Sony made in japan audiobook. Made in Japan. Japanese marketing and industrial tradition

translators O. Radynova, S. Shcheglov

Editor S. Ogaryova

Technical editor N. Lisitsyna

Corrector M. Bubelets

Computer layout A. Fominov

Cover artist M. Sokolova

All rights reserved. No part electronic version This book may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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Introduction

Forty years ago, on the evening of May 7, 1946, about twenty people gathered on the fourth floor of a fire-damaged department store in war-torn downtown Tokyo to establish new company- Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, which was later destined to become Sony Corporation. The founder of this company, Masaru Ibuka, was 38 years old, I was 25. Acquaintance with him turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of fate for me, and working together was a great pleasure. This book owes its birth to a long friendship with Masaru Ibuka. Nearly a week after Sony's fortieth anniversary, my wife Yoshiko and I celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Yoshiko acts as my diplomatic representative and partner, and along with his sons Hideo and Masao, as well as his daughter Naoko, supports and understands me, which allows me to fully devote myself to work.

I lack the words to express my gratitude to my parents, my mentors, and the many friends and colleagues both inside and outside Sony who helped create a creative and supportive environment.

I am deeply grateful to Edwin Reingold and Mitsuko Shimomura, who listened to my reflections and long stories with inexhaustible patience and enthusiasm. Without them, I could not have completed this book. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to many other people, especially my assistants Megumi Yoshii and Lydia Maruyama for their important work in preparing material for this book.

War
Salvation and hope

Chapter 1

When the incredible news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima came, I was having lunch with my fellow sailors. The information was sketchy: we were not even told which bomb had been dropped, but as a military engineer fresh out of college with a degree in physics, I understood what the bomb was and what it meant for Japan and for me. The future has never been so bleak - after all, Japan has never lost a war - and only young people could remain optimistic. Yet even then I believed in myself and my future.

Many months have passed since I realized that Japan was losing the war and it was useless to continue it, but I also knew that the military wanted to fight to the last soldier. I was 24 years old, a graduate of Osaka Imperial University, and worked in an interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers to improve thermal seeker weapons and night sights. The military authorities hoped that Japanese technology would make it possible to change the course of the war, and although we worked very hard, we still knew that it was too late and that our projects would not be successful. We lacked funds and time. And now, after Hiroshima, it became clear to me that time was up.

Unlike the civilian population, which at that time was under vigilant surveillance and surveillance by the police and the army, I had access to naval information and could listen to shortwave radio transmissions, although even off-duty naval officers were prohibited from doing so. Even before the events of August 6, 1945, I knew that the Americans were much stronger than us and that the war was already, one might say, lost. Nevertheless, the message about the atomic bombing was unexpected for me. The bombing took us by surprise.

On that hot, humid summer day, we still did not know what a terrible weapon the dropped bomb turned out to be. The newsletter, which lay on our table in the officers' mess, said only that this bomb was " the new kind a weapon that gives off a blinding flash,” but such a description left us in no doubt that it was an atomic device. However, the Japanese military authorities hid specific information about what happened in Hiroshima for a very long time, and some officers did not believe that the Americans had an atomic bomb. We have not advanced far enough in our theoretical studies to know the extent of the destructive power of such weapons and imagine what a huge number of people could die as a result of their explosion. We didn’t yet know how terrible atomic weapons are, but I saw the terrible consequences of conventional firebombs, because I arrived in Tokyo the day after the firebombing squadrons of B-29 aircraft on the night of March 9-10 , causing a fiery tornado, in which 100 thousand people died in just a few hours. I also had to witness the terrible bombing of my hometown of Nagoya. All of Japan's great industrial cities, with the exception of Kyoto, in 1945 were partly scorched deserts, bleak, charred ruins—all that was left of the homes of millions of Japanese. That the atomic bomb could be even more terrible seemed unbelievable.

Although the bomb was dropped on August 6 at 8:15 am, we did not hear about it until noon on August 7. My reaction to the Hiroshima bomb report was that of a scientist. I was no longer up to the rice in the plate in front of me, although during the war in Japan it was a great luxury. I looked around at my colleagues at the table and said, “From now on, we may well abandon our research. If the Americans were able to create an atomic bomb, then we are too far behind in all areas to catch up with them. My boss was very angry with me.

