Biography of Sony's founder Akio

1. “Made in Japan”
Akio Morita and Sony

2. Table of Contents
Table of Contents............................................................................................................................2
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3
Sections of the book....................................................................................................................3
War................................................................................................................................................. 3
PEACE............................................................................................................................................ 8
SELLING TO THE WORLD..........................................................................................................11
ON MANAGEMENT......................................................................................................................13
AMERICAN AND JAPANESE STYLES........................................................................................16
COMPETITION ............................................................................................................................17
TECHNOLOGY.............................................................................................................................18

3. Introduction
Made in Japan is the autobiography of the late Akio Morita, the Japanese co-founder
and former chairman of the Sony corporation. It was written with the assistance of Edwin
M. Reingold and Mitsuko Shimomura. The book not only narrates the story of Mr.
Morita, but also of the Sony corporation's formation in the aftermath of Japan's brutal
defeat in World War two, and its subsequent rapid rise to fame and fortune. The book
also provides insights into Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking, particularly
their business management philosophies and styles. The Japanese behavior is explained
by putting it into a context based on Japan's history, recent and ancient.
Morita introduces the origins of his family, and how Sony was founded. Chapters picture
the war, early tape recorders, and various conclusions on international markets. The
transistor was invented in North America in the 1950's, and Sony took advantage of it.
The biography gives authentic details about patent issues, business conferences in various
countries, and the invention of the Walkman.
The book is narrated by Mr. Morita in an intensely personal, down to earth,
conversational style.
Sections of the book
The book is divided into the following nine sections:
1. War
2. Peace
3. Selling To The World (My learning curve)
4. On Management (It's all in the family)
5. American and Japanese Styles (The difference)
6. Competition (The fuel of Japanese Enterprise)
7. Technology (Survival Exercise)
8. Japan and The World (Alienation and Alliance)
9. World Trade (Averting Crisis)
War
The opening part of the book discusses about WWII and the initial phase of Akio’s life.
He was the first son and fifteenth-generation heir to one of Japan’s finest and oldest sake-
brewing families. Akio’s father when he took over the family business, it was in ruins but
he was able to pay off the company’s debts and put the factory back in good condition by
selling many of the fine art objects that his father and grand father purchased. By the time
Akio was born the family business was in running condition again and the economic
condition of Morita family was an affluent one. Akio’s family was considered to be

4. amongst the elite class of Japan and their house was located at the finest and expensive
residential streets of Nagoya. It was customary in Morita family that when the son takes
over as family head he abandons his given name and assumes the traditional given name.
But, when Akio was born, his father thought the traditional name, Tsunesuke, was too
old-fashioned and hence called on a Japanese scholar of Chinese lore and literature for
advice on naming him and upon his advice, the name Akio was decided.
Akio father decided to give him business education starting very early because he was the
elder son and was supposed to take over the family business when he was of age. Akio’s
father was very conservative in his approach of conducting business perhaps because of
the early hardships that he had to face when he had to quit his schooling in order to take
out the business out of the trouble and was very conscious in any decision he took. Akio
was often in confrontation with his father because he thought of his consciousness as a
hurdle in the business. Akio was mainly involved in company meetings, stock-checking
and inspection of brewing process. Akio’s father had a habit of using up-to-date
equipments imported from Europe and although the family was to some degree
westernized, the real influence of western culture on Akio came from his uncle Keizo,
who came home from Paris after four years and was quite sophisticated and changed the
overall outlook of the family. Because of his mother, Akio had developed liking for the
western music and used to listen to various records of Victor Red Seal, Feoder Chaliapin
and German pianist Wilhelm Kepff. Due to bad quality of the currently available
phonograhs Akio’s father bought them one of the first phonographs equipped with better
sound technology that arrived in Japan. Akio obsession with the new discovery grew and
when he came to know that a relative of their family who was engineer by profession had
built an electronic phonograph, he went to his house and saw the demonstration. From
then onwards, Akio started to buy books about electronics and was intrigued by the idea
that amateurs can build things like phonographs. His obsession with electronic items
went to such lengths that he almost dropped out of school. His mother was called and told
about his deteriorating grades. Akio was good in mathematics, physics and chemistry but
he was below average in others and when he started to get bad grades, his parents would
put his electronic toys away and after conditions improved, things remained the same.
He first read about magnetic recording in middle school. NHK, the Japan Broadcasting
Company, imported a German steel-belt recorder which had much better fidelity than the
electric machines like new Victor.
At that same time, he came to know about Dr. Kenzo Nagai of Tohoku University had
produced a wire recorder. Akio was fascinated by the idea and started his work on
building a wire recorder for himself. He was novice in this field and year long efforts
remained fruitless as books and magazines that Akio used at that time did not talk about
the bias current and his own knowledge was primitive. He was disappointed from the
failure but was not discouraged.
In the final year of middle school, he decided to take science department examination for
the Eighth Higher School. This decision surprised all and he was reminded that being
good in science subjects was not the only requirement and he needed to study hard for the
subjects that he had neglected all along. He studied hard for the year and put away his
interests and hobbies, he had private tutors to help him in English, advanced
mathematics, and the Japanese and Chinese Classics.

