stomer. In addition to these transgressions, SonyÆs formerly excellent customer service has deteriorated to such a low ebb that its formerly devoted customers are panning it on the Internet and refusing to buy Sony products.
Sony does have a number of great opportunities in the offing that could be leveraged into future successes. The LIBRIT e-book reader, the Matrix-like device, and DVDirect recorder have excellent potential for a number of applications. The companyÆs primary external threat is the Apple iPod, which although very successful, is not in itself a critical and damaging threat. In all likelihood, the only things that can undermine SonyÆs success are its own lackluster service, poor quality, and impropriety.
This strategic plan proposes a regrouping of SonyÆs efforts and resources around its existing strengths to recoup its high quality and customer satisfaction before permanent damage is done to either. Sony would restore its original quality standards, retrain its employees to empower each of them to provide optimum customer service to every customer, and repair the breach in trust with its customers by withdrawing sponsorship of objectionable TV shows, honoring its commitments and obligations, and elevating honesty and integrity to a position of prominence in its essential company character. It would engage in effective PR to make the public aware of its improvements, as well as to acquaint them with its ôgreenö initiative and the activities it engages in with respect to that. These changes are critical for SonyÆs continued supremacy in the electronics industry and key to its position in the global marketplace.
Chairman and CEO Sir Howard StringerÆs company vision, with its stress on ôpersonal commitments to integrity and ethical standardsö need to be more than mere rhetoric if Sony is to win out over its competition; that vision needs to be the companyÆs mission, heartbeat, and obsessionùa...