The lack of innovation at Sony
Electronics manufactures have found the competition becoming fiercer as the gap between product lines, and innovation narrow with new technology becoming an almost monthly occurrence. In a competition where Sony once reigned as one of the leaders, they have found themselves struggling over recent years. These struggles can be attributed to many factors, but one of the greatest contributors to the struggles faced by Sony deal directly with innovation or lack thereof.
“The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses-primarily digital imaging smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains”. (Horn, 2012, para. 3) This is a quote made during a interview with PC Mag in which Hirai highlights how he plans on bringing Sony back to the forefront in the technology race, and I feel precursor to why the company is not living up to expectations in which he and the stockholders set. Playing catch-up in the technology race is much harder than being innovated, and tapping into new ideas. It’s ironic that Hirai would make a statement in which his goal is to reinvigorate a specific sector of the company, when his rise to the eventual position of CEO was due in large part to the work done with the gaming division namely the Sony Playstation. Hirai took the nonexistent gaming sector of Sony and brought it to nationwide notoriety, while greatly increasing the stock of the company. Even today with the recent release of the Sony Playstation 4, Sony maintains its position as one of the top two gaming platform manufactures in the world.
Another sector where Sony spent billions of dollars is in the development of their own tablets to compete with the immensely successful ipad. While the motivation for the foray into the sector could be called innovation, it can also be viewed as extreme risk due to the current saturation with competing tablets from every other electronic manufacture. The reception of Sony tablets into the market can be summed up best by comments made Sony electronic president Phil Molyneux: “Sales on Tablet S met our expectations, not exceeded them”. (Hachman, 2012, para. 6) Even after the release of their first tablet, Sony continues with planned updates to the line. So while each successive tablet brings features not found in previous models, the line is still costing the company millions and not set to