5. His hard-work paid off and he became the lowest-ranking graduate of his school to be
ever admitted to the science department of Eighth Higher School.
His notions about science departments changed as the curriculum was full of dull and
uninteresting subjects and he was again in danger of failing but in his third year, he was
able to specialize and he chose physics because of his interest in the field.
The year was 1940 and the world was involved in WWII and France had surrendered to
the German armies, England was being attacked. As students, Japanese did not think
about global or domestics issues but the military men announced a mobilization law in
1938, and by the time he started college, Japan dominated the map of Asia. There was a
military rule in the country and under the threat of being cut off of the raw materials and
oil from the US, the country decided to attack US.
His favorite teacher in School was Gakujum Hatori, and knowing his interest in the field
of Physics, he advised him to visit Osaka Imperial University and meet Professor Asada.
He was impressed by Professor Asada and when he showed him his laboratory and
decided to join the university. The university became the centre for serious students and
experimenters.
His father was disappointed from his decision of going into physics, he wanted him to go
into economics and despite him joining science in college, he wanted him to specialize in
Agricultural Chemistry but he did not try to change his mind.
When he joined the university, professor Asada’s laboratory was changed into a naval
research facility. Akio continued to experiment and in order to get more lab time he
skipped lectures. Initially, Professor Asada helped him more and more, and after some
time, he started helping him in small jobs.
Professor started writing short columns weekly elaborating on the latest developments in
research and technology which were not secret. Readers used to write to him in order to
get his opinion on their scientific ideas. As Akio used to help Professor Asada with his
research and when he was busy with his work he used to write the columns.
As some of Dr. Asada’s work was research for the Imperial Japanese Army, and Akio
used to help him, he came into contact with many Navy officers from the Aviation
Technology Center near Yokohama. Akio was nearing graduation and had not been
drafted yet when one day an officer told him that physics graduated could apply for a
short-term commission and become technical officer just by passing examination. Since,
the country was at war there was no other option other than going in to forces. Only other
way was to sign up with the navy permanently and continue his studies as navy had a
program for assigning enlistees to universities.
He decided that lifetime service was better idea at that time - nobody knew about the
future with the war going on. Navy gave him thirty yen a month and a gold-colored
anchor insignia to wear on his collar and was sent back to university to continue his
studies. This did not continue for long and when the war intensified, he was in his third
year and all the physics students were put under direct military control like everyone else
in the country. Akio was assigned to the Office of Aviation Technology at Yokosuka in
the early 1945.
His expectations failed when the first morning after his commission, instead of going to
laboratory, he along with others was sent to factory and handed a metal file and assigned
to the machine shop. Each day he would file steel parts and after few days, he began to
think that if he was unable to leave that place he would become crazy.

6. Yoshiko Kamei, who later became his wife, was also assigned from her college
classroom to a factory where she made wooden parts for the wings of a training aircraft
called Red Dragonfly. When the airplane parts factory was bombed, she was assigned to
a plant where they made hospital for the wounded soldiers and later she was transferred
to a printing shop where military scrip was printed for use in the occupied areas of Asia.
After several weeks of the factory, Akio was suddenly and without explanation
transferred to the optics laboratory and he started to feel that he was back where he
belonged. He was the only university student majoring in physics there although there
were officers and workers who were graduates of photography school. He was asked all
the difficult technical problems that they faced. His first major assignment was to try to
find out prevent the damage to aerial photograps caused by the jagged streaks of static
electricity generated in the dry atmosphere at altitude. He called on famous professor at
the Physics and Chemistry Research Institute in Tokyo, Professor Jiro Tsuji, to get his
permission to use the institute’s research library pretending to come directly from the
navy. He offered him full assistance.
He used to go their with his unit each day to do his research. He later asked his superiors
to allow him to research in his university and only asked for the large roll of film because
it was scarce commodity at that time. Since, the problem was a major one, they allowed
him to continue with the research and he returned to his university where he continued to
do his original work and continued to learn Professor Asada.
With his graduation from the university, he automatically became a professional navy
officer, and did some actual military training and was shipped off to a Marine Corps base
at Hamamatsu. He went through usual four months program of officer’s indoctrination
and training course.
His brother Kazuaki, who was a student of economics at Waseda University, could not
qualify for a deferment as only science students were allowed to do so and was given
flight training in twin-engine bombers. When Akio was in Hamamatsu base, his brother
was tat navy’s Toyohashi Air Base, which was close by. His brother was fortunate
enough as by the time he finished his training, the war had ended.
His younger brother, Masaaki was in middle school and since the military was
encouraging the youngsters to join, his entire class joined and despite our parents’
comprehension about him joining the navy, he still joined it. Again luck favored us and
by the time his training ended, war was finished.
There were extremists in our country and in 1932, a group of these ultra-nationalists with
forty-two young officers, attacked the so-called privileged classes, killing the finance
minister and a leading businessman. Akio father was alarmed by these events and then in
1936, the famous February 26 incident took place, when another band of army rebels
occupied the prime minister’s official residence and the war office and assassinated
former Prime Minister Makoto Saito, who was lord keeper of privy seal.
Although, the revolt failed, the upper-class politicians and businessmen were intimidated
by the attacks. The nation was in poor economic condition and the young rebel officers
were managed to arouse the sympathy of may people. From middle thirties onwards,
military increased its control over the politics and fascists began to dictate politics.
It was December 7 in the United States and it was morning of December 8 in Japan when
Akio heard the announcement about the Japanese forces had attacked Pearl Harbor.
Everyone in the house including Akio was shocked because there was preconceived

7. notion that West was superior in technology and knowing about the American technology
through movies and products such as cars and phonographs and from his uncle, Akio
knew that mistake had been made.
But Japanese media gave them a steady stream of good news of Japanese military
victories- Japanese forces sank the two British capital ships and took over Philippines and
Hong Kong, all in the month of December and Akio thought that they were stronger then
what he previously thought about the Japanese forces.
When his four-month period of military training was over, Akio received the rank of
lieutenant and was order back to the optical division at Yokosuka. He was assigned to
supervise a special unit that had evacuated to the countryside to work on thermal
guidance weapons and night-vision gunsights. They were based at a big old country
house in Zushi, a small town south of Kamakura. His unit was headed by a captain, and
there were other high-ranking officers, plus two or three lieutenants and few ensigns.
Akio was assigned to handle details of daily life including providing food for the group.
There was a shortage of food in their unit. An ensign struck friendship with fish shop
owner from Zushi and they exchanged sake with fish. At the same time Morita family
was making dehydrated soy bean paste for the army and Akio managed to get them from
his family despite it being unlawful.
Mr. Ibuka’s contribution to this group was significant. He had devised a powerful
amplifier at his company, which was being used to detect a submarine thirty meters
below the surface of the water. Japan was losing control of the air as American forces
kept moving closer to Japan’s main islands.
As time went on the air raids became more frequent on Tokyo. I thought of hiding at the
bottom of the cliff as it would be pretty difficult to be hit by a bomb there. So I called
everyone to hear what I had in mind. They seemed to like it.
In July and August of 1945, there were raids over the Tokyo-Yokohama area almost
every day and night. The alarming thing was that the military would not give up the war
no matter how bad it was going. After the atomic bomb was dropped, Akio knew that
Japan was heading for the crisis. Officers decided to visit their family and when it was
Akio’s time, he told his colleagues that by the time he would come back the war might be
over. This ignited the feelings in the officers but he calmed them down.
His future wife remained in Tokyo with her father and one brother and rest of her family
went to live with their relatives in the countryside. Akio came back to his family on 14th
of August and they had a fine dinner. On the next day, Akio was shaken awoke by his
mother and told that Emperor would speak to them. Emperor then announced on the radio
that war was over.

