Name : Nurlaila

Class : 2ECAM

NPM : 1910111534

Subject : Management

Summary :

A Plan is a specific documented intention consisting of an objective and an action

statement. A planning is for deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who
is to do it.

There are many different types of plans described by Koontz;

 Purpose/mission
 Objectives
 Strategies
 Policies
 Procedures
 Rules
 Programmes
 Budgets.

The importance of planning are To offset uncertainty and change, To focus attention on
objectives, To gain economical cooperation, and To facilitate control. The planning process
involves assesing and environmental forecasting. The planning period can be short, medium, or
long range but yet it is risky to plan a shorter period.

There are a few steps in planning;

 Be aware of opportunity
 Establishing objectives
 Premising
 Determining alternative courses of actions
 Evaluating alternative course of action
 Selecting a course of action
 Formulating derivative plans
 Numbering plans by budgeting
 Why people fail in planning? This question is keep being asked by some people. Some
causes that might be the problem in planning are Lack of commitment to planning,
Psychological difficulties, Lack of meaningful objectives, Tendency to underestimate the
importance of planning premises, Failure to see scope of plans, Failure to see planning as a
rational process, Failure to use the principle of the limiting factor, Excessive reliance on
experience, Lack of top management support, Lack of clear delegation, Lack of adequate
control techniques & info, Lack of an appropriate planning climate within the organization as a
whole, Technical problems, and Resistance to changes.

There are some limits in planning which are;

 Cost
 Complexity of the planning process
 Problem of rapid change
 Political climate
 Labour organization
 Technological change
 Current crises
 Policy and procedural inflexibility
 Capital investment

Example of the company :

Sony

Sony is a Japanese company which has its headquarter based in Minato. It is one of the
largest electronic product manufacturers in the world.

The company Sony has many products in the market from electronic appliances for
home to mobile phones and play stations which is used by many people around the world, the
company has established itself in the markets of all continents whether is America or Asia,
Sony’s products are used by many consumers with a confidence in them.

Current Strategies Of Sony:

It can be seen that the company emphasis on providing the customers with best
technologies and marketing its products efficiently but they did had some fail strategy in the past
as well it effects its reputation.

Besides, in order to regain Sony’s competitive advantages, they appoint the first foreign
chairman, Howard Stringer to head the company with the aim to secure Sony’s main ground
and hope that an outsider will assist Sony to think outside the box. As Hamel & Prahalad (1994)
suggest, intellectual leadership are essential to develop industry foresight, anticipating which
trends are likely to emerge, so it is important to build Sony’s new core competence to shape the
industry.

However, Priem and Butler (2001) have shown that the Resources Based View, as
currently constituted, contains a theory of sustainability but not a theory of competitive
advantage (i.e., value creation).They argue that “simply advising practitioners to obtain rare and
valuable resources in order to achieve competitive advantages and, further that those resources
should be hard to imitate and non-substitutable is not very helpful in providing practical help”
(Johnson et al, 2005: p155).

After all the fail strategies and their affects on Sony’s reputation the company now
working on developing the reputation for that purpose Sony employed chairman from their own
country Japan and also a foreigner chairman to make their strategies work. In the current
weaknesses of Sony it can be seen that they had problems with their management and
leadership styles which were more concern about getting the tasks done instead of defining the
ways for the teams to how to obtain the tasks and what resources should be used.

In order to understand the current business strategy of Sony it will be wise to look at
their corporate statement which state” Our companies are known for creating products that
enrich people’s lives. Through Sony Corporation of America and its operating companies –
Sony Electronics Inc., Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and Sony Music Entertainment – we are
also dedicated to improving people’s lives. Our commitment extends to helping local
communities, fostering better educational systems, funding research to cure devastating
diseases, supporting the arts and culture, helping disadvantaged youth, protecting and
improving the environment and actively encouraging employee volunteerism”.

After looking at the statement it can be seen that Sony Current strategies are not only
based on providing the customers with best products but also it include building the reputation
back which was affected in the past due to the poor strategic choices made by them.

Sony is also working on working on the green environment and providing the customers
not only equipments which provide them best musical or gaming experience but also which are
environmental friendly to play it part in making the world a green world and being giving the
customers the image of the social responsibility of the company and building its reputation back
which has been damage due to all the bad strategic choices made by the company
management in the past.

Sony Future Strategies:

Upon looking at the past of Sony it can be seen that the reason of the failure of
strategies was that they were not properly planned and implement the resources were not fully
utilized by Sony up to their full capacity as for any company it is very important for its efficiency
that the resources should be utlizied up to maximum capacity as Priem and Butler (2001) have
shown that the Resources Based View, as currently constituted, contains a theory of
sustainability but not a theory of competitive advantage (i.e., value creation).They argue that
“simply advising practitioners to obtain rare and valuable resources in order to achieve
competitive advantages and, further that those resources should be hard to imitate and non-
substitutable is not very helpful in providing practical help” (Johnson et al, 2005: p155).