I knew a thing or two about the potential of atomic energy, but it seemed to me that it would take at least twenty years to build an atomic bomb, and I was shocked to learn that the Americans had already done it. It was clear that if the Americans had gone this far, our technology was simply primitive compared to theirs. I said that no matter what weapon we invented, it would be much worse, and it seemed to me that we would not have time to create anything in time to counterbalance this bomb - no new weapons, no protective equipment. The news of Hiroshima was something completely unbelievable for me. The technical backlog to which it testified was colossal.

We knew that there were differences between American and Japanese technology. However, we considered our technique to be very good. So it was, but we still tried to find as many new ideas as possible everywhere. Once, for example, we received equipment from a downed B-29 bomber and noted that the Americans were using more advanced technology and a different electrical circuit, but all this was not much better than ours.

That is why, when I first heard about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, I was struck by the fact that America's industrial power turned out to be greater than we thought, simply disproportionately greater. But for me it should not have been so unexpected. As a boy, when I was in school, I saw a film about the construction of the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. The idea of this gigantic construction project delighted me. Movie showed large ships who delivered iron ore from distant mines to the Ford steel plant in the River Rouge, where it was turned into various grades and profiles of steel. The finished steel was delivered to another plant of the plant, where various parts for automobiles were cast or stamped from it, and in the next part of the same plant, cars were assembled from parts. At that time, Japan did not have integrated production of a similar type. As fate would have it, many years later, as the country was recovering from the war and creating new industries, building new efficient factories on the coast, and building complexes like the Ford factories we had seen before the war, I had the opportunity to visit the River Rouge mill. I was surprised, puzzled and disappointed to see the same scenes that I remembered from a film made nearly twenty years earlier. It seemed that the technique had not changed since then. Then I thought about what would happen to American industry and the dominant position that America occupied, to the envy of the whole world.

But in August 1945, I could not recover myself when I realized what a dramatic change awaited Japan and me. I thought about my future for a long time. I was persuaded by an officer to join the Navy and work at the college on a program that would allow me to continue my scientific research and not die in a needless sea battle thousands of miles from home. And then, after Hiroshima, and also after the second atomic bombing, this time of the city of Nagasaki, I fully realized that Japan would need all the talent that it could save for the future. I can even say that even then, as a young man, I felt that I had to play some role in this future. But I did not know how big this role would be.

At that time, I also did not know how in later years I would give hours, weeks and months and literally travel thousands of miles to help bring Japan closer to the United States, as well as to other countries of the West.

I was the firstborn and fifteenth generation heir of one of the most noble and ancient families of sake-makers in Japan. Sake is not only the national drink of Japan, but also one of the symbols of culture for the Japanese people. It even serves as one of the elements of many religious rituals - at traditional wedding ceremonies, young spouses drink a glass of sake together. The Morita family in the village of Kosugaya, near the industrial center of Nagoya, has been brewing sake, known under the brand name Nenohimatsu, for three hundred years. It takes its name from the title of a poem in Man'yoshi, a famous anthology of Japanese poetry compiled in the 8th century. This is the name of the traditional custom, when on the first day of the year of the Rat according to the eastern calendar, you need to go to the village for a pine seedling, bring it home and plant it in the garden. The pine symbolizes longevity and happiness, and by planting a pine tree at the beginning of the new year, people wish themselves health and prosperity throughout the year.

Morita also produced soy sauce and miso paste, an indispensable condiment in Japanese cuisine used in soups and as a garnish for other dishes. Since the cause of the Morita family was so important to the population, this family has always held the position of civil leader of the community.

My father was a very good businessman, but he inherited an old business that was in serious financial trouble. My grandfather and great-grandfather were aesthetes, fond of fine arts and crafts in Japan and China, and both of them spent a lot of time and money on social activities and helping artists, craftsmen and art dealers. Fine ceramics and utensils for tea ceremonies, beautiful furniture, paintings and other items that accompanied the rituals public life Japanese aristocracy, have always been highly valued - and very expensive. For many years, Japan awarded the title of "Master of National Art" to the best craftsmen and artists who continued the traditions of Japanese national culture - painters, potters, textile workers, blacksmiths, weavers, calligraphers and others. The works of these magnificent masters have always been in great demand among beauty lovers. Unfortunately, the tastes of the heads of two generations of the Morita family were so refined, and their passion as collectors so strong, that while they indulged in their hobbies, leaving the enterprise to its fate, or rather, giving it into the wrong hands, the business suffered.

