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Overhype

by Carlo Longino

Thu, Sep 22nd 2005 8:00am





Stringer's Grand Plan For Sony: Fire Some People

from the when-all-else-fails dept

Howard Stringer was appointed CEO of Sony with one task in mind: reverse the fortunes of the ailing giant. He announced his plan today, including the usual eliminating redundancies, getting disparate parts of the company to work more closely together and selling off non-core businesses, but the meat of the plan is to lay off 10,000 employees (out of a total workforce of 154,000). Sony's been down that road before: Stringer's predecessor had tried to lay off 20,000 workers over the last few years, a move that didn't do much for the company's performance. Investors and analysts are quite skeptical of the plan, because it doesn't include much detail on how Sony will grow its revenues. It's innovation that seems to be flagging, whether it's because of the company's insistence or DRM or just a plain lack of good ideas. It's hard to see how laying off 6% of the company's employees and cutting some products is going to give the company the spark it needs.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Layoffs

    identicon
    Mousky, Sep 22nd, 2005 @ 8:12am

    I'll never quite understand how a company can let a workforce grow to a point where thousands upon thousands of people are let go. I understand that these layoff figures typically include vacancies, retirements, golden parachutes and so on and usually are phased in, but it just blows my mind that one day someone decides that 10,000 people have to go.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Layoffs

    identicon
    Pete Austin, Sep 22nd, 2005 @ 9:40am

    A policy decision like this gives managers and team leaders an excuse. Sacking people is difficult and it's helpful to be able to say, "I'd like to keep you, but my hands are tied".

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Here's an idea...

    identicon
    julius, Sep 22nd, 2005 @ 10:10am

    Spin off the Sony Record Label and sell it. Then focus on technology (for a change).

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Here's an idea...

    identicon
    Director Mitch, Sep 22nd, 2005 @ 4:36pm

    I agree with julius. The thinking and business process for tech and entertainment are just different. Apple is doing "entertainment", but centered around tech, and created a whole new business model that goes with the new technology.

    Sony is trying to create technology that goes with the existing entertainment business model, which is why they are getting burned.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Typo?

    identicon
    Hans Mast, Sep 26th, 2005 @ 6:37am

    "insistence or DRM" or "insistence on DRM"?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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