8. PEACE
Akio returned to his unit and during these days there were some military attempts to
prevent the surrender, one of them happened very close to the station where Akio was
posted, at Atsugi.
Many Japanese soldiers were soon on their way home from their bases around Japan and
were beginning to crowd the trains and buses. Some of the Japanese failed to understand
the surrender. Although most of the Japanese army in the field was still unbeaten, there
was string of horrendous losses at Leyte, Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Okinawa and America’s
superior air power against the home islands and use of Atomic bomb proved that the war
could not be won by the Japanese.
In 1945, the Russians stormed into Manchuria – which was considered Japanese cover
against them. Five hundred thousand Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner and sent to
labor camps in Siberia and other places in the Soviet Union. Some of them remained
slave for as long as twelve years. The end of war was a great relief as well as national
tragedy to many of Japanese. Whereas, at Akio’s station, there were no orders for them
and as a result of which they stayed there with nothing to do. The first order that came to
them was to destroy all their research materials and Akio acted on it with due diligence
even destroying his personal notebooks and records. Everyone in the country was burning
their records and there was chaos all over the country as there were speculations about
how American s would treat them as conquerors. They were also told to destroy the
office furniture and laboratory equipment and it as thought to be considered valuable.
Some of the officers took this property to home and then sold it in the black market. Akio
sent the high school students and the young women home first as there were rumors that
navy officers might be declared war criminals, and civilians might be arrested.
At the end of the war, only 10 percent of the city’s streetcars were running. There were
only sixty buses in running condition and just a handful of automobiles and trucks. Most
has been converted to run on charcoal and wood when liquid fuels run out. The
tuberculosis rate was somewhere around 22 percent. Hospitals were short of everything.
Department stores were empty and only few movie theatres were open.
Morita family was fortunate as there was no bodily loss of theirs in the war and most of
them survived with no serious bombing damage. As Akio was the eldest son, his future
was discussed by the family as his father was healthy at the time and during the war
factory continued to operate on war work. Akio was only 24 at that time and it was
decided that he plenty of time to be moved into the company at a later time.
Akio received a letter from Professor Hattori, his physics teacher. He asked him to move
to physics department at the Tokyo Institute and join the faculty there. Akio got his
parents’ agreement to take the teaching job, and was able to reestablish his contact again
with Ibuka.
Ibuka’s father-in-law was Tamon Maeda, a right-hand man of Prince Fumimaro Konoe.
Maeda was later picked as Japan’s first postwar minister of education but later was forced
to resign after six months. Maeda lost his home in Tokyo because of bombing.

9. Ibuka use to run a company by the name of Nihon Sokuteiki, or Japan Measuring
Company and its factory employed fifteen hundred people making small mechanical
elements that controlled the frequency of radar devices.
Ibuka was satisfied with the countryside. He moved back to Tokyo and started a company
in the bombed out building in the heart of Toky, by the name of Tokyo
Telecommunications Research Laboratories, with seven employees. His employees did
not want to return to Tokyo as there few places to live there and food was scarce.
Ibuka’s resources were scarce and only cash that he received was from sale of voltmeters
made by his old company. This group of people would sit together for weeks and tried to
figure out which business the company was going to target. The only place to get the
electronic items was the black market. Major old companies were beginning to restart
their operations and were little interested in selling their components to their competitors.
The group finally decided to work on a simple rice cooker which was never perfected.
This was not what Ibuka had planned before moving into Tokyo. He had an idea of
shortwave receivers which were strictly prohibited during the war. It was not illegal
anymore. So, Ibuka designed a shortwave adapter unit consisting of a small wooden box
and a simple radio circuit that required one vacuum tube. This could be attached to any
standard radio and it was converted into shortwave reception. Employees had to search
the black market and the equipments were very expensive but the product was very
popular and gave the people the confidence.
Akio decided to work for this company part-time and teach part-time as Ibuka was having
trouble meeting his payroll. Ibuka and Maeda, went with me to meet Akio’s father and
convince him of the new venture, as it was considered compulsory for the first son to join
his family business. When they told him the new venture, my father was reluctant about it
as he wanted me to succeed him in the business but at that time my younger brother
Kazuaki stepped up and decided to take over the family business.
Akio was not happy with teaching and told Professor Hattori that he would not be able to
continue with the job as there was news that Occupation authorities had decided to purge
all teachers in Japanese schools who were professional army or navy personnel. He asked
Akio to continue as there was no news about it. But he was able to leave the job as the
university feared that they might be punished on not cleaning the house on their own. He
joined the Ibuka’s company full time.
In August 1946, the Shirokiya department store was about to be renovated and they
decided to move into other quarters for a while, in Kichijoji, finally they settled down in a
cheap shack on Gotenyama.
There was often suggestion of making radios as there was still a strong demand of it in
Japan but Ibuka refused on the grounds that major companies were likely to recover very
fast and would make products out their own components and stop the sale to small
companies. They knew that the big electric companies were not interested in the
replacement parts business, so they decided to venture into motors and pickups and kept
the company afloat financially.
Ibuka wanted to produce a completely new consumer product – not just an upgrade.he
went to Sumitomo Metals Corporation to order special type of wire but the company was
not interested. Other companies had similar reaction. He made equipments such as
mixing units and other studio and broadcasting units for the NHK and when they were