They hoped that hired managers would be able to run Morita. However, for them, this company was only a source of livelihood, and if things went badly, it was deplorable, but not a matter of life and death for them. Ultimately, all that threatened the managers was the loss of a job. They were not responsible to generations for maintaining the integrity and prosperity of the enterprise, as well as for the financial well-being of the Morita family. So when the business passed into the hands of my father, as the eldest son, he faced the urgent task of making the company profitable again and restoring the fortune of the Morita family. No outside manager would have done it for him.

It wasn't easy. My father, Kyuzaemon Morita, an enterprise management student at Keio University in Tokyo, was pulled out of his studies to take over the company. The company was in danger of bankruptcy, and my father knew that although he had to give up theory classes, he would be tested by real-life crises - not textbook examples, but the future of the Morita family. He returned home and, taking the company into his own hands, began to put it on its feet.

Ironically, and fortunately for our entire family, he secured the money to pay off the company's debts and restore the abandoned factory to good condition by selling many of the art pieces his father and grandfather had bought. The cost of things has increased over the years, and therefore, although the family's investment in works of art was not very wise in terms of business management, it turned out to be profitable and even played a decisive role in saving the company. Among the treasures he had to sell were three items of particular value: a Chinese manuscript, a Chinese bronze mirror, and an ancient jade ornament made in Japan from about 350 B.C. e. before 250 AD e. My father was a serious and conservative man, and he knew how much these items meant to his father, so he vowed to buy them back as soon as the family's income allowed. Indeed, a few years later they were redeemed and again replenished the family collection.

By the time I was born, the eldest son of Kyuzaemon and Shuko Morita, the company was back on its feet, and as a child I did not have to experience any hardships at home. On the contrary, I have always been in a privileged position. Our family was wealthy and we lived in a huge (by Japanese standards) ramshackle house on Shirakabechō, one of the prettiest streets in Nagoya. The people called it the street of the rich. We had a tennis court on our property, the same court the Toyoda family had on the other side of the street, as well as our other neighbors on both sides of the street. At that time, we needed a big house, because there were a lot of us under one big tiled roof: me, my brothers - Kazuaki, two years younger than me, Masaaki, six years younger, and sister Kikuko, three years younger than me. . Our father and mother lived there, of course, and also an aunt whose husband died young without leaving her children, younger brother father, who studied painting in France for four years, my father's parents, as well as six servants and three or four young men from our ancestral village, whom my family helped to graduate from school in exchange for housework.

It seemed that something was always happening in the house, and this is probably not surprising if you remember how many people lived there. True, we had our own rooms and my parents and children usually dined separately from the rest of the household. But on special occasions, such as when someone's birthday was celebrated, we pushed all the doors between rooms and arranged a gala dinner for twenty or thirty members of our family and our friends. On the birthday, they usually had a party and held a lottery. Everyone won some kind of prize, and there was a lot of laughter, jokes and food. The management of such a large household, and the settlement of disputes and quarrels that broke out between the children, as well as between the young servants and students who lived with us, did not give my mother, an intelligent woman with great patience, a moment's rest.

My mother was only seventeen years old when she married my father, and at first they were afraid that they would not have children. Then, as now, it was considered very important in Japan to have a son and an heir. But by the time I was born, to their great relief, seven years had passed. My mother was a calm, artistic, and gentle woman, who took her household responsibility extremely seriously. She was always busy making sure that all the work was done and that the relations between all these people were good, or at least polite. For a Japanese housewife, she was a very confident woman, which in those days was quite an unusual phenomenon. She had strong convictions, especially when it came to my education, but she was never like today's pushy mothers who force their children to take special courses where they are trained to ensure they get into prestigious schools and universities. It seems to me that my mother understood everything, and it was easy to talk to her, certainly easier than with my father. For him, the main business of life was the company, which he had to save, rebuild and develop, and therefore I turned to my mother for advice and help much more often than to my father.

My mother changed many traditions in our family. On one line, she came from a family of samurai and understood the traditions - the kimono was her everyday wear, but her mother accepted everything new. Of course, we children often quarreled and fought, but as I got older - I was about ten years old - I developed my own interests, and more and more often I turned to her for advice. Mother managed all the affairs in the house and gave me a room with a table. When I started experimenting, I got a second table because I needed a workbench. She also bought me a bed, so I slept differently than everyone else in our house - under a quilt on a tatami mat. I was brought up in a modern spirit, even when I was little. My mother and father wanted this because they raised me as an heir. family company and as the next head of the Morita family, Morita XV, who was to take the name Kyuzaemon.

