SONY MICRO AND MACRO ENVIRONMENT

1. Introduction:
Sony is the brain child of Masaru Ibuka who in 1945 had been working for Japanese army
on military technology. Ibuka and seven other engineers in October 1945 Tokyo Tsushin
Kogyo (Tosuken) and the next year he was joined my colleague Akio Mrita. When Mrita
went to island found out that people are having trouble with the company’s name he
changed it to SONY. The company name "Sony" was created by combining two words. One
is "sonus" in Latin, which is the root of such words as "sound" and "sonic." The other is
"sonny" meaning little son
According to the Sony Corporation, its founder Akio Morita "firmly believed that brand
image could be built from the ground up,
and that a company had to work hard to
develop it
Sony is the one of the biggest electrical
giants in the world. Sony is one for the
leadingmanufacturer of Electronics, Videos,
Communications, Video GameConsoles andi
nformation technology products for the
consumer and professional markets. Its
products range from small MP3 player to
loud high tech stereo speakers, from small
Digital Picture Frames to big high
definition LCD TVs, from Music to Movies
Sony organization covers all.

2. MICRO ENVIRMAENT
The Company:
This combines all the company internally groups like financial, research, management,
development and etc. Sony as a company has a very highly trained research team of
technicians, financialadvisors and manager which keep Sony as a multimedia giant strong
from inside.
ii.Suppliers:
A company is as good as its supplier. Sony has a good relationship with its suppliers. This
gives Sony an advantage on its competitors in getting good quality and reliable material.
Otherwise shortage of material or increase in price can affect Sony’s sales volume.
iii.Marketing Intermediaries:
These are the firms that help an organization to sell their products to consumers. Sony has
any retailers, distribution centers and marketing agencies to help them reach to the
masses (customers).
iv.Customers:
Customers markets are of five types:
o Consumer Market:
They consist of individuals and households that buy goods for personal consumption.
Sony is very strong in this market.
o Business Market:
Sony is increasing its sales in this market but still a bit shy from its competitors.
o Reseller Market:
They buy goods and services to resell at a profit.
o Government Market:
Sony is introducing more products which are taking high interest by Government to
increase public services.
o International Market:
Sony has very big International market and its demand is growing day by day.

3. v.Competitors:
According to the marketing concept,
a company must provide customer
value and satisfaction more than its
competitor do.
Sony as a multinational organization
has many competitors indifferent
fields of expertise. Some of the
competitors are new but some are as
old as Sony itself but all of them
never been able to match Sony’s value for money and marketing skills.
vi.Public:
A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest or impact on an
organization’s ability to achieve its objectives. Sony has many public interests like;
Financial, Government, Media, Citizen, internal and local
MACRO ENVIRMAENT
“It’s the collection of uncontrollable forces and conditions facing a person or a company,
including demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces.”
Macro-environment consists of six major factors that affect an organization externally
depending on its marketing strategy. They arei. Demographic ,Environment: ii.Economic
Environment : iii.Natural Environment: iv.Technological Environment :v.Political
Environment: vi. Cultural Environment:
I. Demographic Environment:
Demography is the study of human populations in terms of size, density, location,age,
gender, race, occupation etc. For a company like Sony who has different products for
different ages need to keep a close eye on the demographic environment. So that when a
new product is launched it is targeted to right age group, or occupation at a right time and
location.
II. Economic Environment:
The economicenvironmentconsistsof factors that affect consumer purchasing power and
spending patterns. Sony has to consider its products prices and quality before the launch

4. of its products. For example; the buying power in Europe and North America is
considerably more than the third world countries.
III. Natural environment:
Natural environment are the natural resources that are needed as inputs by the
marketers or that which are affected by marketing activities.
Especially the following trends:
o Shortages of raw materials.
o Increased pollution.
o Increased government intervention.
IV. Technological Environment:
The technological environment is the most dramatic of all the environments. The changes
in the technology are so rapid that no one can predict it. Sony is a technology dependent
company. So keeping an eye on the technology and keep ahead of the competitors is the
vital role for Sony’s survival.
V. Political Environment:
The political environment consists of Laws, Government agencies and pressuregroups
that influenceor limit variousorganizationsand individualsin a given society. Sony before
mass producing a product for a country or a region has to take permission from
Government and other authorities.
VI. Cultural Environment:
The cultural environment is made up of institutions and other forces that affect society’s
basic values, perceptions, preferences and behaviors. Technology has become a trend
which changes from region to region. Keep ahead of this and taking advantage is
successful company’s main agenda.P.E.S.T analysis can also come in Macro-environment.
PEST ANALYSIS:
PEST identifies the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, andlegal
factors that of which directly affect Sony.
Political:
o Trade, return, and warranty restrictions
o Employment law is crucial to maintain cost effective and legal in a specific country.
o Introduction to Euro, the exchange may drop in the UK making Sony easier to
expand.

