Strategic Analysis of the Sony Company Using Mckinsey’s 7s Model

Question: Discuss about the Strategic Analysis of the Sony Company Using Mckinseys 7s Model. Answer: Introduction The Sony Company over the years has been a multination corporation known for its prowess in its professional device solutions as well as consumer products and services (Du Gay, P. et al., 2013). Just like any other business, the corporation has had its downs and ups within the global market. The Mc Kinsey's 7's model has been used in this paper to analyze the firm's design by majoring in the company's structure, systems and strategies to help identify whether they are efficient and will assist the business to meet its goals (Akerib, D. et al., 2014, 091303). The model has moreover helped in organizational change which is useful in tackling some of the problems such as lack of innovation by the company. The model has also assisted in ensuring that the corporation identifies its goals and enables it to predict impending challenges: as the over-growing competition from its rivals such as the Korean Samsung and the American Apple. It is for this reason that this paper seeks to point out challenges such as competition that the company has been going through over the years. Notably, the article discusses the possible structural, systemic and strategic steps that Sony has taken to maintain its status quo within the competitive market sphere as shown below. Discussion Over competitive nature of the tech market has been a fundamental challenge to the company. In that as much as competition is a motivator to the success of business, it can as well serve as a pullback (Peteraf, M. et al., 2014). Although Sony has been a leader in some of its brands such as the Sony Walkman audio devices and the Trinitron televisions, it was far way behind about its main competitors. The company's main rivals: Samsung and Apple were two or three times more valuable than Sony regarding innovations. Also, the company's competitors made it hard for it to grow within the market hence acting as a serious challenge. Hence, the company was mainly reliant on the Japanese high manufacturing base. Moreover, the idea made the company run at losses. Nevertheless, the perception makes the company have a low income to sustain its operations. It is for this reason that Sony had to reduce costs by cutting the workforce by almost twenty percent to support its operations. Another key thing to remember is the Poor management by the company's superiors. In 2005, the company appointed Howard Stringer as its CEO (Du Gay, P. et al., 2013). Being a foreigner, Stringer did not have an understanding of the company's systems leave alone the local market in Japan (Bettis, R. et al., 2016, 257-261). Howard Stringer was a Welsh-American who in as much had some knowledge in the music and video business, had no engineering nor Japanese speaking skills hence most of his dictates ignored the Japanese hardware business. As such, the move helped bring the company to its knees. The company therefore resorted to the following steps to come back to its previous form within the competitive market. Progressively, the company changed its top management and appointed Kazuo Hirai in 2012 as its CEO (Du Gay, P. et al., 2013). Hirai was a Japanese speaker, had then become a video game designer and later led Sony's PlayStation business in the USA. Therefore, his experience made h im have the upper hand as compared to Stringer who never understood the Japanese language hence its market demands. The change in management was very useful in ensuring that the company overcomes its challenges. What is more is the fact that the firm accelerated innovation more so by integrating product areas. The model helped the company withstand the pressure that arose from the competitive market (Hill, C. et al., 2014). Also, the idea made the business stand out of its competition hence making it drastically stand back to its former ways by identifying its primary market fields. Notably, the Sony Company invested more on its market forces by targeting emerging markets of India and South America (Slack, N. 2015). The plan is a strategic move that boosted its sales hence playing a vital role in its growth. Furthermore, the company strengthened its core business by refurbishing the businesses around digital imaging, games and mobile devices. Importantly, Sony managed to restore back the television business to its favorable trends. By just focusing on strengthening its core business, the company had an upper hand to deal with competition from its competitors: which is a cognitive strategy ai med at realizing its goals (Rothaermet, F. 2015). The company's primary objective was to sustain the competitive nature to enable it to withstand and compete in the strong market. Strategies such as strengthening its core business by re-evaluating and restoring back the television products through innovative ideas are some of the plans by the institution to revive its name as witnessed before (Barney, J. and Hesterly, W. 2015). Besides, other strategic steps like focusing on emerging markets of India and South America are the new strategic plan by the company. It is for such strategies that the company also changed its organizational structures: whereby the company was divided into two groups centered in Japan. The structures were based on but not limited to professional device and Solution Company as that of consumer products, and service groups were of significant role. After the structural changes, the new structure broke up the large groups creating twelve standalone businesses. The structural changes were completed by putting u p headquarters and oversight with senior management appointments. Recommendations It is possible to discern that the Mc Kinsey's model has been used to show how the changes in the structure, systems, and strategies are essential to ensure that a company such as Sony can sustain the competition, poor management issues among other challenges. The model therefore, grooms the company into a successful entity. The company should, therefore, ensure that it has a well-established customer-oriented staff that can accommodate different cultural and social aspects of all ethnic groups: as the model will allow the growth of the company in emerging markets of India and South America. Conclusion To that end, it is to the above changes that transpired the company to come back to its favorable trends though not as quickly as planned. The strategic plans put in place with its structures enabled the systems to operate more efficiently. With these changes in its structures systems and strategies, The Sony Company once known for being a big corporation is once again on the radar of being a multinational titan in the tech-business sphere. Bibliography Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning. Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Slack, N., 2015. Operations strategy. John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Bettis, R.A., Ethiraj, S., Gambardella, A., Helfat, C. and Mitchell, W., 2016. Creating repeatable cumulative knowledge in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 37(2), pp.257-261. Peteraf, M., Gamble, J. and Thompson Jr, A., 2014. Essentials of strategic management: The quest for competitive advantage. McGraw-Hill Education. Barney, J.B., and Hesterly, W., 2015. Strategic management and competitive advantage concepts and cases. Pearson. 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