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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE

CHAPTER: 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1. COMPANY PROFILE SonyCorporationSon Kabushiki Gaisha, commonly referred to as Sony, is a
Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Knan Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified business is primarily focused on the electronics, game, entertainment and financial services sectors. The company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony is ranked 87th on the 2012 list of Fortune Global 500. Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent company of the Sony Group, which is engaged in business through its four operating segments Electronics (including video games, network services and medical business), Motion pictures, Music and Financial Services. These make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal business operations include Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics in the U.S.), Sony Music Pictures

Entertainment, SonyComputer

Entertainment, Sony

Entertainment, Sony

Mobile Communications (formerly Sony Ericsson), and Sony Financial. Sony is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders and third-largest television manufacturer in the world, after Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. The Sony Group (SonGurpu) is a Japan-based corporate group primarily focused on the Electronics (such as AV/IT products and components), Game (such as PlayStation), Entertainment (such as motion pictures and music), and Financial Services (such as insurance and banking) sectors. The group consists of Sony Corporation (holding and electronics), Sony Computer Entertainment (game), Sony Pictures Entertainment (motion Music pictures), Sony Publishing(music Music

Entertainment (music), Sony/ATV

publishing), Sony

Financial Holdings (financial services) and others. Its founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka derived the name from sonus,

the Latin word for sound, and also from the English slang word "sonny", since they

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE considered themselves to be "sonny boys", a loan word into Japanese which in the early 1950s connoted smart and presentable young men.

1.2. HISTORY OF SONY


Masaru Ibuka, the co-founder of Sony Sony found its beginning in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in a bomb-damaged department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight employees. The next year, he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). The

company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G. In 1958 the company name was changed to Sony (see also Origin of name, below). In the early 1950s, Ibuka traveled in the United States and heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor. He convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company, for use in communications. Ibuka's company made the first commercially successful transistor radios. According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid 1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968. Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960. In the process, he was struck by the mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time. When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony. The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same. Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as a powerful exporter during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products. Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices. In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed the position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began a life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 2

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices. Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony," one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it."Around that time, Norio Ohga took up the role of president. He encouraged the development of the Compact Disc in the 1970s and 80s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989.

1.3.

SONY GROUP HEADQUARTERS AT SONY CITY IN MINATO, TOKYO

Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses. Part of its motivation for doing so was the pursuit of "convergence," linking film, music, and digital electronics via the Internet.This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable, threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products as well as its brand name. In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as Chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner has run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate the company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as Spider-Man while cutting 9,000 jobs. He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics.Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units, which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another.[18] In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced a slogan known as "makebelieve" in 2009. Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late2000s. It became known for its stagnancy, with a fading brand name. In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Sir Howard Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined 3 major areas of focus for Sony's electronics

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as a focus on reducing the major losses from the television business. 1.4. ORIGIN OF NAME When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a Romanized name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TKK. The company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name. The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words. One was the Latin word "Sonus", which is the root of sonic and sound and the other, was "Sonny", a familiar term used in 1950s America to call a boy. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955 but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958. At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval.

1.5. FORMATS AND TECHNOLOGIES


Further information: List of Sony trademarks Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies. The most infamous of these was the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when Sony marketed the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC. In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the market base and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs and Sony GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 4

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE adopted the format. While Betamax is for all practical purposes an obsolete format, a professional-oriented component video format called Betacam that was derived from Betamax is still used today, especially in the television industry, although far less so in recent years with the introduction of digital and high definition. Sony launched the Betamax videocassette recording format in 1975. In 1979 the Walkman brand was introduced, in the form of the world's first portable music player. 1982 saw the launch of Sony's professional Beta cam videotape format and the collaborative Compact Disc (CD) format. In 1983 Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes (better known as 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disks), which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks and a lot of variations from different companies to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant; 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. In 1983 Sony launched the MSX, a home computer system, and introduced the world (with their counterpart Philips) to the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984 Sony launched the Discman series which extended their Walkman brand to portable CD products. In 1985 Sony launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format. Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard. In addition to developing consumer-based recording media, after the launch of the CD Sony began development of commercially based recording media. In 1986 they launched Write-Once optical discs (WO) and in 1988 launched Magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for the specific use of archival data storage. In the early 1990s two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification based on MMCD technology, viz EFMPlus. The unified disc format was called DVD which was marketed in 1997. Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1993 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette. Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 5

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 de facto standard natively, although the provided software Sonic Stage would convert MP3 files into the ATRAC or ATRAC3 formats. In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time. Unlike Dolby Digital, SDDS utilized a method of backup by having mirrored arrays of bits on both sides of the film which acted as a measure of reliability in case the film was partially damaged. Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS (Digital Theatre System) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS. In 1998, Sony launched their Memory Stick format; flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. This is due in part to the SD format's greater throughput (which allows faster recording and access), higher capacities, and significantly lower price per unit capacity compared to Memory Sticks available at the same time. Sony has made updates to the Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro. Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD. The latter has since been entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. At present, neither has gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs are preferred by consumers because of ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices. In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD. Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. Recordings on the Hi-MD Walkmans can be transferred to and from the computer virtually unrestricted, unlike earlier NetMD. In addition to saving audio on the discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 6

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE computer files such as documents, videos and photos. Hi-MD introduced the ability to record CD-quality audio with a linear PCM recording feature. It was the first time since MiniDisc's introduction in 1992 that the ATRAC codec could be bypassed and lossless CD-quality audio could be recorded on the small discs. Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The format emerged as the market leader over the competing standard, Toshiba's HD DVD, after a 2 year-long format war. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. By the end of 2007 the format had the backing of every major motion picture studio except Universal, Paramount, and DreamWorks.The Blu-ray format's popularity continued to increase, solidifying its position as the dominant HD media format, and Toshiba announced its decision to stop supporting HD DVD in 2008. Now, all major studios support Blu-ray and release their films on the format.

1.6. BUSINESS UNITS


Sony offers a number of products in a variety of product lines around the world. Sony has developed a music playing robot called Rolly, dog-shaped robots

called AIBO and ahumanoid robot called QRIO. As of 1 April 2012, Sony is organized into the following business segments: Imaging Products & Solutions (IP&S), Game, Mobile Products & Communications (MP&C), Home Entertainment & Sound (HE&S), Devices, Pictures, Music, Financial Services and All Other. The network and medical businesses are included in the All Other.