10. delivered, everyone was surprised with the quality of product seeing the condition of the
company.
Ibuka decided to make tape recorder when he first saw it at NHK. Company’s people
were skeptical about the success of the experiment and thought that R&D should not be
allocated any money. They did not know about the crucial system of the product, the
recording tape. We were able to make it with a lot of hardships and trouble but when we
completed the product, the worse happened as it was new in Japan nobody wanted to buy
it.
They then realized that making new and innovative products was not enough to keep the
business going. They had a lucky chance when there was shortage of stenographers and
when we demonstrated our machine for the Japan Supreme Court, the machine started to
sell heavily. Smaller units were designed for schools as they had budget for these items.
They were using Dr. Kenzo Nagai’s patented high-frequency AC Bias system. They were
able to buy half the ownership of the patent in 1949. When patent was owned, letters
were sent to tape makers throughout the world informing about the patent. He was called
by an officer in GHQ to check the claim about the patent. After checking the paperwork,
officer agreed by saying everything seemed complete.
They sued Balcom Trading Company for importing tape recorders from US as they had
the license on the recording system used in the machine. The court fee was quite high to
discourage frivolous lawsuits but they decided to go ahead and won the injunction.
Balcom reported this to US manufacturers and they sent their lawyer to settle the matter
but Akio was able to proof that they had the license in US and threatened to go to US and
decision came in their favor in about three years and they were able to get royalty on
every system that used AC Bias system.
After this little episode with an US company, Akio and co. were interested in visiting the
United States and see how the work was being done there, since this country was
considered at the top of technology and innovation at that time. When they went to the
US, they were disappointed as almost all of the US companies did not allow them to visit
there factories. The only benefit of the trip was that they came to know to about the
invention of transistors by the Bell Labs. They were immediately impressed and wanted
to get the license. They contacted Western Electric who were official licensee of Bell
Labs and got the license but they were told that it could only be used in hearing aids
which did not excite them a lot, as they wanted to use it in their small radio concept. They
also had to get the approval from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)
but the matter took a lot of time because of reluctant ministry. Akio himself visited
Germany and Holland to see the progress there and when he saw the pace at which
Germany was advancing, he was impressed. He also visited Phillips in Holland and
wanted to see the processes and procedures himself. When they finally got the license
they decided improve upon the technology and they succeeded where the Bell Labs failed
and were able to use the phosphorus doping.
After their success in the radio business, they decided to change their name to somewhat
easier to use and marketable as their original name was too long. They came up with the
name “Sony” after thorough research and deliberation. They registered the name Sony in

11. one hundred and seventy countries and territories and in various categories in order to
avoid any exploitation by others by using the same name. They produced their first
transistorized radio in 1955 and first tiny “pocketable” transistor radio in 1957. A
company used their name “Sony” for their chocolate line. They took them to court and
the decision took a lot of time as there were very few trademark or patent registration
laws but the court decided in their favor using the unfair competition law and decided it
was illegal to use the name “Sony” to be used in chocolate by the other company.
SELLING TO THE WORLD
Although, the company was still not that big but the economic conditions in Japan made
them to look for foreign markets. The profits from these markets intrigued them. They
also wanted to change the image of Japanese goods as poor in quality, and cheap. Their
invention that went by the name of “Tapecorder” became generic overnight and the firms
that made tape recorders after them used that name. From this experience onwards, they
made a point to display their company name prominently on their products. it was very
difficult in the late fifties in Japan to raise capital and they had to rely on friends and
introductions by friends to people who might become investors. They had a board of
advisers who had real stature. They also decided to educate their customers about their
products as they were new and quite unfamiliar to normal user. They decided to set up
their own outlets and establish their own ways of getting goods into the market. They
were beginning to get the reputation of a pioneer. In fact, few people called them the
“guinea pig” of the electronics industry. Their competitors took a very cautious wait-and-
see attitude while they marketed and developed new product. In their early days, they
were able to market their products for a year or more before the other companies would
be convinced that the product was a success. There plan was to lead the public with new
products rather than ask them what kind of products they wanted. Sometimes a product
idea used to strike Akio as natural. Akio did not believe that any amount of market
research could have told them the Sony Walkman would be successful, as the public had
never witnessed any gadget of similar capacity. Ibuka was thinking about industrial
creativity, some that is done with teamwork to create new and worthwhile products. They
still used the old distribution system where it was useful, but set up new owned outlets
and dealt directly with the dears where they could.
Akio saw the United States as a natural market; business was booming employment was
high; the people were progressive and eager for new things. He wanted a distributor for
his mini size radio and people at Bulova liked the radio a lot and gave an order of
hundred thousand radios but they wanted to put Bulova name on the radios. Akio asked
back at Tokyo. The answer was affirmative but he did not accept the offer. He never
regretted the decision not to take what is called an original equipment maker (OEM)
order. We then had a huge order which required us to increase our production capacity,
he wanted us to give rates on the order size. I gave him lesser rate for fewer quantity and
higher for larger one. It was a conservative and cautious approach, but Akio was
convinced that if they took a huge order they should be able to make enough profit on it

12. to pay for the new facilities during the order. They announced to the world that they had
succeeded in making the world’s first transistorized television set at the end of 1959.
Akio soon commuting between Tokyo and New York because of the work schedule. The
primary reason for this was they wanted know more than the market statistics and sales
data. In order to get registered with SEC, they had to translate all of their contracts in to
English and explain the company on paper in minute detail.
They opened a showroom in 1960 in Ginza district of Tokyo where potential customers
can handle and tryout products with no salesman around to try to sell them any product. It
was a goal to Akio to open a showroom in New York and it took him nearly two years to
find a really suitable place. As he was beginning to spend more time in US he needed his
family to be there as there were country club dinners, weekend parties and other social
gatherings. He brought his wife to New York for opening of new showroom in October
1962. He then shifted with whole of his family to New York. He sent his two boys to
camp and asked his wife to get American driver’s license. There house became an
electronics lab where the engineers would examine and test competitors’ TV sets. Akio’s
children were learning independence and American style, and it was all very healthy for
them. They saw the difference between American and Japanese culture. There initial plan
to stay in New York was cut short by the unexpected death of his father. He went back to
Tokyo to attend the funeral.
He was traveling even more during the middle sixties. The company built the first Ampex
video tape unites for the broadcasting stations; they were huge and cost around one
hundred thousand dollars and more. They started to work on bringing the tape size down
and succeeded in making it three-quarters of an inch and built a cassette to handle the
tape and gave it the name U-Matic and after its introduction in 1969, it has become the
standard all over the world. Ibuka was not satisfied and said that it was still expansive for
home users and was much too big. The company then produced the world’s first all-
transistor video tape recorder for home use. In television, color was the thing. Sony had a
lot of experience with black and while but the color was quite a new story for them. They
started to work on color TV’s and finally came out with small color TV sets and they had
no competition making small color TV sets.
Their business at home and overseas was booming and they began to make desktop
calculators in 1964 and were thought to be good addition to product line, later special
calculator was introduced by Sony by the SOBAX. But Akio soon realized that several
dozen Japanese companies had jumped into business of making calculators and it was
better to leave this business in order to avoid any price war. In 1964, business was so
good that they to open a new television assembly plant to meet the demand for the color
sets because Japan was hosting the Summer Olympic Games.
It was important for Akio to keep traveling abroad through the late sixties and visiting
our growing network of production and research facilities in Japan. He had a section at
Sony called the Outside Liaison Section, which works almost exclusively for Akio. In
this section, they had specialists in each of the areas Akio was involved in. Akio specially
enjoyed Europe especially because of the music and the great musicians.
The popularity of the Tokyo and New York Sony showrooms convinced him that they
needed a real permanent presence in Tokyo’s central district. They built a whole building
for Sony and had a company owned restaurant in the building which had Korean food.
His visits to France were quite frequent and the response to Sony products there urged

