Sony Corporation
Company Profile, History, Management, and Culture
Company History
Akio Morita, Masaru Ibuka, and Tamon Maeda (Ibuka's father-in-law) started Tokyo telecommunications Engineering in 1946 with funding from Morita's father's sake business.
The company produced the first Japanese tape recorder in 1950. Three years later, Morita paid Western Electric (US) $25,000 for transistor technology licenses, which sparked a consumer electronics revolution in Japan. His firm launched one of the first transistor radios in 1955, followed by the first Sony-trademarked product, a pocket- sized radio, in
1957. The next year the company changed its name to Sony (from "sonus," Latin for
"sound," and "sonny," meaning little man). It beat the competition to newly emerging markets for transistor TVs (1959) and solid-state videotape recorders (1961). Sony launched the first home video recorder (1964) and solid-state condenser microphone
(1965). Its 1968 introduction of the Trinitron color TV tube began another decade of explosive growth. Sony bet wrong on its Betamax VCR (1976), which lost to rival
Matsushita's VHS as the industry standard.
Vision, Mission, and Values
When the company was founded in 1946, Mr. Ibuka created the Founding Perspectus, a document outlining the mission and values that he wanted his company to adopt.
The “Purpose of Incorporation” is separated into eight points.
1. To establish of an ideal factory that stresses a spirit of freedom and openmindedness, and where engineers with sincere motivation can exercise their technological skills to the highest level;
2. To reconstruct Japan and to elevate the nation's culture through dynamic technological and manufacturing activities;
3. To promptly apply highly advanced technologies which were developed in various sectors during the war to common households;
4. To rapidly commercialize superior technological findings in universities and research