1.7. SONY CORPORATION'S SUCCESS


As per the brand message make-believe, the Sony Corporation signified it spirit of ability and creativity in turning ideas into reality by innovating new products and implementing new technology in them. Sony products are good in quality and satisfactory to customers for fulfilling their needs. The company's success could be observed from the release a new products and technologies to world and leading the top in the list of semiconductor manufacturing. Sony's achievements and product fame could be estimated from the surveys made by the media in which soy has been placed in top 10 to top 20 worldwide brands.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE The migration of the electronic services to the digital services raised Sony's market by showing its innovation strategy to the world. Customers also felt that the prices of the basic products are medium with a good quality. Sony influenced most the worldwide customers with its wide range of products that includes various functionalities and high end performances. The Quality of the products that are manufactured by the Sony Corporation seems to increase every year. But there are some minor defects with their parts such as non-longevity of the batteries of the laptops. Sony concentrates on marketing the products of it in order to make them available in the customer's view. Sony keeps on releasing new products by delivering new technologies and new products for the consumers. As the product's prices are fair with the good quality and considerable service, Sony seemed to retain its customers with it, with improvises or stabilizes the revenue of the company.

The company sticks to its strategy by following it strictly which make it differentiated from its competitors. Sony Corporation tends to release new products by March 2010, such as world's first Demodulator LSI for DVB-T2'. Sony joins with discovery communications and IMAX to launch the world's first 24/7 3D Television Network in U.S.

The following are the recent successful news about Sony: Sony opened the 3D technology in Sony Picture Studios. Sony Corporation develops the World's first Millimeter-wave wireless IntraConnection Technology for internal high speed data transfer in electronic products which observes 11Gbps transfer speed with footprint of 0.13mm'. By acquiring iCty Sony enters the Flow Cytometry business in life science. With 9 top accolades Sony designs Excel. For the large Projectors Sony Corporation produces Laser light source module that is highly efficient. Sony and FIFA announced the world's First 3D FIFA world cup. Sony Corporation commercialized the world's first TransferJet' Compatible LSI.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE Based on Magnetic Resonance Sony developed Wireless Power Transfer System that are highly efficient which transfers electrical power of 60 Watts over 50cm distance. High frame single Lens 3D camera Technology was produced by Sony that captured high quality 3D images at 240fps.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE

CHAPTER: 2 GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGY OF SONY CORPORATION


2.1. SONY MARKETING PRINCIPLES:
Sony marketing activities are focusing on these two principles. 1. Customer satisfaction: What customer is expecting from SONY Company is high level of value and best quality of their products which is fulfilled by this company and company also maintains smooth relationship between it and customer. 2. Suppliers: Sony procures their materials and parts of the product from different suppliers worldwide. So it is important to make a mutual trust between both sides. It thinks that suppliers are their partners who provides them highly appealing product which fulfills the customer expectation and enhance their market. Marketing Strategy of SONY: 3. Advertising: Advertising is presented by media to represent a new product launching in the market with companies service and ideas. SONY advertised their products with many different ways like targeting favorable channels like sports. In some country SONY has own television channel so they can advertise more about their products to attract their customer .Even they advertise in some big events to promote their products .SONY make advertisement for their game like PSP on England Premier League. If SONY makes a discounted offer on their products then they advertised in various news papers in United Kingdom. They make hoardings outside of SONY outlets or big shopping malls. Also they post the message through courier so people come to know about their new product and offers. 4. Sales Promotion: The main purpose of promotion is to launch new products into the market and to attract the customer to see their product and solve their queries and doubts through promotion. It is also advantageous for the company at that time they can take the customer opinion about that product. SONY promoted their products every time with new strategies FOR eg when SONY promoted their SONY ERICSSON WALK MAN GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 10

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE series phone. They offer to download free music and free pictures for first 6 months .And they also give free Bluetooth along with the mobile phones with warranties. In northern America Sony announced new marketing campaign to launch PS3.This campaign featuring the tag line Play Beyond for inspiring the customer that they can get ready in the next generation digital games market .What their customers to think beyond what they can expect in video games. 5. Excellent Customer service: On SONY websites they provide information for that customer who needs information about SONY products. In this way SONY can maintain their smooth relation with their customers and ensures that they can fulfill the demands of customer. And all SONY customer reprsentitative are well trained so they can give answers of the customer queries. 6. Long Life Product: SONY Company makes their product for Long Life which is generally guaranteed for more than 5 years. For eg SONY launched new type of lithium ion secondary battery it combines both high power and long life performance. And the advantage of this batteries are they charge very fast they provide high energy capacity and high reliability .And SONY have so many product like mobile phones, cameras, laptops where the batteries can use inside . So it also attracts the customer to buy this kind of product. 7. High Performance Product: In new generation the people are expecting the high definition product which gives the customer high performance and portability. Which attract the customer for buying those products? Majority of Sony product is high performance like head phones, AV cable rang product which uses in sonny's home theater product. Sony provides a clean and clear sound quality in their music system. In marketing it achieves the trust of customer on high performance products. 8. Generation demand: Sony always targeted their marketing strategies on generation demands to drive awareness and their interest into the Sony's products and smooth customer service. As per new generation demand Sony builds a blue ray disc player for home video release .Which really attracts the movie fans because of the ultimate sound and its video quality. GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 11

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9. Innovation in their software and in hardware service: SONY always focused to generate new hardware products which implement into their software systems. For eg SONY uses 3D products in their cameras, blue ray disc and in play station. 10. Difference price of the product according to country: Pricing decisions are always made with marketing management According to country's environment and their political factors SONY decide the price strategy. Because in different country's price variables due to dealer, retailer, manufacture. And customer are very much attached with the price .For ex. SONY Vaio laptops are available according to their style, user and their performance and each a corresponding price in different environment According to my opinion from these marketing strategies sony provide satisfaction to their customers .They have to continuously focus on this strategy to build a strong market because of SONY's wide range of products and with high quality of customer service, they influenced most of the its customers perception favorably towards its product . From Sony's investment in research and according to their new marketing tactics their products are improving each year. As per the sony product prices they have to mainly focusing on middle class people in Asian country for enhance their business .Because some of the SONY product prices are very much expensive which middles class people cannot afford. So in this situation their competitors can take advantage of that and provide better marketing in that particular area.

2.2.BUSINESS TACTICS OF SONY CORPORATION.


1. Leader in the networked consumer electronics: Sony Company focuses more in enhancing network initiatives in the market for their profits and growth. Sony's 90% of the product are network enabled and wireless capable which leads them in to the market. SONY is planning to invest 1.8 trillion yen to build their business and technologies related to network. For eg SONY's entertainment offer most highly anticipated films HANCOCK exclusively all internet connected to their BRAVIA LCD TVs in the united states before its available only on DVD.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE 2. New Open Innovation tactics: From this tactics SONY is not looking inside their companies but also looking outside for new technologies. By combining both this their internal strengths and with the help of external experts they are planning to accelerate their research efficiency and effectively to respond to rapidly changes of the customer expectation .so from this new innovative idea Sony is not only to achieve their sales volume but also sustainable and profitable growth.

