Train wreck said:
What restructuring did Stringer do when he was CEO? All I saw him do was spend spend spend in the tune of 8.4 billion dollars Sony did not rise to prominance in the 80s from owning chemical businesses and being a life insurance company, it was their focus on consumer electronics and media, which Kaz is trying to get the company to focus back on. I mean what should Sony be doing? Getting into industries where it has no scale or scope only to be beat by better competation? At least in gaming, music and movies they still have cartel like control so competation wont be as fierce, as opposed to the heavily commoditized businesses of making TVs, camera and cell phones. People like you talk all problems with no possible solution, if Sony did nothing, they go bankrupt. I'm sure Kaz wants to at least try to save the company, he cant hit a 5 run home run out the gate |
Stringer also over saw the sale of billions of dollars worth of assets. He closed down production lines, sold financial stakes in joint ventures. Sold real estate, and manufacturing facilities. He fired employees, and closed down production lines. Would you argue that Kaz isn't doing the same. He is selling things, but at the same time he is still buying things. Stringer was focused on the core business as well. He said as much on countless occasions. Once again this isn't a new idea, and it isn't a idea that has worked out for Sony. Sometimes companies have to change their core market.
Sony is a company that prized engineering first and foremost. That isn't in line with the current marketplace. Which prizes other things over workmanship. We live in a world of disposables, and a world that places a higher premium on service. Sony's mentality is completely at odds with what consumers want. Which is things that are cheap, or things that are built around a service. What made Sony the company it has become. Is what is now killing the company. We don't live in a world where if you build it they will come. We live in a world where the pitch comes before the product, and not the other way around. Companies have to change when their strengths don't lend themselves to the market they find themselves in. Sony's traditional philosophy is increasingly out of place in the current market, but it doesn't mean it isn't right for another market.
Nintendo didn't start out as a electronics company. It started out as a playing card company, and then in branched out into electronic toys, and eventually it stumbled into consoles. When you look at things like Pokemon, and the Wii videogame console. You see the heritage of the company shining through. Nintendo still thinks a lot like a toy company, but if it had stuck to its roots it wouldn't be a household name around the world, and the process of getting there wasn't a straight line, and it wasn't easy for them getting there.
I know that the Chemical and Insurance industries aren't sexy, but they are the bedrock upon which our modern society rests. Their size dwarfs the electronics industry. They are bigger, more stable, and more profitable then electronics. The demand remains virtually unchanged whether the market is up, or the market is down. Companies will always need insurance to operate, and industry will still need chemicals to make their products, or to keep the engines of industry turning. Ironically Sony has a lot to offer the Chemical industry.
Sony has a great deal of experience with miniaturization and robotics. Ideally it is more cost effective to create chemical compounds near to where they will be used. Rather then having to pay to ship them from elsewhere. If Sony could devise a way to create a miniature factory to produce those compounds that could be housed in a small room. Then that would be something would bring the world calling. Imagine what would happen with medical costs if hospitals could make the drugs they need on site. What would happen with housing costs if contractors could get all of the chemicals they would ever need out of a machine out of the back of a single truck. Really the possibilities are endless, but nobody has a vested interest in creating that technology.
Anyway my solution would be for Sony to transition to a industry that is better in keeping with its core philosophy. Find a market where engineering matters, or a industry where the overhead costs aren't killing them.
