Kaz Hirai Becomes New President and CEO of Sony

On the morning of February 1, 2012, Sony officially announced that Kaz Hirai will become the new President and CEO of Sony, effective April 1, 2012. He will be replaceing Howard Stringer, who expressed his confidence in Hirai by saying:
Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature.

I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead. I look forward to helping Kaz in every way I can so that succession leads inevitably to success.

Apparently Kaz Hirai has been heading up Sony's Computer Entertainment division for a while now and a couple of weeks prior to the announcement, rumors about his promotion had been circulating the internet. He had the following to say about his new position:
I am grateful to Sir Howard and to the Board for their confidence in me, and I look forward to working with everyone at Sony more closely than ever before to build a strong future for our customers, shareholders, partners and employees.

The foundations are now firmly in place for the new management team and me to fully leverage Sony’s diverse electronics product portfolio, in conjunction with our rich entertainment assets
and growing array of networked services, to engage with our customers around the world in new and exciting ways.

For the past few months, rumors have been suggesting that Stringer was to be replaced and even Stringer himself admitted that Hirai would mostly likely become president soon. Unfortunately,
under Stringer, "Sony had watched its financials slump, its major businesses, including the PlayStation and HDTVs, lose market share, and major competitors take the lead in the mobile market." Remember, the hacking of the PSN occurred under Stringer's watch and was probably one of his biggest blunders. Sony reported a net loss of over $2 billion for the final quarter of 2011. For more details on why Stringer needed to be replaced, please check out this article at
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57369469-17/why-sony-needed-to-swap-out-its-ceo/

Now how does Hirai intend to save Sony? In a meeting with Sony investors on February 2, Hirai detailed a four-point plan "that calls for Sony to focus on its core business, further streamline its TV business, cut costs, and move forward with innovation." According to VentureBeat, here is a summary of Hira's four-point plan (http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/02/kaz-hirai-save-sony/)
Focusing on core business: Acknowledging that gaming and digital imaging are among Sony’s strong suits, Hirai said that he would leverage its expertise in those fields to give it an edge in mobile. He’s also interested in taking on the medical imaging market, with the hopes of it
becoming a future core business.

Streamlining Sony’s TV business: Hirai wants Sony to use its Crystal LED and OLED technology for compelling next-generation TVs, but he also points out that the company needs to continue being lean with its TV business, especially when it comes to LCD TVs. (Sony recently split up its LCD venture with Samsung.)

Cut costs by transforming Sony’s business portfolio: Hirai says the company has its fingers in a wide variety of businesses, which can sometimes be a good thing, but Sony also needs to take a closer look at which products aren’t adding much value. The company will then need to either drop those products, or figure out ways to reduce costs through collaboration.

Speeding up innovation: Coming back to medical imaging, Hirai pointed out the company is well situated to become a dominant force in that field. The underlying message is that Sony isn’t afraid to step into new markets, especially if they gel with the company’s existing business. Hirai also said that he’s leading a movement to make Sony’s R&D and business groups work better together.

What do you think of this change? For a discussion about this topic, please visit our Incognito forum website: http://www.incognito-x.com/t707-kaz-hirai-officially-named-president-ceo-of-sony.

If you would like to participate in the discussion and share your thoughts, please sign up to be a member of our site at: http://www.incogntio-x.com/