3. Establishing Green Management in 2010 : Green management 2010 is environment targets that are guide to SONY group in their helps to prevent global warming ,recycle resources, ensure appropriate management of chemical substances and address a broad range of other environmental issues .(www.sony.co.in,2009,19th dec).to set up this target sony had a three basis goals :

To aim high as a cutting edge Reduction of absolute green house gas emissions Create global challenges for the entire SONY group. Replace all their material with environmentally sensitive materials. Reduction in weight generation at their business sites.

4. Focus on new Creativity: SONY always focusing on new creativity in their technology, Marketing and in their production planning .with technology they always comes with new products. Marketing role is very important role for innovation of technology. Sony always focus to produced new goods according to marketing requirement from their research and new development they driven the market, and the last one with production planning they always make sure the needs of their consumers.

2.3. SONY MARKETING COMPETITORS:


SONY major competitors are Mobile Phones : Nokia , Samsung , LG Computer: : Dell ,IBM ,Compaq Music : Apple Page 13

GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE Gaming : Microsoft Xbox ,Nintendos

Competitive marketing strategy occurs within department, across organizations, and within people's head as a way of doing business. Marketing strategy defines the specific market towards which activities are to be targeted and the types of competitive advantages that are to be developed and exploited (West et al., 2006: 04, 35)Primary focus is to effectively allocate and coordinate marketing resources and activities to accomplish the firm's objectives within a specific product market (Mullins and Walker 2010: 43)Sony is a well-known, popular, and successful company and strongly emphasizing on strategic marketing planning that enables the company to stay competitive and alive in its industry. The current marketing strategy and plan has made Sony Corporation a hot cake in the industry and is satisfactory to customer needs. Sony is continuously expanding its products and services from electronics to digital i.e. Sony Home Entertainment and BMG Music Entertainment and lot more like movie production and distribution (Sony Picture) and Games. Sony has launched 3D-related products for the home, including TV, Blu-ray Disc players/recorders and 3D gaming on PlayStation3.

I.

SONY Target market:

Every time SONY comes with its new technology and to appeal their customers. Mostly the people are interested with these kind of new technology, usually men the ages between 14yrs - 28yrs .To fulfill their requirements SONY makes product which attract to them for EG in new SONY ERICSSON mobile which provide 12 Megapixel camera with wireless blue tooth technology . So the advantage is that the customer can take the advantage of nice photography as well as they can listen the music wireless and the sound quality is most superior then other mobile phones. SONY another target market is Game Lovers. SONY makes games very attractive like in new play Station 3 first they deduct the cost of the games. They focused on their Blue ray disc which provides high definition video. Also the control of the monitor they provide gyro acceleration sensor technology. They are coming with 3D technology so they released 3D games in line with SONY 3D strategy. And all their games units are upgradable by latest firmware. And the games which they provide is like shooting games like God Of war which more attract the young children .and these games are all adventures games so children can spend their time beyond that. GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 14

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II.

SIMPLE

WAYS

TO

APPROACH

MARKETING

STRATEGY:
Source: West et al., 2006: pp:05The marketing plan is the central instrument for directing and coordinating the marketing efforts. The strategic marketing plan lays out the target markets and the customer perceived value offerings the firm will offer, based on as analysis of the best market opportunities (Kotler, et al., 2009: 86).

III.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF SONY CORPORATION

The most important thing the company should aware of the competitor's activities, and acquire their actions and backgrounds when implementing its strategic marketing planning and this can be done by different kinds of strategies and the most important one is (Porters generic strategies) because gaining knowledge and information against competitor's enable and help in creating measures to gain advantage over competitors. Unique and innovative standard quality technology owing to heavy emphasis on research and development, the commitment of Sony Corporation's to research and development in industry has always been one of its top priority i.e. strategies to gain leadership and remain competitive in the market. The competitive advantage possessed by Sony is discussed with the help of Porter's generic strategies and Porter's five force analysis.

IV.

PORTER'S GENERIC STRATEGIES

Professor Michael Porter suggested that some of the most rudimentary choices faced by companies are essentially the range of the markets and competition in their respective markets. The profit of any organization is the difference between its total revenues and costs. Therefore high profitability can be attained through achieving the lowest costs or the highest prices with respect to the competition. The Porter's generic strategies are: Cost Differentiation Cost Focus Differentiation Focus

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE V. THE MAIN STRATEGY OF SONY IS DIFFERENTIATION AND DIFFERENTIATION FOCUS: Competitive Advantage Low Cost Product Uniqueness Target Industry Wide Scope Market Segment

2.4. PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION


Sony Corporation is able to create its own firm specific advantages through its innovative, unique production i.e. differentiated products and from their activities of research, development and best marketing practices. Because of its differentiated strategy, Sony products are hard to imitate and also make its hard or difficult for competitors to find substitutes. It is exactly because of this differentiated approach, Sony is able to market their unique products globally (Worldwide), in return which enables them to maximize the returns on both research & development expenditures. The competitive advantage of Sony Corporation could be persistent provided the company would continue to emphasize on its core competencies both inside & outside approach. Sony Corporation should not be satisfied with the things they already know about their competitors and should make every effort to find out things about its competitors that cannot be clearly noticed. However the corporation has to be strongly aware of the latest technological changes both (inside & outside approach). In the consumer market, Sony Corporation has gain much success as compared to its competitors like Samsung, NEC, LG, HP, Dell, Lenovo etc. but the Corporation's future goal has to produce and sell more. Sony Corporation has numerous core competencies by which they could gain more advantage over their competitors another core competency of the company is its brand management. In today's market structure most top companies including Sony find it very hard or difficult to create any kind of sustainable competitive advantage based on product alone. The key internal strengths of the Sony Company are the correct and effective marketing strategies, but there are continuous changes and emerging condition in globalization, stiff competition and technological innovation into which Sony has to improve its operational standards. GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 16

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2.5. PORTERS FIVE COMPETITIVE FORCES


Source: (Mullins and walker, 2010: 82) According to Michael porter view the collective strength of these forces determining the ultimate profit potential of the industry and the ability of firms in an industry to earn rates of return on investment in excess of the cost of capital. Technology is continuously increasing and the electronic industry has a rapid growth. The present brands have made high entry barriers for new entrants and its takes so long for the new product to be popular in the present market place.

2.6. RIVALRY AMONG PRESENT COMPETITORS


Rivalry occurs among firms that produce products that are close substitutes for each other, especially when one competitor acts to improve its standing or protects its position (Mullins and Walker, 2010: 82) Sony Corporation is the world top producer of the electronic devices and equipments. Sony is having a big market share for hand held Computer OS. The usage of Sony Laptops in USA is eighty percent and also Sony is holding a big share in hardware market as compared to its competitors like Toshiba, Samsung, and Hitachi etc. In Laptop market Sony's major competitors are DELL and HP both is providing standard class of computers to their attractive customers. Sony is facing threat from Samsung Home theatre market and Cannon Digital Camera's, which is coming to market with an effective policy and low cost strategies and this has lead Sony to intense rivalry.

