Market structure analysis and competitive positioning in business sectors

Corporate Business Marketing Structure

Analysis of the Sony Corporation's Market Structure

Sony Corporation is a leader in consumer and professional electronics around the world. It is a company founded in Japan in 1946 with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. Sony produces a variety of products such as cameras, headphones, speakers, and more. Sony Corporation also generates a great deal of income in the entertainment industry, distributing media such and film and television. It is a brand recognized for quality worldwide. This is a company that makes business partnerships that are prudent and profitable. Japanese cultural and economic histories influence and contribute to Sony's market structure and general success.

Sony is heavily involved with audio recording and engineering technologies. It is possible to construct and supply and high caliber, professional recording studio using only Sony products. This corporation has an outstanding reputation for its cameras. Sony produces numerous consumer cameras, lenses, and assorted film accoutrement. They continue to produce film cameras in the digital age. Sony video cameras have large volumes of consumers. There are broadcast level cameras as well as cameras for the average citizen. Sony was one of the first companies producing high definition cameras when high definition was new and many people were very skeptical as to the quality and technical standardization. What do the products, native culture, and brand recognition have to do with Sony Corporation's market structure? The market structure reveals company strategies and modes of operation. How the company structures its markets influences research and development, production, distribution, marketing, and ultimately, consumption and profit.

Sony is in the business of making products that allow people to produce media and consume media distributed by Sony. In an information age such as the one we are in, these markets are fundamental and pivotal in modern society. We are a highly media consumptive world. We are in the age of the amateur self-producer. Sony products have been industry standards for decades. With the power of Sony, consumers can construct the complete media production experience. They can use Sony products to make their media. They can have their media distributed to wide audiences through Sony, and then they can have a cinematic experience with their media via Sony i.e. projectors, televisions, monitors, movie theaters, etc.

The control over the market that Sony has is indicative of Japanese business practices. Often, highly successful Japanese businesses control a market vertically, also called vertical integration. A company will dominate one industry, but from top to bottom, from start to finish, and in every possible way. This powerhouse of a company manufactures and distributes products for audio, video, video games, electronic components, financial services, and information & communication (Barrett et al.: 2011) Whereas in the West, average business practices lean toward lateral market domination: companies dominate a product or service across industries. A company makes one product superbly, yet the product appeals to many differing demographics of consumers. Sony makes one product very well -- media -- and makes every possible component necessary for mediated experiences, which is a huge commodity in our times.

Sony Corporation is very much aware that mediated experiences are in high demand around the world. This company knows what the usual gamut of mediated experiences is, at the same time it also invents new ways of mediated interaction so as to sell a greater array of products. This market will only grow with developments in technology and continuation of widespread distribution and consumption. As our technology improves, the demands for our leisure activities change and increasingly the most popular and most profitable leisure activities revolve around mediated experiences such as visiting the cinema, playing online video games, producing a film for youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc.

Interestingly, Sony, a cutting edge company defining the cutting edge in many markets uses less than modern means to conduct a great deal of their business. Perhaps in their efforts to be a more green company with passing time, Sony conducts 77% of its international trade by sea (Barrett et al.: 2011). It also keeps much of its business local, mainly between Japan and India (Barrett et al.: 2011). Though the oceans present plenty of their own dangers, air travel may be a relatively dangerous method of shipping. There have been worldwide strikes by pilots and mechanics. Planes are literally falling apart in the runway or crashing or going missing. Fuel costs have been at the forefront of global society for certainly all of the 21st century, if not earlier. Furthermore, we cannot neglect the dependency of international and organized crime and air travel. Trading by sea may seem antiquated in the information age, but it is effective. There is likely an increase probability that Sony products reach their destinations in full more often that Sony's competitors who rely heavily on air travel. This strategy could be another reflection of Japanese culture and Eastern thinking -- thinking toward stability and the long-term.

Sony is a somewhat "old" leader in a strong market with massive demographical appeal and vertical industry leadership who is not going away any time soon. Sony was founded in May of 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita (Barret et al.: 2011). The current Chief Executive Officer is Howard Stringer and as of 2009, there are 171, 300 worldwide employees (Barrett et al.: 2011) Sony Corporation runs its for departments only from the Tokyo headquarters; those departments are Marketing, Finance, Products, and Customer Service (Barrett et al.: 2011) What is also notable about Sony's headquarters and establishment in Japan is that Japan is a country that is, what is called in economic and financial circles as, a "late industrializer."

Countries such as Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Taiwan, and others, are late industrializers because they have seen recent economic booms within the last few decades. Late industrializers do a sort of industry "piggy-backing" to achieve their success. They take an industry that has already been firmly established in one or more countries, take the borrowed product/service/technology, improve upon it greatly, and sell it back to the creator and its original consumers, thereby becoming a leading competitor in an established market only to gain enough leeway to develop individual interests and leadership in other emerging markets. Labor laws and the issues around the people constructing the workforce are key to late industrializers. Late industrializers rely on large numbers of workers who work long shifts at quite nominal wage rates. Sony's approach to market structure is related to its workforce structure. It continues to be progressive and innovative in its workforce population. Sony's workforce is over 25% female and retains the youngest workforce in the world (Barrett et al.: 2011) Sony products are primarily categorized as electronics, games, pictures, financial services, as well as music & movies (Barrett et al.: 2011) Even within this small niche group of countries, Japan is considered a special case, par excellence.