What Is Sony Now?

Interesting profile of Sony by Bryan Gruley and Cliff Edwards, for BusinessWeek:

Stringer drew up a plan to streamline Sony by creating marketing, software, and other platforms common to all the businesses. Progress was slow. He finally determined it was because he wasn’t really in charge of electronics; Chubachi, the president, was. “President” can be a powerful title in Japan, connoting the day-to-day authority typically commanded by a chief operating officer in the West. “I didn’t know I wasn’t [in control],” Stringer says, a hint of sheepishness in his voice. “I just thought it was a natural part of Japanese companies to be consensus-driven and I had to spend a lot of time trying to achieve consensus.” He lost a year.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that when it takes the new CEO a year to figure out he’s not in control of the entire company, that’s a problem.

★ Monday, 21 November 2011