2.7. THREATS OF NEW ENTRANTS


The greater the threats of new entrants, the less will be an industry's attractiveness (Mullins and walker, 2010: 83) As technology is continuously growing the entry of new electronic company will have to face and deal with high costs for their introduction of technology in the industry also they have to face marketing and advertising issues. Sony Corporation is facing a great threat from its competitors like Samsung in Home theatre Products like (Plasma TV, Sony Bravia). All Sony major competitors are establishing their distribution channels globally. Sony is an emerging company with several hundred unique products but political factors for Sony can be alter at any time because the government is holding the power to do amendments in trade policy any time, so from this aspect Sony Corporation must aware of these GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 17

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE governmental laws, which can strongly effect its performance and weaken its competitive position.

2.8. Bargaining Power of Supplier


The greater the bargaining power of the key supplier to an industry, the less will be the overall attractiveness of the industry (Mullins and Walker, 2010: 84) The suppliers of Sony Corporation are powerful as suppliers want a platform of industry and right channel for their distribution & consumption. The suppliers of Sony Corporation's competitors have relatively less bargaining power because the value of their products in the market is less as compared to Sony products and still their product have to establish reliability or consistency in the market. The brands of competitors are in conflict with Sony Brand where these products have been able to protect the confidence of its attractive customers globally. Sony has unveiled plans to rapidly boost its 3D product range over the next year, launching TV, Blu-ray and gaming products with the technology.

2.9. BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS


In the mobile computing industry it is fact that the bargaining power of the buyers is relatively low and aside from Sony there are several more giant players in the industry. For price and model customers are always having less bargaining power as they are all the time looking for cheap price and also they have the power base of switching costs which allow them to buy the same kind of products with cheaper price but different classification. Electronic industry has a big customer base and companies should focus on the market trend. Sony is targeting market from different aspects while covering every age group for game and home theatre entertainment. Sony Corporation is now become a brand name with unique and attractive products and getting customer attention quickly and also makes them to buy a vast range of products.

2.10. THREATS OF SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS


Competition in the industry is always on the peak and alternative products of the same purpose are always available at a low price and minute margins. In electronic industry competition never stops, to get better results manufacturer are using every market GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 18

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE planning strategy to attract customers for their own products and also spend or invest a lot of money into product marketing and advertising activity. Customer is looking all the time for quality and brand name. Sony laptops are little expensive as compared to DELL and HP also play station 3 if we compare it to XBOX 360 is much more expensive. But Sony strategic management and marketing policies are much better as compare to its competitors like Cannon, Nikon, HP, DELL, and Lenovo etc.

2.11. FRANCHISING STRATEGIES


PERSONAL RESEARCH OPINIONS: Sony can gives Franchisee opportunities to other people, it will help to the company expand their business in world wide.Now Sony's delivering their product parts from some specific country, it is increasing selling cost and waste of time. In hence they are open brand parts in local areas; will good effect profitability because of customer can get their Sony's brand parts easily and in lowest cost. Sony's manufacturing their product by using hard and non-recycle agent instead of it; can use recycle agent which give Sony's Reduction cost of sale, promotion of Remanufacture, promote Keep Environment clean etc. They have to minimize their cost of sale because of that, Sony's brand are expensive in the market compare to other Brand. Sony's promoting to the people, currently they are providing 90% of our Electronics products categories are network-enable and Wire-less in world wide area. Sony's trying to get attraction from customer that's why they have announced in newspaper. Sony's have had invested 497.3 Billion yen for Research and development to upgrade their quality of product. One of the Business Tacked is now they are going to introduce 3D entertainment on Online service'. Sony's always makes promises with customer about best quality and long lasting service of product.

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CHAPTER: 3 SWOT ANALYSIS


3.1.STRENGTHS:

Sony has established a mature supplier management system. They select suppliers that comply with laws, maintain solid financials, innovate technologically, protect the environment, offer competitive prices and control component qualities. They emphasize on the frequent exchange of information with suppliers via Ecommerce throughout the standardized procurement process.The company has established a broad sales network, registered in approximately 200 countries and territories.Sony provides good after-sales service.

Almost all of Sonys consumer-use products carry a warranty. The company maintains support contracts with customers in addition to Warranties.They also maintain customer information centers in their principal markets.Sony have a strong brand name. Their products are generally considered to have high quality and good design. ellectual Properties Holdings: Sony has a number of Japanese and foreign patents, and is licensed to use a number of patents owned by others. Sony considers their overall license position beneficialto their operations.

3.2. WEAKNESSES:
: Sony operates numerous product lines that serve too many parts of the entertainment value chain. They serve as a content provider, content aggregator, Broadcaster, hardware producer, and manufacturer of value-added productsThe empirebuilding strategy not only caused the companys innovation and operation to slow GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 20

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE down, but also impaired their competitiveness in any of the market segments they are engaged in. Further, the product lines have few connections among themselves, and therefore do not generate many network externalities or cost advantages.The current financial results are weak, showing high liquidity risks, decreasing sales, slowly recovering profitability, low operating efficiency, underperforming stocks, and low investor confidence. Focus: The current management team has been relatively conservative. While restructuring has frequently been implemented, it was usually done on a small scale. Strategically significant mergers and acquisitions were seldom conducted. ent: As Sony expanded into more segments and geographic locations, they became more sensitive to exchange rates and interest rates that are exogenous factors out of Sonys control.

3.3. OPPORTUNITIES:
: Kazuo Hirai, appointed CEO of Sony in February 2012, might bring changes to the company. His expertise in computer entertainment and PlayStation might bring more focus to the firms product lines. : Since Sonys operating results are very sensitive to economic and employment See appendix 3 for information regarding Sonys reputation.These products include games, Mobile TV, interactive TV, VOD, etc.22conditions; the business is likely to benefit from a recovery from the recent economic crisis. : Sonys stock price is possibly undervalued after its decline by more than 50% in 2011, which might attract more equity investments in the firm in the near future. The significant competition from Apple and Google could result in more integration GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 21

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE within the electronics and software industry. Sony may take this opportunity to acquire more aggressively in order to drive down their manufacturing and intellectual property costs.