13. him to setup a showroom of the company there. They established Sony Overseas, S.A.
(SOSA) year after they founded Sony America. Margaret Thatcher asked me to open a
factory in UK and even the Prince of Wales was involved in the promotion. They also
established a German subsidiary and finally open a Sony showroom in Paris in 1971.
Akio always eyed having production unit in US as the advantages were numerous with
major one being that they could easily adapt the designs to market needs in hurry.
ON MANAGEMENT
There is nothing secret about the success of the best Japanese companies. The most
important mission for a Japanese manager is to develop a healthy relationship with his
employees, to create a family like feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees
and managers share the same fate. Those companies that are most successful in Japan are
those that have managed to create a shared sense of fate among all employees, what
Americans call labor and management, and the share holders. Akio felt that the fate of the
business is actually in the hands of the youngest recruit in the staff and it was necessary
to properly train and manage him in order to get the desired results. The idea of employee
spending all of his working life with a single company is not a Japanese invention. It was,
ironically forced upon them. It was imposed upon them the labor laws instituted by the
Occupation, where a lot of liberal, left-wing economic technicians were sent from the
United States to Japan with the goal of demilitarizing the country and making it a
democracy. One of the first targets was the basic structure of the left over industrial
complex. The American New Deal Economic and social technicians made it virtually
impossible to fire anybody; they enabled – they actually encouraged – labor organizing,
which was banished during the war years except for a government sponsored nationwide
company-type union. With the concept of lifetime employment Japanese managers and
employees both realized that they had much more in common and they need to make
some long-range plans. The laws made it difficult legally, and expensive, to fire anybody,
but that didn’t seem like such a bad idea, since workers were badly in need of work, and
struggling businesses needed employees who would remain loyal. Without class disputes,
despite the Communist and Socialist party propaganda, the Japanese, who are a
homogeneous people were able to cooperate for their common welfare. In the labor
relations, Sony had a kind of equality that does not exist elsewhere. They look for in our
management ranks, people who can be persuasive, can make people want to cooperate
with them. Management is not dictatorship. Top management of a company has to have
the ability to manage people by leading them. Sony is constantly looking with people
with these qualities. All of Sony’s engineers were first assigned to work on the
production line for a long enough periods for them to understand how production
technology fits in with what they are doing. Some of the foreign engineers did not like to
do this, but the Japanese engineers seem to welcome the opportunity to get the firsthand
experience In the United States, a foreman can remain foreman all his life but Akio
believed that it would be better to move people than to leave them on one job too long
where their minds might get dulled. He used to have dinner with many young lower
management employees almost every night and talk until night. They tend to share their

14. problems and difficulties they were facing at job and He used to help them out and
always maintained a family type atmosphere there. He made a point in knowing his
employees, to visit every facility of his company, and try to meet and know every single
employee. This task became more and more difficult as the company grew.
A company is still stationary if all the thinking is being done at the management level.
Everybody in the company must contribute, and for the lower-level employees their
contribution must be more than just manual labor. They insisted that all of their
employees contribute their minds. They used to get an average of eight suggestions a year
from each of their employees, where most were regarding making their own jobs easier
or their work more reliable or a process more efficient. They don’t force suggestions, and
they take them seriously and implement the best ones. In Japan, worker who spend a lot
of time together develop an atmosphere of self-motivation, and it is the young employees
who give the real impetus to this. Management knows that the younger employees can
devote their time and effort planning the future of the company. Right after they formed
the American company, they needed a lot of people in a hurry to establish their sales
organization because the business got big very fast. The experience with this massive
hiring was that although some were really good but some were so bad that Akio thought
they wouldn’t have hired in the first place. Akio also discovered that management in the
Western countries lay off workers when a recession sets in. This is not the case in Japan,
or until the company is in its direst state. Although, the system of being unable to fire
anybody might seemed dangerous, the Japanese businessmen went through a rough
period in order to turn the situation to their advantage. The major trouble with American
style of management is that their primary focus is towards profits and they tend to set
goals in order to achieve maximum profits. Akio learnt that the enemy of the innovation
could be the sales force, if it had too much power, because very often these organizations
discourage innovation. This is expensive; it means investing sufficient money in R&D
and new facilities and advertising and promotion. And it also means making some
popular and profitable items obsolete, often the items that a company makes the most
profit on because of the development costs are paid for and these products have become
easy for salesman to sell. If the company is nothing but profit-conscious; it cannot see the
opportunities ahead. Sony came out with innovative products like portable black and
white video tape recorder, the U-Matic. The requirement with these types of innovations
is that they require a lot of educating to be done; one has to prepare the groundwork
among the customers before expecting success in the market place. It is time-honored
Japanese gardening technique to prepare a tree for transplantation by slowly and carefully
binding the roots over a period of time, bit by bit, to prepare the tree for the shock of the
change it is about to experience. This process, called “nemawashi” takes time and
patience but it rewards. Akio was often accused of moving too fast and of being impatient
but he was a type of person who apply a kind of sixth sense to people and products that
might defy logic. Something told him that the market was not yet ripe for a large sale of
video portables, and he was right. When Sony was new and small, they could steal people
from other companies and get away withy it, but now that they were so large it was not
considered the right thing to do, although they still keep on scouting for the talent.
A staff of prepared, intelligent and energetic people, the next step is to motivate them to
be creative. For a long time, Japanese were branded as imitators rather than creators.
Some people think that the Japanese ability to create the country’s present industrial

