Akio Morita And Sony

By Author: allan
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Sony is a brand name so well known all over the world that it is next only to Coca Cola in brand awareness and the second most valuable brand after Coca Cola. ( Recently Coca Cola was replaced by Microsoft as the most valuable brand in the world).
It was founded in 1946 by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibaki in a bombed out department store after World War II. At that time Morita was 24 years old and a University graduate. When Morita wasworking on a project on heat seekingdevices, he came across Masaru Ibuka, a brilliant2 electronics engineer and convinced him to3 join him as a partner and formed an electronics company.

The original name was "Tokyo Isushin Kogyo Kabusaki Kaisha." In 1947 it moved into a dilapidated4 building with holes in the roof to start their operations. It should be noted that Morita never invested any large sums of money in fancy offices and headquarters but all its offices are functional but meet the needs of its employees more than adequately.

Its first product was an audio tape recorder, which weighed 35 Kgs and cos-ting 170,000 yen. Morita had to educate the customers so that they were ...
... ready to buy his product. This happens with any new product and unless you educate the potential customer on its benefits you will not be able to sell. By 1963, Sony was able to miniaturize6 their products, a specialty7 of Japanese and could offer a car radio, which could also be removed and kept anywhere. Sony pioneered8 many innovations on Transistors9 and their objective was to keep their products as small as possible.

In one of his overseas visit, Morita realized that their company's name was too difficult and in those days Japanese goods were considered cheap but not of good quality. He selected a Latin term "Sonus"(Sonny) which meant sound and bright young men in Japan were also called "Sonny". The company decided to adopt the name of "SONY" and a legend10 was born.

One of the lessons Morita learnt in his earlier business days was that there was no point in having a perfected product if there was no demand for it. He admitted " I then realized that having unique" technology and being able to make unique products are not enough to keep the business going. You have to be able to sell the products and to do that you have to show the potential buyer the real value of what you are selling. " One of the areas he excelledwas in controlling his costs and pricing and he was a pioneer in offering quantity discounts13 which is fairly common these days.

In 1961 Sony was to face its first and probably its only serious problem with workers unions. Morita was able to ward off14 this threat because of excellent relations with his employees. Morita believed that unless organizations created and shared a sense of fate and belonging with its employees it would not succeed. His philosophy was that the management's should work for the good of everyone. 15 The concept of lifetime employment was probably born here.
The pressure within Sony to be innovative16 and forward looking has always been huge. Morita took the unusual step of encouraging his engineers and other employees to work in different areas and they could choose a project of their choice within the company. This helped Morita to build up the company in different areas. He also adopted the policy of being close to the markets and he put up plants all over the world where he found large markets for his Droducts.

vlorita noticed that a lot of young people were carrying radios, players on :heir shoulders listening to music as they went about and the idea of a compact portable radio/player obsessed him and the "Walkman" was born. It went on to become the largest selling single product of Sony.