3.4. THREATS:
Competition: The Great East Japan Earthquake and its aftermath may continue to adversely affect Sonys operating results and financial condition by incurring excessive restoration costs that exceed their insurance policies. Causing energy supply shortages that may lead to a reduction or suspension of Production. Product quality degradation caused by using replacement components reducing overall demand by consumers and businesses. Sony must overcome increasingly intense competition from firms that may be more specialized or have greater resources. : Foreign exchange rate fluctuations can affect financial results because a large portion of Sonys sales and assets (more than 75%) are denominated in currencies other than the Yen. Sonys business restructuring and transformation effoefforts are costly and may not attain their objectives. Increased reliance on external business partners may increase the possibility that:Sony may incorporate defective or inferior third party components or software. Third party components may be subject to copyright or patent infringement claims. Sonys operations may be affected if the external partners are subject to business or service interruption caused by accidents or bankruptcies. : While it is difficult to argue Sonys stock price is undervalued, we do believe most investors considered a 50% drop of price to be dramatic.See appendix 1 for more information on exchange rate.23When raw materials, parts and components become scarce, the cost of production rises.

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3.5. STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS


Based on our analysis, the most significant challenges for Sony are competition and macro-risks, including currency, disaster, and economic downturn. In this section, wepropose four strategic recommendations for Sony. The first two aim to develop Sonys competitive advantage. The third recommendation tries to maintain Sonys reputation and control lawsuit damages. The last recommendation targets at the macro-risks mentioned above.

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CHAPTER: 4 MARKETING MIX


The main concept of marketing is the Marketing Mix that includes all the necessary marketing issues that a company could adopt and follow to influence and attract the customers towards their product and services. The marketing mix decisions generally relies on 4 P's such as Product Price Promotion Place

4.1. PRODUCT
Product Mix:Any tangible or physical things or services, that satisfies a customer need is often referred as product. As this satisfies the customer by providing their functional requirements, the product is considered as the core element of Marketing Mix. Sony Corporation is the parent company of Sony Group and is the electronics business unit. The various products of Sony Corporation are explained below Product Line and Product Mix: Product Mix: The total brand sets that are marketed by a company is termed as Product Mix. Product mix is the total sum of the product lines of the organization. The Product mix of the Sony Corporation falls under different categories such as

ELECTRONICS
AUDIO The 1979 Sony Walkman ushered in a new era of portability for music listening. Sony produced the world's first portable music player, the Walkman in 1979. This line fostered a fundamental change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. Walkman originally referred to portable audio cassette players. The company now uses the

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE Walkman brand to market its portable audio and video players as well as a line of former Sony Ericsson mobile phones. Sony utilized a related brand, Discman, to refer to its CD players. It dropped this name in the late 1990s COMPUTING Sony produces a line of laptops branded as VAIO.Sony sells many of its computer products using the VAIO brand. Sony produced computers (MSX home computers and NEWS workstations) during the 1980s, exclusively for sale in the Japanese market. The company withdrew from the computer business around 1990. Sony entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996. Short for "Video Audio Integrated Operation," the line was the first computer brand to highlight visual-audio features. Sony faced considerable controversy when some of its laptop batteries exploded and caught fire in 2006.,[28] resulting in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history. In a bid to join the tablet computer market, the company launched its Sony Tablet series in 2011. The machines run on Google Android software. PHOTOGRAPHY Sony produces a consumer-oriented line of digital cameras branded as Cybershot.Sony offers a range of digital cameras. Point-and-shoot models adopt the Cybershot name, while digital single-lens reflex models are branded using Alpha. The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. At the time, digital cameras were a relative novelty. Sony's market share of the digital camera market fell from a high of 20% to 9% by 2005. Sony entered the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras in 2006 when it acquired the camera business of Konica Minolta. Sony rebranded the company's line of cameras as its Alpha line. Sony is the world's third largest manufacturer of the cameras, behind leaders Canon and Nikon

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE VIDEO Sony's BRAVIA line of televisions replaces the Trinitron and WEGA series.In 1968 Sony introduced the Trinitron brand name for its lines of aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and (later) computer monitors. Sony stopped production of Trinitron for most markets, but continued producing sets for markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Sony discontinued its series of Trinitron computer monitors in 2005. The company discontinued the last Trinitron-based television set in the USA in early 2007. The end of Trinitron marked the end of Sony's analog television sets and monitors. Sony used the LCD WEGA name for its LCD TVs until summer 2005. The company then introduced the BRAVIA name. BRAVIA is an in house brand owned by Sony which produces high-definition LCD televisions, projection TVs and front projectors, home cinemas and the BRAVIA home theatre range. All Sony high-definition flatpanel LCD televisions in North America have carried the logo for BRAVIA since 2005. Sony is the third-largest maker of televisions in the world. As of 2012, Sony's television business has been unprofitable for eight years. In December 2011, Sony agreed to sell all stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics for about $940 million. On 28 March 2012, Sony Corporation and Sharp Corporation announced that they have agreed to further amend the joint venture agreement originally executed by the parties in July 2009, as amended in April 2011, for the establishment and operation of Sharp Display Products Corporation ("SDP"), a joint venture to produce and sell large-sized LCD panels and modules Sony also sells a range of DVD players. It has shifted its focus in recent years to promoting the Blu-ray format, including discs and players. SEMICONDUCTOR AND COMPONENT Sony produces a wide range of semiconductors and electronic components including image sensors, laser diodes, system LSIs, mixed-signal LSIs, OLED panels, etc. The company has a strong presence in image sensor market. Sony-manufactured CCD and CMOS image sensors are widely used in digital cameras, smart phones, tablet computers. GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 26

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ENTERTAINMENT / GAMES Sony pictures entertainment


Main article: Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures produces well known series including Spider-Man and Men in Black. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (SPE) is the television and film

production/distribution unit of Sony. With 12.5% box office market share in 2011, the company was ranked 3rd among movie studios.[41] Its group sales in 2010 were US$7.2 billion. The company has produced many notable movie franchises, including Spider-Man, The Karate Kid, and Men in Black. It has also produced popular television game shows Jeopardy! And Wheel of Fortune. Sony entered the television and film production market when it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989 for $3.4 billion. Columbia lives on in the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, a subsidiary of SPE which in turn owns TriStar Pictures and Columbia Pictures. SPE's television division is known as Sony Pictures Television. For the first several years of its existence, Sony Pictures Entertainment performed poorly, leading many to suspect the company would sell off the division. Sony Pictures Entertainment encountered controversy in the early 2000s. In July 2000, a marketing executive working for Sony Corporation created a fictitious film critic, David Manning, who gave consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures that generally received poor reviews amongst real critics. Sony later pulled the ads, suspended Manning's creator and his supervisor and paid fines to the state of Connecticut and to fans who saw the reviewed films in the US. In 2006 Sony started using ARccOS Protection on some of their film DVDs, but later issued a recall.