15. establishment is something that they learnt in the four decades since World War II, but
they don’t know their history. Japanese steel makers bought technology for the basic
oxygen conversion system from the originating companies in Austria, but within less than
a decade Japanese companies were selling improved steel-making technology back to
those same companies. There is a need to clear few myths that still linger about the
subject of Japanese creativity; one aspect of Japanese technological development is its
independence form the defense technology. It is well known that much of American and
European technology is spun off of defense work funded by the government. The major
burden of research is borne by private industry in Japan, which contradicts the notion that
Japanese and government cooperation is the key to Japanese commercial success. They
highly educated work force of Japan continues to prove its value in the field of creative
endeavor. In the recovery from the ware, low cost of this educated labor was an
advantage for Japan’s growing low-technology industry. Akio’s solution to the problem
of unleashing creativity is always to set up a target. In order to reach one target many
people become creative. Manager had to determine goals and go for them, encouraging
workers to excel. In fact, the Zero Defects programs of NASA were a great influence on
Japan’s quality control programs. The trouble with the Japanese government research
institutes is that the government believes that if you have a big laboratory with all the
latest equipment and good funding it will automatically lead to creativity. Managements
of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly; that may be
the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers. If the target is
wrong, R&D expenses are wasted, so there is a premium on management being right. It
has been said that creativity of the entrepreneur does not exist in Japan anymore because
the country has so many giant companies. But venture capital is available now as never
before, and so there would be results from new small, innovative companies. As an idea
progress through the Sony system, the original presenter continues to have the
responsibility of selling his idea to technical, design, production, and marketing staffs and
seeing it to its logical conclusions, whether it is an inside process or a new product that
goes all the way to market. This way the family spirit continues to prevail.

16. AMERICAN AND JAPANESE STYLES
The major difference between American and Japanese business and management styles
and weakness in the American system is the lawyer. The legal problems have a severe
impact on how business is conducted and worse on how businessmen see their role in
America. Even though Japan is not busy creating lawyers, their courts are still jammed
with cases that years to settle, which a function of the small number of lawyers is partly.
While the United States was busy creating lawyers, Japanese were creating engineers. In
the United States businessmen often do not trust their colleagues. If one does trust his
colleague today, he might be his competitor tomorrow, because people frequently move
from one company to another. Many Americans seem proud of the adversarial
relationship between government and business, as though their aims are naturally
antagonistic. The American system of management, in Akio’s opinion, also relies too
much on outsiders to help make business decisions, and this because of the insecurity that
American decision makers feel in their jobs, as compared with most top Japanese
corporate executives. In Japan a person who holds an executive position of trust and who
violates it is really disgraced, and because of theirs closed-circle society, it would be
impossible for him to continue to do damage to company after company, as one have
done in the U.S. and even in Europe. Generally, in the United States, management’s
attitude towards the labor force and even the lower-level executives is very hierarchical,
much more so than in Japan, an Oriental country, where Westerners always expect to see
such hierarchies. Japanese attitudes toward work seem to be critically different from
American attitudes. Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of
work, any kind of work, as honorable. Workers generally are willing to learn new skills.
Japan has never devised a system like the America, in which a person is trained to do one
thing and then refuses to take a job doing anything else. One old style of management
that is still being practiced by many companies in the United States and by some in Japan
is based on the idea that the company that is successful is the one that can produce the
conventional product most efficiently at cheaper cost. Japanese labor practices are often
called old-fashioned in today’s world, and some say the old work ethic is eroding in
Japan as it has elsewhere, but Akio thinks this is inevitable. People need money, but they
also want to be happy in their work and proud of it. Akio believes that people work for
satisfaction. Sony was one the first Japanese companies to close down their factory for
one week in the summer, so that everybody could take off at the same time. In Japan
recruiters are hired and then they to be trained as they are highly educated but irregular
lot.
There is a feeling in Japan that company must be as much concerned with the workers as
with the shareholders. It is believed that one of the most important things in a company is
the workers’ morale’; if the workers lose their enthusiasm for the company the company
may not survive. The employees view loss of retained earnings as a threat to their job
security. But Japanese feel that a company that sells its assets has no future.
The primary function of management is decision-making and that means professional
knowledge of technology and the ability to foresee the future direction or trends of
technology. Next to lawyers, Akio think that the businessmen are the most overused and
misused people on the scene of United States and Japan. Many Japanese companies

17. operate on the “proposal” system, in which the middle management is expected to come
up with ideas and concepts to propose to top management for judgment. This of course
differs from the concept of one-man or small-team management that is common in the
West and especially in America. The concept of consensus is natural to the Japanese, but
it does not necessarily mean that every decision comes out of a spontaneous group
impulse. Japanese encouragement of long-range plans form up-and-coming employee is a
big advantage to their system, despite all the meetings and the time spent in discussing
and formulating plans. It enables them to create and maintain something that is rare in
business in the West. One can be totally rational with a machine but if you work with
people sometimes logic often has to take a backseat to understanding.
COMPETITION
The glory and the nemesis of Japanese business, the life’s blood of Japan’s industrial
engine, is good old-fashioned competition, and sometimes it is severe that even Akio is
worried about its export to other countries. The competition in their domestic market
makes the consumer a king. In Japan these days there are more makers of civilian
industrial products than in any other country on earth, including the United States. Japan
have a free economic system in which anybody can start any kind of legitimate company,
so if something turns out to be a great product, people leap in big numbers, and they
compete with each other tooth and nail for the business. Share of market is more
important to Japanese companies than immediate profitability. The interest in building for
the future in order to stay competitive became a source of trade friction. Outwitting an
opponent in some clever deal is not what the Japanese are interested in. from the
beginning, Ibuka and Akio knew that they were after quality above all. When they went
to the American market, the made sure that they had service personnel trained to handle
the problems that might come up, and they charged high enough prices to support that
effort.
The continued vigorous competition they had in Japan had also change they at how they
work. In the past, it was important to produce a large stock of a product at the lowest
possible cost, but now the life cycle of products is getting shorter and the cost higher, and
if they built huge inventories they might find themselves with a stock of outdated goods.
In the competitive struggle for the biggest share of the market, all sorts of unscrupulous
things can take place, including industrial espionage. They are so careful with their
secrets that they are constantly reminding their people not to talk about their work in the
public. At Sony this is the not the case, they are protected from this, by company-run,
nonprofit bar called Sony Club.
It worries Akio that the idea of business competition seems to have been lost in many
places in the non-Communist world. It was a pleasant surprise that China has begun to
understand the free market system in agriculture and some services and now is allowing
some free market competition. Akio admire Chinese courage and determination. They
have learnt a lot about modern industry in a short time, but they have a long way to go.
Japanese and European products are now competing on the local markets in China,

