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Sony and its boss
Stringer theory
Critics call Howard Stringer a failure. They are wrong
THE share price has fallen by a quarter this year. The company has lost money for three years in a row. Hackers have breached its online service, exposing mountains of confidential customer data to potential mischief. Sony’s boss, Sir Howard Stringer, looks a like total failure.
But looks can be deceptive. Sir Howard took the reins in 2005 and plans to retire soon. During his time at the top, he has overhauled the Japanese consumer-electronics giant. He has outsourced operations, shifted production overseas, sold business units and developed new ones. The company still lags behind big rivals such as Apple and Samsung, but it is far healthier than it was six years ago.
Sir Howard has suffered a string of bad luck. Before an earthquake walloped ten of Sony’s Japanese factories, the firm was expected to report a net profit of ¥70 billion ($817m) for the year to March 31st 2011. But the quake will have cost it some ¥17 billion that year and ¥150 billion the next. The cyberattacks will also cost billions, says Sony. Its network was hacked again this week, affecting users in Greece, Canada and elsewhere. Analysts guess that the breaches could cost Sony ¥100 billion.
Adding to the misery, Sony was forced to revalue the tax breaks (accumulated from previous losses) that it expects to deduct from future tax bills. The company reduced these “deferred-tax assets” by a hefty ¥362 billion. This does not affect its operating profit or cashflow, but it forced Sony on May 26th to report a net loss for 2010 of ¥259 billion.
In 2005 Sir Howard inherited a company that was bloated and badly run and had missed the technology shift to flat-panel televisions. A Welshman with an American passport, he was hired on the assumption that a foreigner can make painful changes that a Japanese boss might feel culturally obliged to duck. (Carlos Ghosn, a French-Brazilian, has done something similar at Nissan, a Japanese carmaker.)
Sir Howard spent the first few years shunting aside deadwood managers who sabotaged his reforms. He promoted talented young executives, such as Kazuo Hirai, who at the age of 50 heads Sony’s gaming and network services, and is tipped as Sir Howard’s successor.
Sony has been buffeted by the financial crisis, the strong yen and the earthquake, none of which was Sir Howard’s fault. He bears responsibility for the data breach, because he is the boss, but there is scant evidence that Sony’s defences were worse than the rest of the industry’s.
Sir Howard’s changes have begun to pay off. At the end of last year, Sony’s sales of televisions grew by 44% and those of its computers rose by 28%. Its gaming and mobile-phone activities turned profitable in 2010. The television business still suffers losses, but is on a firmer footing. Sir Howard shut superfluous factories—including one in Ichinomiya, which made the Trinitron televisions that were once a symbol of Sony’s technical brilliance. Today more than half of Sony’s TVs are assembled by outsourcers, up from a mere 20% in 2009.
In recent months Sony has unveiled new smartphones, along with a clever strategy to persuade developers to produce video games for them. The firm has designed innovative tablet computers that could compete with Apple’s iPad. Sony’s Vaio notebook computers offer an alternative to Apple’s laptops. The hardware is important because it is a gateway to online services, where Sony’s future is thought to lie. That is one reason why the cyberattacks hurt the company so much.
Many of the firm’s employees are conservative foot-draggers, but Sir Howard has shaken them up. Perhaps he has made Sony safe once more for a Japanese boss.
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