Sony music entertainment


Main article: Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (also known as SME or Sony Music) is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 27

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation. The company owns full or partial rights to the catalogues of Michael Jackson, The Beatles,Usher, Eminem, Akon, and others. In one of its largest-ever acquisitions, Sony purchased CBS Record Group in 1987 for US$2 billion. In the process, Sony gained the rights to the catalogue of Michael Jackson, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the most successful entertainer of all time. The acquisition of CBS Records provided the foundation for the formation of Sony Music Entertainment, which Sony established in 1991. In 2004, Sony entered into a joint venture with Bertelsmann AG, merging Sony Music Entertainment with Bertelsmann Music Group to create Sony BMG. In 2005, Sony BMG faced a copy protection scandal, because its music CDs had installed a controversial feature on users' computers[48] that was posing a security risk to affected users.[ In 2007, the company acquired Famous Music for US$370 million, gaining the rights to the catalogues of Eminem and Akon, among others. Sony bought out Bertelsmann's share in the company and formed a new Sony Music Entertainment in 2008. Since then, the company has undergone management changes.

Sony/Atv music publishing


Main article: Sony/ATV Music Publishing Besides its record label, Sony operates other music businesses. In 1995, Sony purchased a 50% stake in ATV Music Publishing, forming Sony/ATV Music Publishing. At the time, the publishing company was the second-largest of its kind in the world. The company owns much of the publishing rights to the catalogue of The Beatles. Sony purchased digital music recognition company Grace note for US$260 million in 2008.

FINANCIAL SERVICES AND OTHERS


Sony is one of Japan's largest corporations by revenue. It had revenues of 6.395 trillion in 2012. It also maintains large reserves of cash, with 13.29 trillion on hand as of 2012. In May 2012, Sony shares were valued at about $15 billion.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE The company was immensely profitable throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, in part because of the success of its new PlayStation line. The company encountered financial difficulty in the mid- to late-2000s due to a number of factors: the global financial crisis, increased competition for PlayStation, and the Japanese earthquake. The company faced three consecutive years of losses leading up to 2011. While noting the negative effects of intervening circumstances such as natural disasters and fluctuating currency exchange rates, the Financial Times criticized the company for its "lack of resilience" and "inability to gauge the economy." The newspaper voiced skepticism about Sony's revitalization efforts, given a lack of tangible results. In September 2000 Sony had a market capitalization of $100 billion; but by December 2011 it had plunged to $18 billion, reflecting falling prospects for Sony but also reflecting grossly inflated share prices of the 'dot.com' years. Net worth, as measured by stockholder equity, has steadily grown from $17.9 billion in March 2002 to $35.6 billion through December 2011. Earnings yield (inverse of the price to earnings ratio) has never been more than 5% and usually much less; thus Sony has always traded in over-priced ranges with the exception of the 2009 market bottom. In April 2012, Sony announced that it would reduce its workforce by 10,000 (6% of its employee base) as part of CEO Hirai's effort to get the company back into the green. This came after a loss of 520 billion yen (roughly US$6.36 billion) for fiscal 2012, the worst since the company was founded. Accumulation loss for the past four years was 919.32 billion-yen. Sony plans to increase its marketing expenses by 30% in 2012. 1,000 of the jobs cut come from the company's mobile phone unit's workforce. 700 jobs will be cut in the 2012-2013 fiscal year and the remaining 300 in the following fiscal year.

Sony's 2009 sales and distribution by geographical region

Geographic region

Total sales (yen in millions)

Japan

1,873,219

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United States

2,512,345

Europe

2,307,658

Other Area

2,041,270

On 9 December 2008, Sony Corporation announced that it would be cutting 8,000 jobs, dropping 8,000 contractors and reducing its global manufacturing sites by 10% to save $1.1 billion per year.

Product Line: The total set of product items and variants offered by the company, which are closely related in their functions and benefits are known as Product Line. The product line of Sony Corporation is as follows: a) Television and Home Cinema b) VAIO Computing c) Digital Cameras d) Printers and Photo frames e) Camcorders f) Hi-Fi and Home Audio g) MP3 Players and Portable Audio h) Car Audio i) Reader eBook j) Sony Ericsson Mobile Phones k) PlayStation l) Recording Media and Batteries m) Accessories and Headphones With all these types of Sony Corporation Product two products such as Television and Home cinema and VAIO Computing has been described in detail as they both are considered to be the core products of Sony Corporation.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE i. TELEVISION AND HOME CINEMA:

There are a wide range of products of Sony Corporation in the category of Television and Home Cinema based on their style, purpose, performance and model. The products of this category are: Bravia Television Home Cinema DVD and Blu-ray Disc TM Projectors Compatible Accessories

Sony Corporation covered major areas in the style and models according to their functionalities. Sony followed the strategy of satisfying customer needs according to their segmentation that is the demand for the accessories such as DVD players, projectors, Bluetooth adapters and other accessories related to the Television category has been covered by Sony. The recent television release of Sony is KDL-52NX803, full HD 1080, ultra slim, built-in Wi-Fi, Smooth blur-free in fast-action scenes and built-in tuner for easy access to free view HD.

ii.

VAIO COMPUTING:

Sony provides latest technology IT Devices in order to attract the market and the customers by fulfilling their needs. Sony produced different configuration laptops and Desktops/Notebooks. The Brand name for their laptop is VAIO which means Video Audio Integrated Operation; this has been currently redefined by Sony as Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer to indicate their customer about their improvised Quality' and Design'. Categories of VAIO computing are:

VAIO Laptops Business/Customized Notebooks VAIO Accessories VAIO Software

The recent introduction of Sony VAIO laptop is FW series that has a revolutionary 16.4 real wide display which enhances the multimedia entertainment. This display fits best for office use by allowing the user to open two maximized windows and work simultaneously making the multi-tasking ease. The introduction of Sony JS GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 31

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE series is a multi-purpose desktop that allows the user to enjoy wide screen display with latest Processor, 500 GB hard drive capacity, 3GB DDR2 SDRAM, face tracking technology, automatic zoom adjustment, integrated echo proof microphone, and five times faster wireless connectivity. The JS series is an award winning desktop.

BRAND: The brand name of Sony corporation product is Sony which is common for electronics and other products, and specifically, Bravia brand for Televisions of Sony Corporation and VAIO brand name for the computer peripherals, which is familiar around the world for its consumer electronic products and gaming systems.