18. though in limited areas. Sony did a lot of business with the Soviet Union in the
broadcasting station equipment. Sony is the largest maker of this equipment in the world.
Akio admits that there is another side of the picture which is that excessive competition is
at work in their society today. The spirit of competition in Japan even pervades the
government ministries. The newspaper competition and the television competition have
caused severe problems. The quality of television programming has deteriorated to low
levels because of the competition to air the most popular shows. The eagerness for news
and the large numbers of reporters assigned to cover any event, however, causes big
problems for everybody. Despite some of its dark aspects, competition, in Akio’s opinion
is the key to the development of industry and its technology but more effort is needed to
find broader understanding. Competing in a market that they understand, such as
Japanese companies sometimes misbehave with their cutthroat tactics. Companies will go
after an increase in share of market by cutting prices to the bone, sometimes to the point
that there is no chance for anybody to make the profit.
TECHNOLOGY
Japanese are obsessed with survival. Almost everyday, the earth beneath their feet
trembles. They don’t think of themselves as religious people, although they tend to
believe that God resides in everything. In old days, when Japan was completely isolated,
they had to handle any calamity by means of their own resources. The literacy rate being
what is, Japanese magazines, books, and newspapers proliferate. Their use of paper
extends from religious objects, art, and books to coverings for lamps and windows, to
wrapping and packaging and decoration of many kinds, and all this makes Japan the
second biggest producer of paper in the world. As they always had to practice
conservation for survival, Japanese feel that it is more sensible and economical to heat a
body with foot-warming brazier or electric heater than using all the energy it takes to heat
an entire room. The ability of Japanese to work together came to Japan’s aid at the time
of oil crises. In, every maker of home appliances went to work to cut power consumption,
and in fact they competed with each other to see who could produce products using the
least power; low power consumption became a major selling point and a new point of
competition. Because of the crisis, they became efficient. Using the latest technologies,
they designed lighting that consumed less power and more efficient generators. Akio
leant that the attitude in America is much more easygoing as far as raw materials are
concerned than in Japan. Japanese people also seem naturally more concerned about
precision. It might have to do something with meticulousness with which they must have
learnt to write the complicated characters of the Japanese language. Akio does not
discredit the foreign worker. Sometimes one has to use different approach where people
accustomed to different approaches. Japanese are always been eager develop their own
technology, absorb aspects of technology from abroad, and blend them to make suitable
objects or systems.
Perhaps it is because of their need for the means of survival that Japanese science tends to
concentrate more on the applied than on the theoretical. One of strengths at Sony was that
they do not structure the company so rigidly that the NIH Not Invented Here syndrome

19. applies. World is headed in the direction of new communications systems in the nineties
and beyond.
Akio is trying to make a point that it is unwise merely to do something different and then
rest on one’s laurels. One has to make business out of a new development. The challenge
for all companies is the management of the technologies, new developments, and new
product.
JAPAN AND THE WORLD
Relations between modern Japan and the rest of the world have often been on the rocky
side, and now U.S. and European community are locked in a cycle of recurring trade with
Japan. Americans and Europeans seem to think that their idea of how the world trading
and monetary systems work and should continue to work should be universal, especially
in the business world, and that since they believe they invented the game rules should
never be amended. They system up to now, they believe, has served them well and there
is no need to change. They saw Japanese as newcomers; novices who should still learn
form the masters. In today’s fast-moving and interdependent world, everyone has to look
for ways to get to know each other better; they need to talk and exchange views. Contrary
to the general view, there are thousands of American and European companies doing
business in Japan not the other way around only. It appears that if foreign companies
have problems competing with Japanese companies, it is often a failure of that industry as
it is success of Japanese industry. While Americans seem willing to ignore the arrival of a
new era, the French have punitive approach to it. Akio admires their shrewdness and wit
when they decided they would slow the shipment of Japanese video cassettes recorders
into the country in, they made the port of entry for VCRs. They required the agents to
examine each set very carefully before approving it, and there were only nine agents thus
slowing down the number of Japanese sets in their country. Japan has still some
confusing and complicated barriers to trade, but Japan is the only major industrialized
country that actively moving to open its markets, step by step, always forward, never
backward.
By then the trade problems between Japan and the United States were a central topic of
conversation. In fact, many nasty things were being said about Japan in the United States
because of the bilateral trade imbalance between the two. Akio thought that it was only
natural when something goes wrong to blame someone else, seldom at home. While
Japanese are moving into the new era, the Americans were clinging on to the traditional
stuff. While many Americans seem willing to ignore the arrival of new era, the French
have punitive approach to it. Akio admired their shrewdness and with when they decided
to slow the shipment of Japanese video cassette recorders. At the time, the French and
other European makers had been bringing OEM sets into Europe, but they were slow to
develop their own. Japan had some confusing and complicated barriers to entry but still it
is the only major industrialized country that is actively opening their markets. The main
thing to understand here is that if one tries to avoid or soften competition by political
intervention, the whole concept of free trade and free system is negated.

