Susie (Wen) Zhang's Blog

Article Link:

• http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-sonys-new-business-strategy-2015-2

My Opinions:

That seems as a good strategy for Sony 10 years ago, however, personally I think this strategy comes too late for the development of Sony now. The reason why I said that is because the current market of electronic devices is mostly occupied by Sumsung and Apple. Sony lost its position in the past few years and it is hard for Sony to explore the market without new products. Besides, Sony’s most outstanding and profitable products are Game & Network Services, Pictures, and Music, however, Sony did not catch the chance to expand these products in the past years instead of enlarging its product categories, such as TV, smartphone, which hinder Sony itself. Lots of customers of Sony were disappointed and the following content is a customer’s opinion towards Sony:

As a consumer I previously (pre-90’s) held SONY in the highest regard.  It stood for quality and reliability.  It lost me across all its products when some “clever” individual in the TV division decided it was time to cash in on the SONY brand by cheapening its TV’s while maintaining premium pricing.  They lost their bullet-proof reputation because their TV’s broke just as often as others.  It didn’t help itself when it put auto-installing DRM software on its Music CD’s.  They gave up on the PC/laptop market that they probably should not have entered in the first place because they treated it like a “PC” business rather than innovating and integrating it outside the “PC” niche.

In my mind, Sony represents quality and reliability, but its failing business strategies lead Sony to fall down in the competition. Sony had far more of the skills, experience, assets, and market presence in place than any other company  to build a truly integrated electronics and media environment covering all consumers’ needs, but it frittered them away. And this new business strategy is amusing in a sad way.

Through the recent classes, I learned lots of new things about business that I have not touched before. All of these new knowledges help me open the door or business.

In class 5, I learned things about financial accounting which helps the company make decisions and  look at their financial statement clearly. Besides, financial statement is divided into 3 categories-balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. Each of them includes different terms to calculate different financial activities of a company.  What’s more, one of the most important formula I learned in this class was liquidity ratio for a company. It is used to determine a company’s ability to pay off its short-terms debts obligations. Generally, the higher the value of the ratio, the larger the margin of safety that the company possesses to cover short-term debts. Through this formula, I can compare two companies’ liquidity ratio to determine which one is more risky.

In class 7, I learned things about business strategies which is divided into generic strategies and competitive strategies. If a company wants to occupy the large part of the market, it must have its own strategy which is clear and unique. Through the globalization, lots of companies become more similar and fail to stay competitive. In this case, companies with clear and unique strategies make a big achievement in business since they sell goods at lower prices than rivals or differentiate their product from those of rivals. Although business strategy seems easy when written in words, it is really hard to implement in a real business situation.

In conclusion, through these classes, I am more interested in business now and I really want to explore in the business world to expand my knowledge about business.