The following figure depicts the category, brand and variants of Sony Corporation:
i) CATAGORY ii) BRANDS iii) VARIANTS The following table illustrates the world top 20 brand ranking for the consumer products (ABI Score 2009) Sony acquired 9th position in it: McDonald's The engagement scores for the world's top 100 brands 2009, rated Sony Consumer Electronics product in 18th position, the following table depicts the position of Sony: ENGAGEMENT SCORES FOR THE WORLD'S TOP 100 BRANDS The following graph depicts the interest and usage of Sony digital camera according to the gender. The graph shows that 18% to 30% of men and 30% to 45% of women use Sony digital camera: The worldwide combine market share for Sony Corporation for its notebook and PC during the year 2009 is shown in the following figure: Sony secured 3rd position in the top 5 LCD TV Brands in North America rated by unit shipments:

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TOP 5 LCD TV BRANDS IN NORTH AMERICA: 2009 RANKING BY UNIT SHIPMENTS


Quality: Sony Corporation leads the quality and reliability for its LCD TV Brand with better clarity in picture, sound effects, ease of use and low problems. Services:

The support and maintainability for the troubleshooting, repairs, upgrades and operations in PC and laptop of Sony is better than many other products. This could be shown from the following graph where 9% of the product is easy to support, 33% is Ok to support and only 9% of the whole products is hard to support: Maintainability and Service Graph of Different PC and Laptop Manufacturers.

4.2. PRICE MIX:


Setting Price for the product considered as the essential and important one in marketing as price is a revenue earner and it would be the return to the company for its effort in manufacturing and marketing a product. If the price of a product does not cover the costs made for the product then the company would acquire a loss, therefore price of the product should be not be set in isolation rather it should be blended in accordance to the other 3 P's.

i.

The Demand Curve:

One of the important concepts of pricing is demand. The relationship between the demand and the pricing is given by the following demand graph. The graph describes that when the price of the product increases, the sales will be low with a decrease in demand which do not require more quantity of the product. If the price is low, sales would increase and the demand will be more which increases the requirement of the quantity of the product.

ii.

Pricing Methods of Sony Corporation:

There are three methods of pricing based on the cost of the product, competitors for the product and the marketing of the product. The products of the Sony Corporation

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE are priced on the basis of the Cost of the product and Competitor of some of its electronics products, and very few products are priced according to the marketing

iii.

Pricing Strategies of Sony:

There are various strategies for pricing such as premium pricing, economy pricing, psychological pricing, product line pricing, optional product pricing, captive product pricing, product bundle pricing, value pricing, geographical pricing, and promotional pricing. Sony follows the pricing strategies such as: Premium Pricing Economy Pricing Psychological Pricing Product Line Pricing iv. Premium Pricing:

The core product of Sony comes under Premium pricing. The following products are some of the premium priced products the sample price for them are also provided: Bravia LCD TVs: Price ranging approximately from 250 to 1600 according to the different model and functional facilities VAIO Laptops and Desktops: Price ranging from 250 to 2175 depending on various configurations and performances Projectors / Home Audio: Price of the projectors ranging from 153 to 770 and the Home Audio prices range between 150 and 1500, the price of home video

v.

Economy Pricing:

Some of the product of the Sony Corporation adopts economy pricing that is products with low price and high quality, such as: Digital Cameras / MP3 Players: The economy pricing of Sony digital Cameras are from 100 to 1600 and for MP3 Players - 35 to 360 with high quality audio Car Radios: Car radios of Sony Corporation ranges from 50 to 150 according to the audio effects Mobiles (Sony Ericsson): Sony Corporation released variety of mobiles based on their styles, functionalities and performance ranging from 40 to 475

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE vi. Product Line Pricing:

Sony Corporation released variety of products and their sub-products based on their style and performance. For Example Sony VAIO has many sub-products based on their configuration in it such as VAIO F series, FW series, NW series, Z series, W series, AW series, P series ranging from 250 to 2175. vii. Psychological Pricing:

The Sony Corporation also provides the products under psychological pricing strategy that attracts the customers psychologically. For example, some of their products such as Digital Cameras ranges 99 instead 100, MP3 ranges from 29 instead of 30 and Bravia TVs from 249 rather 250 and VAIO laptops from 1599 instead 1600. viii. Penetration Pricing:

The launch of some new products of Sony Corporation would have a low price with high quality (Penetration Price) in order to enter in to the market. Some of the VAIO laptops of Sony have a price range of 300 to 500 approximately as a penetration price. This price will be modified later once when the product became familiar among customers or when the demand of that product increases. ix. Skimming Price:

The Skimming price strategy is used by the company that provides high price products for the customers who do not focus on price of the product. Sony Corporation provides very least products in this strategy, such as MP3 Players prices 350 and some digital cameras pricing 1500. x. Price - Quality Matrix for Sony Corporation Products:

Many of the core products of Sony Corporation possess high quality with high price that are in premium positioning such as VAIO laptops, VAIO Desktops, Bravia TVs, XPLOD and play station. Some of their product's quality is medium with medium price that are considered to be in the medium value position (Economy Pricing), such as, printers, photo frames and MP3 players. Products such as Digital Cameras, Batteries, and Home Audio etc are of high quality with medium price that are considered to be in value position.

xi.

Quality

Low Medium High Low GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 35

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE Price Medium High xii. Pricing Issues:

Sony Corporation provides discounts for their products as Seasonal offers, during Christmas Eve and New Year era, they also provides summer offers. The Premium products such as VAIO Computing and Bravia LCD TVs will have medium cost during the offer time and the products with medium price like MP3 Players and Digital Cameras would be provided in economy pricing range. xiii. Sample Price Comparison for Sony Corporation:

The following table provides a price comparison between Sony VAIO laptops and Toshiba according to their configuration, performance and functionalities Sony vaio price graph

4.3. PROMOTION MIX:


The promotion mix includes the following key characteristics that a company follows to promote its product: Advertising Personal Sales Direct Sales Sales Promotion Public Relations and Publicity Internet Promotion

PROMOTION MIX OF SONY:


Sony follows all the six key characteristics of Promotion mix in order to promote its products:

i.

Advertising:

Sony Corporation spends $3.6 billion (Mike Bradbury, Neal Kissel, 2006), every year for advertising its products in order to push its products to the customers and pull the customers towards their products. During 2007 and 2008 they have reduced their advertising expense by 50% due to recession, but currently they have improvised their expense in advertising to same (Mintel: April, 2009). Sony Corporation advertises its GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 36

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE products in adopting many different ways and media. For example, majority of their advertisements is on television for their core products such as, Bravia LCD TV and VAIO laptops. Some of their products such as Play stations were promoted through sports, like Football in England Premiere League. Advertisements were also published in various newspapers and Magazines in order to make people aware about their products. Sony also supports Co-Operative advertising, which provides materials and guidelines to their dealers such as Sony World' for promoting advertisements in television and radio commercials, here the media costs will be shared between the Sony Corporation and the dealers.

ii.