5. Economic:
o Production and distribution of a multitude of consumer electronic products.
o Interest rates play an important role in a company’s growth and price factor of the
products;
o The fall in unemployment rates may cause Sony some problems in the processof
recruiting new employee’s in the business.
o Specific region’s economic growth, inflation rates, and exchange rates, anddue to
current economic crisis
Social:
o Social factors include health consciousness of customer
o Older population tends not to be interested in latest products rather they might be
interested in simple ones.
o Some Asian and African countries may not be able to buy Sony’s products.
Technological:
o Digital age is the future developing aspect of the consumer electronics.
o The production, storage and marketing of Sony products can be effected by
increased use of new technology.
o Technology and innovation has been Sony’s passion and they made a breakthrough
in 2002 by launching PS2, which included enhanced graphics. This was followed by
the PS3 in 2007 which had Blu-ray
How sony has responded to the changes in its environment factors
Political factor
Political factors could have a direct impact on the ways Sony operates. Government often
makes new decisions involving policy or legislation and it affect daily business
In the directive of businesses, the political factors have a huge influence. An example of
political factors that affects Sony which includes government laws is minimum wage law.

6. This would affect Sony as the minimum wage law keeps changing every year. As in the
same time product cost also keeps on changing, this will make Sony facing losses.
Social factors
Demographic and cultural aspects includes in the social factors of the external
environment. Sony has also been affected by social issues from time to time. This is mainly
because Sony has so widely expanded into different cultures and different markets that it
tends to become hard to deal with all the diversity. The social factors which influences
Sony varies in each country. These show the customer's needs and the size of the potential
markets in every country.
Customer
'No customer there is no business.' Customer satisfaction will be a target of company.
SONY business can improve customer satisfaction.If we make the customer feel that they
are special, customer will be appreciate us and help in increase our dividends in business
with support our product. (Adhijik Naik, 2011) For example, SONY camera gives a high
quality services to customersand meet their needs. Sony'spromoter will give more details
and information to customers when they have question or problem with buying SONY
camera. Information about SONY camera will attract their interested in SONY camera and
needs. They will feel more satisfy when using SONY camera. Then their satisfaction will be
achieved through SONY camera. So, customersare very important in our business because
they can easily influence our level of business.
Supplier
Suppliers always work as equal partner and building relationships according to mutual
trust (Sony Corporation, 2011). A supplier can satisfy a market function when he creates a
new relationship with customer and partners. (Walter A., 2003) For example, suppliers
promote and transmit the SONY camera to partners and have a good communication with
them when they are selling SONY camera to customer. When partners satisfy with
supplier and SONY camera then they will continue have a business with them in order to
satisfy a market function.
Intermediaries
Retailer and wholesaler are included in intermediaries. Regarding to SONY's website
analysis, without intermediaries there is a difficult to get SONY product. (Sony electronics
Inc, 2011) For example, intermediaries need to purchase SONY camera from SONY

7. Company and set an acceptable prices even a quality package of SONY camera in order to
fulfil customer and let them easy to purchase SONY camera. These processes are vital in a
business.
Competitors
It is crucial for Sony Corporation to watch attentively to its competitor so that they can
maintain its position in the market. Sony Corporation has two types of competitor, that is,
direct competitor and indirect competitor. Direct competitors are organisations that
produce 'similar' products and services (wiseGEEK, 2011). Nokia, Motorola, Canon, Fuji
Photo are all examples of direct competitors to Sony (Upvery.com, 2010). Indirect
competitors are firms producing different types of products but satisfy the same needs
(Rich Harshaw, 2011) of customers. The indirect competitor of Sony is video iPod. In
which Sony PSP and iPod produced similar striking feature (Frank Hedley, 2008). Other
competitors, especially in the software industry are Microsoft.
Government
The government imposed regulations to ensure business transactions are conducted in a
fair and just manner. Legislations that are passed often influences the productions
possibilities of a company and hence the type of goods and services that can be offered to
the consumers. Apart from the above, the government also enforce taxation to collect
revenue that will maintain itself and supply public services that may be needed by
companies such as Sony. For example, Sony's income taxes benefit amounts to $19billion
resulting in an effective rate of 10% in Oct 30, 2009 (wikinvest, 2009).
The Financial Community
Shareholders are very important for Sony Company because they support the
organization's future expansion. There are two types of shareholders, that is private and
institutional. As seen in the chart below, a major portion of Sony's shareholders are the
corporation itself (60.18%), followed by foreign investors (27.27%) and subsequently
financial institutions (8.74%) (Sony Financial Holdings, 2010).