Online Tutoring on Sony Walkman

Introduction:

In the era of advancements, technology plays a vital role in development and downfall of a company.  Designed in 1979 in the heart of the country well known for technology development, Sony Walkman changed the way for listening music (BBC 2008). The development took place in Japan and launched in the next year at Britain, proved to be one of the most effective launch for the company. Through this launch, there was a complete change in the way people actually listen to music (BBC 2008).

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Problem Definition:

Downfall of walkmans leads to entire downfall of Sony Company. With the launch of iPod, Sony fails to retain its market share and end up losing the huge bunch of its customer base.

 

Scope of Work:

This report will focus on the reasons of downfall, the effects on the company and the initiatives taken by the company in order to overcome that deficit. Certain articles and journals are explored for this research in order to know the exact reasons for falling back and the initiatives to overcome.

 

The Launch of Sony Walkman:

The launch of Sony Walkman mp3 player happens to be a great success due to the idea of carrying personal electronics while traveling. It consists of a cassette player along with the headphones which are light enough to carry almost anywhere without any hassle. People were seeking a method other then reading books while traveling or waiting for something, which was completely fulfilled by Sony Walkmans (LowEndMac 2006). Personal electronic players were present in the market but on very high rates, so launch of Sony Walkman derive customers due to almost 80% lower in price and focused on youth category, which happens to be most music inspired generation. (CBOnline 2010)

The suggested name Walkman clearly depicts the idea of the category Sony always wanted to cater. They launched the product by bringing in the perception of staying active and start taking care of you health. This was the idea, which helped them selling the product with immense pace. The early launch in the origin country was unsuccessful but later on with some brand endorsements and quality marketing, Walkmans held the nerves with one of the most rapid selling device. (LowEndMac 2006).

 

The Changing Conditions:

With the change of time, technology advancements came into being. People started switching from traditional cassette players to CD players and hence Sony tried the same. They launched their Discmans with an ease of switching tracks by just a click in order to give ease to the consumers. But the quality of sound in the perception of consumers was far away and hence it kept Sony experiencing various technology advancements. (Norman 2004) They kept advancing the product in order to achieve the desired quality, which customers were looking for. They came up with CDs then mini CDs and other experiments but couldn’t meet the expectations.

In spite of holding the market with Walkman, Sony gave a space for Apple to come up with its iPod. The launch of iPod was a major disaster for Sony Walkman as it evaluates the use of cassette and CDs (Economist 2004). The revolutionary iPod was launched in 2003, and captured the market in a spam of few months by beating the market leader Sony in the market of portable music device. iPod offered extremely good quality of sound with the ease of installing number of songs on the same device, creating playlist and changing songs with just a click (Walter 2011).

Sony tends to co-op with its technology advancement but Apple keeps holding the market and started penetrating in the market. The company, which was known for its innovation in 80’s, failed to produce an innovative solution and allowed its competitor to keep holding the maximum market. Sony came up with mp3 players and later on after realizing the fact that they are obsolete in the category of music players came out with extremely good quality of walkman phones. (Walter 2011). These phones tried regaining little percentage of customers but with the launch of smart phones, Sony fails to capture the heritage again which they owned.

 

Conclusion:

Sony Walkman was the major launch of 80s, which gave people a portable electronic device. Due to its uniqueness, it captured the market very quickly and penetrated the market quite well. Sony Walkman was using cassette and a function to record, which made the product different from others. Sony Walkman was almost 80% lower in price as compared to the other competitor’s brands (CBOnline 2010).

With the advancement of technology, Sony launched its CD players with an ease of switching songs. Sony CD players helped Sony to stay in the market but with the launch of iPods, Apple gained the maximum market share, which later on proved to be the end of Sony Walkmans. Despite of trying new technologies such as mini CDs, Sony failed to produce any innovative solution, which could compete iPods. Finally, after 30 years of journey, Sony finally realized to end the production of Walkmans and only producing MP3 players which could be rated as an ordinary portable music player(LowEndMac 2006). Later on, Sony came up with their Walkman phones which was capable of gaining the market again but with the advancement in phones, Sony failed to produce the smart phone functions straight away which let an space for competitors to overcome.

 

Recommendations:

  • Sony was the company known for its innovation. When they launched Walkman, they captured the maximum market and kept on penetrating in it. When they were aware of the launch of iPods, they should have come up with a similar technology in order to make sure that their loyal customers would not be able to switch the technology.
  • Sony was known for providing the excellent quality of music through its handheld devices. They came up with Sony Walkman phones with high quality of stereo music but those phones should be revamped based on the smart functions which users are looking for now days.
  • With their Mp3 players, which they launched, they could have come up with camera emailing function to make sure that they were few steps ahead of Apple.
  • Sony can come up with its Sony store with free downloadable music or free high quality audio and video streaming for Sony Walkman phone buyers.
  • Sony needs to come up with high budget marketing campaigns in third world countries with low budget smart phones with high quality of music to start penetrate those markets one by one.

References:

BBC (2008). ‘I Love 1979’. [Online]. Available from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/years/1979/toys3.shtml

About (1997). ‘The History of the Sony Walkman’. [Online]. Available from:http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventions/a/Walkman.htm

LowEndMac (2006). ‘The Story Behind the Sony Walkman’. [Online]. Available from:http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/sony-walkman-origin.html

CBOnline (2010). ‘The Ode: Sony Walkman’. [Online]. Available from:http://www.canadianbusiness.com/after_hours/opinions/article.jsp?content=20101122_10018_10018

Lebrecht, Norman (July 2004): Sony Walkman – Music to whose ears? (web text). http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/040726-NL-walkman.html

The Economist (October 2004): Music’s brighter future (web text). http://economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=3329169

Ray Walter (December 2011) : The rise and Fall of Sony Empire (Web text) http://www.extremetech.com/computing/110543-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-sony-empire