Apparently, Sony started with twenty people in 1946, and has grown to 8,000 people in twenty years. In keeping up with such a rapid growth, Sony could not depend on the usual yearly hiring of freshmen. Sony gathered a wide variety of personnel by such methods as personal acquaintance, public announcement, etc. As a result, school history and seniority are never considered by Sony's management. Only the ability and qualifications of a person are considered basic factors for personnel assignments. However, as the company started to grow, Sony's management began to face pressure from the traditional Japanese social influences. To maintain its freedom to act, management thereupon decided to delete a man's school history from his personnel record. It was a bold step to take in Japan. But it resulted in greatly boosting morale, among SONY employees. This decision created a sensation and was highly appreciated by the people who are trying to introduce modern management in Japan.
In connection to this, this research paper discusses in detail the strategy changes and decision making of Sony Company. The research will analyse and investigate the impact of strategy changes and decision making of Sony Company. This shall include a discussion on the positive and negative variables related to Sony Company promotion styles, an analysis of performance of the Sony Company in the market. Particularly, the research will focus on examining the impact of the management strategies (i.e. TQM, CRM and marketing) of Sony Company. Further, this paper also aims to tackle the customer satisfaction in accordance to the marketing style of Sony Company as viewed by their staff and managers. In this research, the background, context and theme of the study are presented. Moreover, the objectives of the study and the research statements are formulated. Here, vital concepts, questions and assumptions are stated.
Background of the Study
The purpose of conducting a literature review for a new researcher is to determine answers about what is known on a topic. In contrast, experienced researchers review past research to develop sharper and most significant questions about a topic (1994). Furthermore (1989) has suggested previous literature could also be considered as a guide for defining the case and unit of analysis. It is also mentioned that most researchers prefer to compare their findings with previous research ( 1994). Therefore the aim of this part of the proposal is to explore the various literature resources, which will enable the researcher to understand the topic of research that has been published, which is investigating the potential of mobile technologies to effectively support real time business applications. This part of the paper will assist the researcher throughout the investigation, as it will help develop the research questions, to define the case and unit of analysis and most importantly to compare the findings with previous studies conducted on the research topic.
On the other hand, Sony management became aware that it was a mistake to disappoint the men and their families by completely abolishing the seniority promotion system. For the seniority concept is a firmly established business and social practice in Japan. Still, to keep active and adjustable to keen international competition, and to the fast-developing electronics technology, Sony must have flexibility in personnel management. A compromise has therefore been developed. Sony gives such titles as assistant manager, manager, and general manager to people on the traditional seniority basis. But the functions and the range of responsibility of a section or department are set according to the capacity of the person who assumes the management of that section or department. To carry this idea out, Sony, being flexible, changes its organisation as frequently as necessary.
In the past the Japanese organizational structure tended to be highly centralised but recently a degree of decentralization has occurred. One can see this in the tendency of many companies to establish ‘internal companies’. Hitachi has established ten such companies, each headed by a president. Sony has set up four companies of this type. Hitachi previously had a strong head office that housed marketing and other key functions. The many factory profit canters reported to the head office, but because they were short-sighted and afraid of failure, risky strategic decisions tended to be postponed and this hampered innovation. Sony had a hybrid organisational structure with many product divisions, but these lacked marketing and research functions because many of the key functions were centralized in the head office. Sony then established ten internal ‘companies’, but marketing and research were still conducted at head office. More recently Sony established four internal companies with full-responsibility for these functions. The head office still retains staff teams to study strategic issues.
The reasons for this change to the organizational structure are as follows. First, rapid strategic decisions have become necessary in the age of mega-competition: competitive advantage depends on seizing new opportunities as they appear. For instance Sony was quick to enter the entertainment and Internet businesses. Second, the construction of core competencies requires the concentration of resources into growth areas. Small product divisions with responsibility for short-term profits are not equipped to take decisive strategic action.
Statement of the Problem
This research paper seeks to investigate and evaluate the management strategies (i.e. TQM, CRM and marketing) of Sony Company as perceived by their staff and managers. Apparently, the discussion pertains to the satisfaction of the customers as perceived by the managers and staff of the company was also facilitated.
Specifically, the following questions shall be answered:
1. What are the factors affecting the management strategies (i.e. TQM, CRM and marketing) of Sony Company in the world’s market?
2. What are the developments in the Sony Company in terms of cost, services, manner of selling and the benefits gathered from the world’s market?
3. How effective and reliable is the management strategies (i.e. TQM, CRM and marketing) employed by Sony Company and how does it address the needs of progress of the market?
4. Based on the perception of the respondents, does the management strategies (i.e. TQM, CRM and marketing)of Sony Company has significant effect to its progress?