The ridiculous management ruins Sony Corporation

 

              Frank  Feb. 22, 2016, in Waterloo, On. Ca.

This is the translation of the writings of Japan scholar Mr. Kondo Daisuke about the decline of Sony Corporation, which was cited in my Aug. 24, 2014 article Overheated real estate market is ruining Canadian economy from Japan mirroring Canada. In which we can see that how low quality of Japanese people to have damaged Japan economy.

         Hard-working and responsible citizen is the foundation of national economy. Also, it is the foundation that Keynesian macroeconomics can play its role. Otherwise, extremely easing monetary policy or even negative interest rates all cannot play positive role, but to make the country into the abyss.

Special Note: In consideration of, in this topic, I have cited some weakness of some people as example, which may cause some displeasure, I specially wrote the article Kondo Daisuke, A Rational Man of Japan to introduce the good quality of I admired Japanese man to show my good will and with no any bad intention in citing those weakness. I hope that what I talked here can help to improve the wrongful ideology in corporate management.

Feb. 6, 2014, Mr. Daisuke Kondo published another Mandarin article <The sundown of Sony:Doraemon or Crayon> on a website of China, in which he criticized the ridiculous management that has been ruining Sony Corporation.

I excerpt and translate some as follow. When I translating this article, I was shocked and produced a feeling of that Sony’s management is simply absurd. It warns us to review that whether have similar behavior in Canadian companies?

Now, let us to see the reason of the decline of the Sony Corporation with the narrative of Mr. Daisuke Kondo.

Feb. 6, 2014, Kazuo Hirai, the president of Sony Corporation declared: “Due to 110 billion yen huge deficit in 2013, the company will lay off 5,000 people in the coming year, while fully stop the production and the R & D of Sony VAIO-PC.

I remember that of my college days, only the best students in science majors can enter Sony. When going out of Japan, regardless of which country, we were able to see “SONY” huge billboard and young people using “walkman”. At that time, Sony is our Japanese pride. However, now?

For this problem, one of my college classmates, now a Sony employee replied with that:

“In the company, there one by one meetings are from morning to night, after the meetings, everyone must deal with at least 100 internal mails from the company. So, Sony is not an electronics manufacturer, but a downright bureaucracy! Only those people, who are the ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ without any faults, could be promoted. Such a Sony could not develop new products that can shine the world any more?”

“Our company has a specialized team in charge of new product development against the rival of Apple of the United States. There was I admired executive who is in charge of the team. One day, his immediate leader of a director of Board even ordered him to stop the investment of ‘no value’ (ie, to give up the R & D) as soon as possible to vanquish to Apple. The executive retorted: Do you have self-esteem as a member of Sony? The Director even contemptuously asked: ‘your self-esteem can help company making money, right? Heard of the answer of a director of Board, the executive immediately decided to resign.”

In recent years, the elite who left Sony were not only the executive alone. In 2006, the former managing director who was responsible for “AIBO” R & D of futuristic robots was demobilized; the reason was that there members of board were questioning that ‘How much economic benefit that the robot R & D can bring to Sony? In 2007, former chairman and CEO of the Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Mr. Ken Kutarag who known as the “Father of the PS (PlayStation)” was also retired after the expiry of his Job tenure.

In the booming period of before, Sony company once gathered a large number of “Doraemon” talents – they can come up with all kinds of whimsy from their “Mind Treasure Bag”, and then to materialize them into a variety of future products. But now, unfortunately, the Sony is filled with the people who work with lips only as that of the “Crayon”

Thanks Mr. Daisuke Kondo for his careful observation and artful description.

From above lessons, I firmly believed that, no doubt, such Japanese diseases of the employee lazy, the “evading responsibility”, and more, is an objective results of the Japanese subjective selfish ideological, which was developed from the Holy Baptism by Japan’s Bubble Economy 1980s.

Because of that, if, before the Japan’s Bubble Economy, the Japanese people and the companies had infected these kind diseases, the Japan would never be developed as the economic powerhouse.

The aftermath of the bubble economy is still hurting all aspects of Japanese society, from the social ideological to the personal spiritual, from the macro national economy to the micro family life, from the world class companies to the ordinary employees, and more.

The sad facts of Japan made me firmly believed: it is that national’s quality decides the fate of the nation. And it is that social moral, social ideological impacts the quality of the national in a great extent.

Japan, one misstep in opening real estate market, can not get rid of the nightmare of the bubble economy.

Vancouver, Canada must remain sober on dealing with real estate market.

In view of the terrible lessons of Japan, whether we should follow the suggestion of Peter Ladner to directly introduce restrictions for foreign property buyers to avoid what happened in Japan by cooling down Vancouver’s over-heated real estate?

Of course, the restriction as Peter Ladner suggested is necessary. However, in consideration of the terrible lessons of Japan, we should design a proper solution to prevent the heavy side effect of the restriction. This is significant, but a thorny issue.

If we throw ourselves into effort, any problem will have a suitable solution. I will discuss it in other article.