Integrating Management Functions To Innovation

About Sony Corporation

Sony Corporation, popularly known as Sony among its customers is a Japanese multinational conglomerate. The company's headquarter is situated at Konan Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Sony Corporation is known as electronic giant, and in past few years the company has diversified its business in game entertainment and financial services. In 2012, among the fortune 500 company, it is placed at 87th position.

Situation And Pending Decision/action

Sony Corporation uses same brand and brand logo for all of its products. That is, the offers the high end products such as LED and SLR with the same brand name and same brand logo as they use while offering low end products such as digital cameras. This has significantly affected the brand image of the company as many of its customers or potential customers now perceive it as just an electronic brand.

Problem/Analysis

Currently the Sony Corporation is facing two main problems that are hampering its growth. The first one is launching all the products under same brand name or logo. Many of the market analysts regard Sony as arche type of what happens when any company blindly follows same strategies for years for all of its products. The same brand is been used by the Sony for all of its products such as television, camera, computers, mobile phone, music players, laptop, etc. that is, all the products of the company, whether high end or low end are carrying the same brand name and logo.

Organizational Issue

Thus, after analyzing the performance of Sony Corporation, two main issues have been identified. The first issue that the company is facing is fall in the sales of its products such as play station and mobile phones. This issue is due to its branding and marketing. That is, implementing same marketing strategies for all the products and launching all the products under one name and logo.

Reasons Behind This Issue

The main reason behind the fall in the performance of Sony Corporation and dilution of its brand image is dependency of the company on the same old strategies. The organization launches all of its products under the brand name Sony. Earlier Sony was known for its televisions, music systems and play station. But the company used the same brand name for launching its other products also. Because of this, now Sony is referred to as just electronics retailer rather than known for some more particular product. Apart from this, it's being long since the company has brought any innovation in its products (Sony Succeeds, 2012).

Relation Between The Underlying Causes

There exists strong relationship between branding and innovation done by the company. If company focuses on same branding strategies, then there are higher chances that the existing branding strategy may not be able to highlight the new or improved features of the innovative product launched by the company. As Sony implements same branding strategies for all the products, irrespective of the high end or low end product, it is not able to effectively communicate the features of its new or innovative products through the same branding and marketing strategy (Sony Succeeds, 2012).

Innovative Management Ideas - Solution

Here are some of the management ideas that may help Sony to overcome the issue currently faced by the company:

• Regaining Focus :Diversification strategy is very fruitful in capturing more market and generating higher revenues, but with respect to brand, any kind of unrelated diversification can prove very harmful for the company.
• Brand Centric Leadership :The last decade has been dominated by many of the Asian brands that are giving stiff competition to the Sony. In addition to this, many of the American brands have been revivified in recent years that have further make the electronic market more competitive.

Possible Course Of Action

Elevating Branding

In order to formulate better marketing and branding strategies, Sony must bring structural changes in its departments and divisions. More specifically, it must bring innovation in its design, marketing and research and development departments. In addition to this, the company must conduct a market survey so as to identify the needs and demands of the customers.

Design, Features and Cool Quotient

It is very important for Sony to focus on design, features and cool quotient of its products as most of its rivals such as Apple, Samsung, etc have strategies that are customer centric.

Best Course Of Action

Among all the available options, Sony must focus on bringing innovation in its products. By bringing innovation and better and improved features, company can attract large number of customers towards it, as in present era people are ready to buy only those things which are unique from the others.

Management Functions

• Planning :The company's top management must plan and develop proper branding and marketing strategies so that they can differentiate their products
• Organization :Sony must employ all the resources optimally so that the cost of bringing innovation can be minimized (Aubry and et. al., 2012).
• Leading :In the absence of a good leader, it is impossible to bring innovation. By employing effective leaders company can achieve innovation.
• Controlling :Among all the management function, controlling is the most important as through this company can track the performance of its operations (Jarvenpaa, 2009).

Conclusion

After implementing management functions on Sony Corporation, and analyzing the issue faced by the company, it can be concluded that, to remain competitive in the market, it is very important for the company to bring innovation in its products. Moreover, by just bringing innovation it can attract customers, for this it will have to sync innovation with marketing and branding strategies.

References

• Aubry, M. and et. al. (2012). Organisational project management as a function within the organization. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. 5(2). pp.180-194.
• Bateman, S. T. and Zeithaml, P. C. (1993). Management: function & strategy. 2nd ed. Irwin.
• Enders, A. and et. al, (2009). Towards an integrated perspective of strategy: The value-process framework. Journal of Strategy and Management. 2(1). pp.76-96.
• Erdem, F. and Erdem, S. (2011). Functional strategies and practices of small and medium-sized family businesses. International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management. 4(2). pp.174-185.
• Jarvenpaa, M. (2009). The institutional pillars of management accounting function. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change. 5(4). pp.444-471.
• Marquis, L. B. and Huston, J. C. (2009). Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. 6th ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 

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