role in the avoidance of risk, but with the recent decade of industrial development changes, independent operation of the electric age has ended." Entering the new era of Internet and digital product networking, product eco-chain is becoming more and more important, the market competition is no longer a single equipment, a single country and regional competition, all products are integrated, and covers the world. Sony's diversified product layout has spread Sony's energy and resources. ”

The sheer size of the company, its complexity and its unwieldy structure have made stringer aware that it is not easy to make changes to Sony. Whether Sony's new president, the head of the computer Entertainment Department, Hirai the pressure of a higher yen, falling product prices and higher prices for LCD panels, will be a big problem.