Instead of adopting more widely used standards that appeal to consumers' preference, Sony's conventional focus on its own technologies has trapped the business in the state of "Galapagos-ization" (garapagosu-ka) that segregates the business from international rivalry. Since the mid 1990s, the company has been fighting with sales and shaky profit in its core electronics business while it aggressively expands into the entertainment content sector.
Several restructuring strategies had been executed, but the effect wasn't sustained due to various internal conflicts within the organization. Stringer pushed forward a run of working restructurings and placed a greater focus on content and applications development than on Sony's traditional business, hardware technology.
Though Stringer's change attempts had brought a blink of hope for the comeback of Sony, the situation turned sour in early 2009 when the company declared its first operating loss in 14 years. While different voices about the issues of Sony originated and the leadership of Stringer was questioned, Stringer pushed another round of restructuring attempts. Could Stringer overcome the deep rooted internal resistance that his predecessor had failed to overcome? Were all those restructuring and change attempts essential and useful to Sony's reversion?
PUBLICATION DATE: June 23, 2011 PRODUCT #: HKU954-HCB-ENG
This is just an excerpt. This case is about ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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