20. Japan has been opening up at increasing pace in the mid-eighties when new protectionist
talk is echoing all around Europe and the United States. The opening of Japanese markets
came at a time when the business community was pressing very hard for it with the
government and bureaucracy. It is difficult for the bureaucracy to give anything the
system resists the change. In Japan bureaucracy is institutionalized which is very
powerful, a policy one established is followed no matter how many changes are in the
political scene. The stand of the Japanese government in its economic relationship with
the world is that openness of its market is the rule and restrictions against imports are
invoked only as a rate exception to the rule.
Japanese are still the inheritors of an agrarian cultural tradition and philosophy, which are
influenced by the nature and the change of the seasons. Perhaps because of this they are
not hasty people. They have a proverb that everything changes in seventy days, which
counsels us not to be hasty, not middle ground between the two approaches, the too
hurried and the too slow.
WORLD TRADE
Shortsighted statesmen and businessmen around the world see their problems in bilateral
terms. Akio believed that the main problem is with their money. In order to have
economic activity in a free and open economic system, one has to have buying and
selling at appropriate prices. The prices will be affected by supply and demand, of course.
That’s the simple basis of the free economic system. As an industrialist Akio knows that
competitiveness has to be balanced and the exchange rate acts as the balancing
mechanism. He thought that the floating system would, by international agreement, be
monitored, and that rates would not be allowed to fluctuate artificially. In this situation
the prices of goods become a matter virtually out of control if rates are not monitored.
For industrialists money is the scale. It is use to measure the economic activity of the
companies, assets, inventories, and even the result of human effort. It worries Akio that
some industrialists have begun to take part in the money trading game. The industrialists
who cannot invest in their own companies are investing a lot of energy, time and money
in acquisitions and mergers. European nations appreciate scientists. Many of the great
American scientists have their roots in Europe. As concerned as Akio as about the trend
towards the expansion of trade in currencies at the expense of the expansion of the trade
in goods, this lack of interest is keeping up with the need for changing technologies and
production of new kinds goods concern him. European countries trade with each other
maintains fixed exchange rates that are periodically adjusted. But most of the Americans,
believe that since America has the least restrictions on trade they should be setting all the
standards that should be followed.
Sony has struggled hard to expand their business and do business in countries adhering to
their laws and regulations. The move in European markets were not easy as the German
consumers did not accept any Japanese products easily and it took time to get their
acceptance of Japanese equipment and same was the case with England. It is never easy
for a firm like Sony to accomplish what they have accomplished.

21. He believes that there is bright future ahead and future holds exciting technological
advances. His vision of future is of an exciting world of superior goods and products. The
challenge is great; the success only depends upon the strength of their will.
REVIEW
Although it can also be read as a history of Sony Corporation, Made in Japan is
essentially an autobiography of its co-founder Akio Morita. It gives an account of
Morita's upbringing in a wealthy family, the war years of Japan, the birth of Tokyo
Telecommunications Engineering Corporation (later renamed Sony Corporation) with
Masaru Ibuka, and Sony's subsequent rise to international prominence as electronics
Giant.
As it talks about Sony Corporation, it gives an impression about the entire nation. The
book skillfully weaves the topics dealing with Japanese History, Politics, Culture,
International relations and speaks volumes about Japan's business relations mainly with
America and aggressive Japanese business expansionism. It most importantly gives a
complete picture of the determination, innovation and passion of the Japanese in the post
war period, in lucid narration and language flow.
In the first half of the book, elements of autobiography and company history are
intermingled. Technological changes and innumerable trips abroad to further the business
(Sony was the first Japanese firm to license the transistor patents from Western Electric)
receive equal time with anecdotes of family and friends. The second half of the book
consists of informal essays on topics such as personnel management; the differing
corporate styles of East and West; the importance of competition; and Japan's role in
world trade. Despite the difficulties which he foresees, Morita remains eternally
optimistic about the future.
The success of SONY was due to innovation and Morita's success was due to ambition
and grabbing on to opportunities. Management is all about 'case by case'. If there are too
many rules, they do not lead anywhere. Morita dared to think differently that is what the
book says. Most books on management are dry, too technical and lengthy with high
sounding ideas and that is where Made in Japan is different. It gives its readers something
to think about but does not do any thinking for them, at least not too much.
The main reason for Sony's success was the 'application' of technology and basic science,
business innovation and pragmatic management practices which is true about many
Japanese firms. There is the example of how they licensed the 'radio' technology in
Walkman and got the licensing rights for a song, when no one in America or Europe
thought it to be a viable and marketable technology. Morita's creativity and innovative

22. ideas gave birth to totally new lifestyles and cultures which is evident from the fact that
today the Walkman is referred to as a noun, Sony as a synonym of top quality in
electronics and Made in Japan as a brand in itself.
The book, however does not give as much information about Sony Corporation as an
organization. Chapters are divided dexterously, each focusing on specific aspects and
giving information yet falling in the flow that holds the reader. Indigenous Japanese
language words have been appropriately expressed using italicization (man'youshu,
zaibatsu, asahi shimbun etc.), partial translation (tatami mat; noh theatre etc.) and
complete replacement of words instead of notes (Education mothers-KYOUIKU MAMA;
Living National Treasure-NINGEN KOKUHOU etc.) which prove its credibility as a
well translated work. Also, Japanese language words (Akio, Showa p.9; manabu, manebu
p.178) have been explained well to the understanding of the reader so as to transmit the
logic behind their use. However, it is important to state here that the concept of frugality
related to mottainai (p.252), that Morita describes as a quintessential value of post war
Japanese psyche, does not really hold true in today's Japan. Although recycling is at its
high in Japan, it continues to be one of the largest garbage generating nations. Also, the
attitude towards employment has taken a drastic shift in today's Japan.
Morita probably attempts to do a PR for, or recommend his (Never mind school records;
p.121) and his wife's books (My thoughts on home entertaining; p. 115) and also A book
of Five rings (p.228) by cleverly mentioning them in the flow. The inclusion of
photographs in the pages between p.168 and p.169 makes it an interesting documentary
though.
Minor annoyances are the way in which Morita glosses over his involvement in the
Japanese military, and the relatively small amount of time and space he gives to Sony co-
founder Masaru Ibuka in his narratives. Also, he speaks of his background sometimes to
the extent of exaggerating his family's status. The tone throughout is tinged with
humility, although to be fair it is probably difficult for an individual as successful as
Morita to appear as anything else. The book's two coauthors (TIME magazine's Tokyo
bureau chief and a Japanese journalist) have done a good job of making this a readable
book while allowing the author's personality and enthusiasm to shine through.