The strategies that should be utilized in the future by Sony should be of following:

 Competitive Positioning

Sony has a establish brand name in the market which cannot be denied and everyone
knows about the brand and products of Sony but the company did not utilized their brand name
fully due to miss planning for example when the home theatre system was introduce and
became popular many people were using Sony’s products but they switch to the new system
because Sony did not do anything to develop their own home theatre system for their customers
which lead the customers to switch to another company therefore the main priority involve is to
update their systems and products up to the expectations of the customers and they should
work on the strategy to develop the products with competitive advantage in their mind the
product should be of the nature that provide better features to the customers than the
competitors just like Sony did with their mobile phones when Samsung introduce a 8 mega pixel
camera Sony Ericson introduce a mobile phone with 12 mega pixel camera and also it has
introduce smart phones for the customers as well which are widely used all over the world this
strategy should be continued by Sony.

 Build Better Market

Sony needs to understand that it has to not only maintain its current position in the
market but also expand its share in the market as Finlay (2000; p11) suggest that “organization
alter itself and the products and services it offers in order to match the needs of customers in its
chosen marketplace which is a market-based approach, so called because the organization
looks to the marketplace to see how it should act and how it should evolve”. Besides, based on
the environmental factors, Mintzberg et al (1998) developed the environmental school which
argue people in strategic management must consider the range of decisional powers available,
given the forces and demands of the external context. Sony insufficient in responding to the
external market had caused them to lost ground in key growing areas and their strategy must be
able to cope with the external environment.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis provide and wider picture to the company about its current strengths and
weakness which relates to the internal environment of the company and give a better
understanding that what is required to be done and with the analysis of the external
environment of the company it helps in indentify what are the opportunities and threats available
to the company and how they can be use for the betterment of the company. By using swot
analysis the following have been identified.
1. Strengths:-
 Sony has a strong brand name which is globally recognisable.
 Sony develop the products which are future base which attract more customers to buy
the products thus increase in sale.
 Sony has strong customers based who use Sony’s products all the time from music
systems to mobile phones.
 They have top level management and expert chairman now which can guide the
company towards success in the future.
 Sony has always been consider the leader in technology and present the products in the
past which have attract many customers to the company.
 They have motivated staff which works for them all the time to develop new products
and improve the current one the company is offering.

2. Weaknesses
 Sony is inconsistent in its planning and do not do anything to tackle the competitors
products.
 The company has been subject to many capitals structuring in the past.
 The industry is rapid in nature and can change at any moment.
 The management has been inconsistent as well.

3. Opportunities:-
 It’s a rapidly growing industry which means Sony has changes to grow much further in
the industry.
 Sony has the team to develop new products and update their existing ones as well to
capture more share of the market.
 They have a strong customer based all over the world which means Sony can increase it
sell in all over the world if they overcome their weaknesses.

4. Threats
 Just like Sony the competitors in the market are also well establish and have strong
customer based in order to get the customers from them Sony has to improve its product
much more.
 With the losses the company suffer for the last few years may cause the investors think
twice before investing into Sony’s new projects.
 The world of technology is always changing which means Sony has to work on
developing futuristic products and keep on updating the old one to meet the customers
demand and to survive in the market.
 As it can be seen from Sony, the company emphasis more on developing the products
and not on going head to head with the competition which result in the competition getting the
most of the market while Sony has the technology the company lack of strategic planning and
more over lack of control over the activities result in the company losing its customers due to the
controversies from the sue on batteries to customers blaming Sony to promoting spam mails
using the play station website. All this effected the reputation of the company now Sony needs
to rebuild the reputation by not only doing what they do best which is providing the customers
the best products in term of technology but also they need to build a strategic plan to overcome
all the obstacles the company face in the past.

Sony now needs to employ a team of managers who can look after their business well
and also needs to monitor and control their performances as it was the bad management
decision which affected the company and the company should made all their plan with keeping
the future in mind in short the company needs to work with consistency in their operation and
should also need to have a backup plan just in case the first plan fail for example when the
company was sued for the batteries fault Sony should have tested the batteries fully and as it
was reported that the company was aware of the fault in batteries than Sony should have tested
the batteries properly and should have look for ways to overcome that fault same goes with the
home theatre system Sony should have come up with a way to compete with it instead of just
leaving the way it was, this were the faults or mistake which result in Sony’s strategic failure and
in order to build the company position more strong this faults should not be repeated and all the
plan should be made after going through with every details about them and any fault should be
identified and ratify at the initial stage and in the same manner every move of the competitors
should be though about and a counter plan should be ready for it by doing this Sony can not
only captured more market but can also be the market leader.