Direct Marketing:

Sony covers a wide range of methods for promoting its products directly to customers: Telemarketing: Sony hires some companies for marketing its products through telephone using both in-bound and out-bound call centres. In January 2010, Sony Corporation provided IBM to outbound its part of Business processes (Source: sony.net, January 2010). Direct-Response Advertising: The promotion of the Sony products are also done by direct-response advertising that is, providing coupon to customers and getting their feedback or by providing phone now' options. Catalogue Marketing: Sony frames its products catalogue about their various products and provides to customers for promoting its new featured products among the People Electronic Marketing: A wide range of ads are place in Internet, E-mails and Interactive Cable TVs which promotes the recent release consumer electronic goods to customers. Inserts: Many of the ads of Sony products features and functionalities are placed as leaflets in some of the magazines. Door to door leafleting is also carried out in some of the places.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE iii. Sales Promotion:

The sales promotion is usually done in two ways: Consumer Promotions: this is done by offering coupons, Premiums, Money off, Bonus packs, free samples, Prize promotions and loyalty cards. Trade Promotions: This is processed by providing pricing Discounts, Allowances, Competitions and free goods. Sony supports the two promotions by providing: Money Off, Seasonal offers during Christmas, New Year and Summer time offers, in order to increase its sales. They also provide premiums such as warranty and free services to customers who purchase some Premium products. According to a report Sony sold 20 million units of its product Playstation3 during the year 2008, in order to promote and increase its sales further Sony planned and reduced the price for the Playstation3 which improvised the sales for 2009 as expected by the company (Mintel, 2009). Sony promoted its Mobile product Sony Ericsson P1i by providing free scratch cards that would allow the customers to download 10 free Software for that mobile phone. Also Sony Ericsson K550i provided an offer of free Bluetooth headset and a year Manufacturer's warranty, when purchased.

iv.

Public Relations and Publicity:

This characteristic provides importance to the other groups besides customers and distributors, such as shareholders, the local community, employees, government, pressure groups and media. The activities of public relations include publicity, lobbying, publications, corporate advertising, charitable donations and seminars (Jobber.D and Fahy.J, 2003). Sony Corporation supported Cause-Related Marketing, For example, to support the environmental education and green power installation, Sony Corporation collaborated with the Solar-bear fund where Sony Corporation donated a part of their retail batteries and battery chargers sales revenue. The money has been donated to three kinder gardens and nursery schools. In the website of Sony corporation contacts of them is published for the customers to contact the company regarding any of the products or services. This would maintain a good relationship between the customers and the company is easily reachable by the customers as well as the distributors. Sony also provides charitable donations with its increased sales. Sony gained prestige and GLOBAL MARKETING STRATEGIES OF SONY CORPORATION Page 38

VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE reputation from the customers by following all the government legal issues which maintains a good relationship with the government. The publicity for the Sony product is made by providing the news to the media, about the new release products, reduction of prices for their products, about seasonal offers and about their company upgrades.

v.

Personal Selling:

The process of selling the products to the customers directly by the company either face-to-face or through a medium is known as Personal selling. Sony supports personal selling by selling its products directly to its customers through its website. All the details about the various categories of products are displayed in the Website of Sony Corporation. The customers could verify the details of the product and compare their prices, and could purchase the products directly from the website. This would offer an ease of purchase to customer and would develop trust among them about the company.

4.4. PLACE MIX


The marketing decisions on place that is distribution of the products of the company should focus on the adequacy of the product quantity and customer needs.

DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS OF SONY:


There are four main types of channels for distributing a product such as: Producer -- Consumer Producer - Retailer - Consumer Producer - Wholesaler - Retailer - Consumer Producer - Agent -- Wholesaler - Retailer Consumer

The Sony follows the following distribution channels: The product is distributed directly from producer to retailer through Online that is allowing the customer to place the order in the website of Sony Corporation and delivering the requested order directly to the customers by sending the order to their address.

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VIVEK COLLEGE OF COMMERCE The other channel of Sony is distributing the products to the distributer or retailer where the customers could purchase the products from the retailer by visiting to their showroom.

Sony also supplies the product to the wholesalers who then sells the product to the retailer where the consumer could buy the goods directly by making their presence over the branches of Sony such as Sony World, Sony Centre, Sony Shop and many other Sony retail outlets.

i.

Distribution Intensity:

There are three types of intensity according to the nature of the product. They are Intensive distribution by utilizing all the available outlets, Selective distribution by utilizing limited number of outlets, and exclusive distribution where there is only one wholesaler/retailer available in one sales area. Sony Corporation's distribution intensity is Selective Distribution by providing products to the selective dealers.

ii.

Sales Channels of Sony:

Sony Corporation supports three major sales channels: 1) Direct Sales channel 2) Dealership Sales channels 3) E-Commerce Sales of the variety of the products of the Sony Corporation, is made through the company's website which is the direct sales. The alternative way of Sony Corporation in selling their products is by selling the products to dealers who then sells to customers. The most widely and ease of purchase for the customers worldwide is through E-commerce that is by selling the products via marketing websites such as Amazon, eBay, etc,. Mostly the price of the product purchased by the customer using either of the methods will not be affected. But the prices may vary from the rural areas to urban areas.

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CHAPTER: 5 CONCLUSION
Hence, it may be concluded that most successful organizations must follow some type of strategy suiting to their needs to compete in this rapidly globalizing world. Thus, it is recommended that given in todays cut-throat competition, any and every organization aspiring to be successful should refrain from concentrating on a single market. Then the sustained success would soon be following them. SONY is continuously working to improve in their overall speed and flexibility in the market. They are continuing their research on new innovative products and are highly dedicated in their electronics leadership. They are taking maximum advantages of growing market and their consistent profitability in their hardware business make them market leader in the electronics market. Overall Sony Corporation is providing Advanced Brand product and giving best quality with long life product to the Customer. Sony's marketing strategies giving tough competition to competitors and constantly leading Market. On balance, as a globally operating company in consumer electronics, Sony is a successful company with a good brand image with victorious products, we talked about in the beginning. It had ups and downs as any other company in its marketing practices all over the world. On a sense of balance, as a universally operating corporation in consumer electronics, Sony is a successful corporation with a noble brand image with many successful products. It had ups and downs as any other company in its marketing practices all over the world. Based upon the research we can identify and analyze the marketing strategies of SONY and we recommended the useful ideas to implement and improvise the business and take it to a position at number 1. Thus we thank our Coventry University for giving us an opportunity to explore marketing techniques and develop our management skills for a competitive workplace environment.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Source: http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/generic.shtml
Source: http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/bravia-lcd-televisions?navigationsource=wep

Source:http://www.engagementdb.com/downloads/engagementdb_report_2009.pdf

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/dec/10/acer-asus-netbooks

Source: marketing management: class notes [03 march 2010]

Http://www.sony.co.uk/dealerlocator/search

Source: Jobber.D (2007), Principles and Practice of Marketing, 5th Edition, pp: 682

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