ERP CASE STUDY ON SONY

CORPORATION

By: Prasad M

Vaishak M

INTRODUCTION

Multinational corporation headquartered in Mintao

(Japan).
One of leading manufacturers of electronics, video,
communications, video game consoles and
information technology products for the consumer and
professional markets.
The company's slogan is Sony. Like no other.
Sony corporation is the electronics business unit and
the parent company of the Sony Group.

HISTORY
In

1945, after World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio

rapair shop in Tokyo.
The

next year, he was joined by his collegue Akio

Morita and they found a companny which translates in
English to Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering
Corporation.
The

company built Japan's first tape recorder called the

Type-G.
In

the early 1960s, 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.
In

August 1955, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering

released the Sony TR-55, Japan's first commercially
produced transistor radio.

ORIGIN OF 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. Morita pushed for a word that does not exist in
any language so that they could claim the word
"Sony" as their own.

At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual

for a Japanese company to use Roman letters instead
of kanji to spell its name.

MISSION & VISION

Mission - Sony is working to create value for

its stake holders, and improve the quality of
life for the next generation through their
innovations.

Vision - They seek new approaches to

transform their ability to achieve both
profitablity and sustainable growth.

PROBLEMS & CHALLENGES

Silo culture Slowness in accessing a
product
Appreciating value of yen against US dollar
also compounded to problems.
Highly decentralised and intra-competing.
Initially worked well later back fired.
Lack
of Coordination & Communication
across divisions cost them .

PRODUCT TO BE PURCHASED

PRODUCT TO BE DELIVERED

SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORK

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FUNCTIONALITIES
Flexible Product Catalog:
The system used Microsoft Commerce Server to manage and
publish the product catalogs.
This reduced the effort and time to maintain and modify the
web site over time and made the user experience consistent.
It allowed making modifications to product features, price and
other information at any time without requiring custom
design effort.
Automated business workflow:
The system used the Commerce Server Pipeline technology
and programming platform to automate the backend order
processing activities such as order consolidation and
acknowledgement, payment processing, inventory control
and order version control by integrating with Sonys SAP ERP
platform.

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

PURCHASE WORK FLOW

SALES WORK FLOW

CONCLUSION
Sony Corporation, a leading Japanese manufacturer of electronics,
game, and entertainment products has reported losses for four
consecutive years. The B2B & Disc segment is consisted of the
business to business (B2B) business, including broadcast and
professional-use products, as well as Blu-ray Disc, DVD and
compact disc (CD) disc manufacturing. Global operations in the
Pictures segment encompass motion picture production and
distribution; television production and distribution; home
entertainment acquisition and distribution; a global channel
network; digital content creation and distribution; operation of
studio facilities, and development of new entertainment products,
services and technologies. SPE distributes entertainment in more
than 140 countries. SPEs motion picture arm, the Columbia
TriStar Motion Picture Group, includes SPEs principal motion
picture production organizations, Columbia Pictures, TriStar
Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and the
International Motion Picture Production Group.