Sony was founded in 1946 by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka. It operates across various industries including electronics, gaming, entertainment, and financial services. Sony aims to leverage its uniqueness through convergence and emotionally connect with customers. It believes in securing talented employees from diverse backgrounds and enabling their growth. Sony offers flexible working styles and benefits like paid leave for childcare/eldercare. It faces challenges from diversifying across cultures and languages to cater to different global markets. Some products Sony recently launched include HD cameras, laptops with wireless data transfer, e-readers in Japan, and its answer to iTunes.

1. SONY
(Believethatanythingyou canimagine,youcanmakereal)
The Sony group was founded in 1946 by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka.The
SONY Group is primarily focused on the Electronics (such as AV/IT products &
components), Game (such as PlayStation), Entertainment (such as motion pictures
and music), and Financial Services (such as insurance and banking) sectors. Not
only do SONY represent a wide range of businesses, but SONY remain globally
unique. Its aim is to fully leverage this uniqueness in aggressively carrying out
their convergence strategy so that it can continue to emotionally touch and excite
its customers.
Life at sony
Believing its employees to be one of the most important aspects of its corporate
foundation, Sony acknowledges that its ongoing ability to offer dream-inspiring
products, services and lifestyles around the world depends on its ability to secure
talented employees with a wide range of values and personalities -- irrespective of
nationality, culture, race, gender and the presence or absenceof physical
limitations -- and to create employment environments that enable these individuals
to fulfill their potential. Sony encourages personal growth through on-the-job
learning, as well as access to a variety of programs tailored to different regional
needs, including education for next-generation business leaders, management skill
improvement training, and training aimed at enhancing the abilities and skills of
individual employees.

2. Flexible Working Styles
Sony not only follows the laws and customs of the countries and regions in which
it operates, but also offers versatile working styles designed to help its employees
achieve an effective work-life balance.
In Japan, Sony Corporation has introduced the "flex-time system" and the
discretionary work system, enabling it to offer employees a variety of flexible
options. Sony employees have used a high percentage of their allotment of annual
paid holidays, which in fiscal year 2009 averaged 18 days.
Child Care and Nursing Care
Sony offers a special accumulated leave system aimed at employees undertaking
child care or nursing care and a child care paid leave system that can be used in
combination with child care leave and provides up to 20 days' leave for employees
who have given birth. A significant number of employees take advantage of these
leave systems. In addition, Sony offers an "At-Home Work System" and the "use
of annual paid holiday on an hourly basis" for child care or nursing care.
Cultural Challenges faced by Sony
o Sony has developed a website which is available in the different languages
which has been further categorized on the basis of Regions the countries
belong to. For example it is dived Continent wise.
o Then country wise also they have made the websites.
o They also use different languages to script their sites. Infact they have used
National language of every country.
o They have also made microsites. Eg : www.sony.jp , www.sony.cn etc.

3. o Its all done to provide more ease and convenience for the customers.
o They also give assistance to particularly translate a particular site.
o Thus to sum up Sony is facing problem by diversification as they have to
study different cultures , languages and even they have to make separate
websites for different countries.
o All the products of Sony are available online and company is capable to
cater a mass market through its online marketing.
o Workforce Diversity is one of the challenges faced by the company. Even
Marketing and catering the product to different markets and after sales
service are the challenges the company needs to work upon.
Products launched by sony
HD camera
The SNC-CH240 Full HD Fixed camera was launched at Sony's Power of Images
(POI) event in Germany, completing its HD range. IFSEC heralded the European
launch of two new HD cameras. . Focused onimage quality, the SNC-DH180
boasts a built-in infrared (IR) illuminator to deliver excellent images even in
absolute darkness, while the SNC-DH240 is equipped with various different image
enhancers including View-DR.
Laptop with new TransferJet
Sony will launch the first laptop containing the new Transfer Jet short-range
wireless system on Saturday. Sony hopes Transfer Jet will replace cables for
shifting data between gadgets, but the technology's success will depend on its use

4. in products from the big-name consumer electronics companies that have pledged
to supportit
Sony to launch new e-readerin Japan
Sony has partnered with three local companies including mobile phone carrier
KDDI Corp, ToppanPrinting Co. and Asahi Shimbun, a major newspaper in
Japan, to establish an e-book distribution company.
Sony Unveils Its Answer to Apple's iTunes
.
 Completely new lineup of BRAVIA™ LCD televisions with LED backlight
technology and our new Monolithic Design is a clear example of how Sony
will continue to own the living room by creating products that deliver on
Sony’s promise of exceptional TV quality and performance-a promise that
continues with the upcoming launch of 3D televisions.
 VAIO PCs continue to impress with their strong combination of innovation,
entertainment and elegant design. One particularly exciting model in the
lineup is the Z series. Weighing in at just three pounds and featuring cutting-
edge graphics, it is a wonderful example of our ultra-mobile engineering
expertise.
 Sony Ericsson introduced the Xperia™ X10-a feature-rich Smartphone built
on a new open platform-and is currently rolling it out globally. In addition to
rich graphics and a large touchscreen display, the Xperia™ X10 also
features applications to intelligently manage bothcommunications and
media from multiple sources.
 Cinemas around the world are starting to deploy digital projectors, which
allow content to be projected at substantially higher image quality than

5. existing projectors. The 4K digital cinema projector system already
commercialized by Sony is designed for easy conversion to 3D projection,
and the two largest theater chains in the United States have signed on to
deploy our systems across their circuits of more than 11,000 screens,
representing an important step for this growth business.
 Sony/ATV Music Publishing, for the first time in the Company’s history,
was named ASCAP Pop Publisher of the Year-the industry’s highest honor.
Sony/ATV continues to be tremendously innovative in licensing the songs in
its catalog, and with the year’s biggest international country and pop
sensations-Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga-signed to Sony/ATV, there is a lot
to be excited about.
Televisions
The Company is targeting profitability in LCD TVs in fiscal year 2010. In
addition, this autumn we will launch the Sony Internet TV. Developed in
collaboration with Google, Sony Internet TV is an exciting new generation of
television that not only offers new forms of enjoyment through unprecedented
Internet integration, but is also able to “evolve” through the download of
applications. We are also developing the next generation of TV display, and over
the medium term are targeting a 20% market share.
Game
The PlayStation®3 platform has been gaining momentum since the launch of the
slimmer, lighter and attractively priced PS3™ last year. PlayStation®Move
features a new motion controller that, when combined with the PlayStation®Eye
camera, can very precisely track users’ movements to add a new dimension to
PS3™ games. Additionally, as a core aspectof Sony’s Groupwide launch of 3D

6. products, we have commenced the era of 3D gaming by enabling all existing
PS3™s to be upgraded to 3D-compatibility with a free firmware download, and
will release our own 3D game titles and continue to actively supportthe
development of 3D games by third-party software developers.