Knowledge Is Power

Mr. Hirai may have been given the corner office suite at the Japanese entertainment and electronics group in April, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his paycheck.
On Wednesday, after the company held its annual shareholders’ meeting, Sony Corp. Sony Corp. SNE -1.36% disclosed the pay for three of its corporate executives including Mr. Hirai. In the past fiscal year ended March, Mr. Hirai received a relatively modest ¥115.6 million ($1.45 million) in salary, stock options, and benefits, a 24% cut from his pay in the same period a year earlier — and only a quarter of the compensation received by the man he replaced. He was the lowest paid of the three executives whose pay was disclosed in the regulatory filing.
A Sony spokesman declined to comment on whether Mr. Hirai’s pay will increase in the current fiscal year, but he said top executives will receive a cut in base salary in the year to March 2013, although this will not affect performance bonuses.
Most of Sony’s top brass took a cut in pay to take responsibility for losses at the company. Former CEO Howard Stringer also received a cut in compensation to ¥449.5 million, down 48% from a year earlier. Nicole Seligman, Sony’s general counsel, saw her pay drop by 31% to ¥138.3 million.
The pay cuts reflect shareholder anger at the disappointing performance of the company’s shares. After four straight years in the red including a record annual loss in the past fiscal year, Sony’s shares are at historic lows.
Shares of the Japanese electronics and entertainment group are down nearly 50% from a year ago. It’s not merely a short-term decline either. The company’s stock price has tumbled more than 80% in the last five years.
“Sony’s business is in a very severe state. I am fully aware of this and I promise to change Sony and revive the company,” said Mr. Hirai at the meeting.
He pledged to change Sony by strengthening its core electronics division and fixing the problems at its television division. He also said he aims to restore the sense of wonder consumers experienced from Sony products in the past.
Shareholders didn’t hide their exasperation over the losses. One man questioned why Sony’s new board still included Mr. Stringer and Vice Chairman Ryoji Chubachi, lambasting the new management for not making a clean break from the past regime. Another said Mr. Stringer shouldn’t use the floods in Thailand or the Japanese earthquake and tsunami as excuses for the company’s poor performance.

 



In the strategic management model, clear vision and mission statements are needed before alternative strategies can be formulated and implemented.

An organization’s mission statement is its reason for existence. It often reflects the core values and beliefs of the upper management in an organization. A mission statement is the broad definition of the organizational mission. It is sometimes referred to as a creed, purpose, or statement of corporate philosophy and values. A good mission statement inspires employees and provides a focus and direction for setting lower level objectives. It guides employees in making decisions and establishes what the organization does. Mission statements are crucial for organizations to prosper and grow. Its primary purpose is to guide the entrepreneur and assist in refining the planning process. By developing a strategic plan that incorporates the mission statement, entrepreneurs are more likely to be successful and stay focused on what is important.
Vision is the foundation for the mission statement. The vision provides a strategic direction, which is the springboard for the mission and its related goals. A vision statement differs from a mission statement. Vision statements are a view of what an organization is striving to become. They guide an organization into the future while mission statements are a reflection of the present.
Organizations go through many changes and can face times of confusion and uncertainty. Changes are not always expected or easy, so a well thought out vision statement will help everyone stay focused and meet the organization's goals.
In this fast changing technological era, mission and vision statements can positively impact the change effort of employees of an organization so care must be taken in developing these key statement

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. 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.n 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 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.
 and many more till 2005.

Masaru Ibuka co-founded the company what we now call Sony. As many other big companies, Sony’s history started low, with Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka founding Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation 1946. Masaru Ibuka is not as known as Akio Morita is, possibly because Ibuka left the company in 1976, 30 years after having found it (Bill Gates left Microsoft after 30 years as well). There is no particular reason for Ibuka’s leave, albeit at that time he was 68 years.
He didn’t have health issues and had lived 89 years. However, even after his leave, he maintained close ties with Akio Morita and was regarded as an “advisor” for the company. Do you know where this financial giant had started? In 1945, Masaru Ibuka decided to start a small, local business – a radio repair shop. He did so in a bomb-damaged building from Nihonbashi, Tokyo, in 1945. After one year, Akio Morita joined and they found together the father of the mighty Sony.

Sony Corporation , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It ranked 87th on the 2012 list of Fortune Global 500.Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics products for the consumer and professional markets.
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 Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Music 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.