There was a tradition in our family that when a son becomes the head of the family, he renounces his own name and takes the name Kyuzaemon. Almost all first-born children for fifteen generations received at birth alternately either the name Punesuke or the name Hikotaro. Until my father assumed the role of head of the family and became Kyuzaemon XIV, he was called Hikotaro Morita. His father, who was named Punesuke Morita at birth, became Kyuzaemon Morita when he took over the company, and when he retired and transferred his functions and duties to my father, he took a different first name, becoming Nobuhide Morita.

But when I was born, my father decided that the name Punesuke prepared for me sounded too old-fashioned for the 20th century, so he invited a respected Japanese scholar of China and Chinese literature to consult with him about what name to give me. This man was a famous scientist and also a friend of my grandfather, and he recommended the name Akio, which was represented by the hieroglyph for the word "enlightened" and pronounced as "aki". This hieroglyph also appeared in the name of my grandfather. Chinese characters usually have several, some even tens, pronunciations. And so my first name can be interpreted as "enlightened" or "unusual", and in combination with the surname Morita, this name means "rich rice field." It sounded optimistic and hopeful, and such a name could be carried all his life. My parents liked my name so much that they used it as one of the syllables when naming my two brothers, Masaaki and Kazuaki. The reigns of emperors in Japan are called eras according to the official calendar, the counting of years in each era begins anew. When Hirohito became emperor in 1926 after the death of his father, the imperial family consulted with the same renowned sinologist to find a favorable name for his reign. He called this era Showa, which means "enlightened world," using the same character that means "aki" in my name, but pronounced like "sho." (The year 1986 is officially called Showa, which is the sixty-first year of the imperial era known as Showa.) My family suggests that I should still take the name Kyuzaemon from now on. You can go to family court and change your name if you can prove a historical precedent, but I think it would be a mistake for me, because so many people around the world know me as Akio. But sometimes I sign with the initials AKM, which means Akio Kyuzaemon Morita, and my Lincoln Continental car in the USA has the personal number "AKM-15". Someday my eldest son Hideo will succeed me as the head of the family, but whether he becomes Kyuzaemon or not, he will decide for himself, although my wife and I would like him to bear this name. But I did get ahead of myself a bit in my story.

From early childhood, I knew about the traditions of my family and about my ancestors. Our family was lucky to have highly educated people and art lovers, like my grandfather and great-grandfather were. My ancestors were civil leaders and officials in our village as early as the reign of Ieyasu Tokugawa in the 17th century. They were an elite, and in those days they were given the privilege of having a family name and carrying a sword. Whenever my parents took me with them to Kosugaya, for a visit or just for a day, its inhabitants ran around with me, which contributed to the growth of my self-importance.

My father's great-grandfather, Kyuzaemon XI, loved new things and new ideas, and during the Meiji era, on the eve of this century, he invited a Frenchman to Japan to help him carry out his vineyard and wine business. He had already come up with the name of the wine and was eager to produce not only sake, but also Western-style wine. At that time, after more than two hundred and fifty years of self-imposed isolation, Japan was turning to face the world. New things came into fashion, and Emperor Meiji encouraged the Japanese to learn from the West, turning Special attention to the Western way of life and Western technology. In Tokyo, ballroom dancing was organized according to all the rules, the Japanese copied European clothes and hairstyles, and also tried Western food, even in the palace.

But there were other reasons for starting wine production. Emperor Meiji's government foresaw a shortage of rice in the future, and rice was the main raw material for sake. Planting vineyards and replacing sake with wine where possible would help weather the lean years that some predicted. Historians also claim that the government was looking for work for the many samurai warriors who were out of work under the new government. We had a lot of land, and in 1880, with the support of the Meiji government, vine cuttings were brought from France and planted. My ancestor installed a wine press, built a distillery, and brought people from neighboring areas to work in the vineyards. After four years, a small amount of wine had been produced, and there were hopes that the new business would flourish. But this was not destined to come true.

It was a time when French vineyards were dying, first from powdery mildew, then from phylloxera, small lice-like insects that ravaged the vineyards. Apparently, the cuttings brought from France were infected, and despite all the careful preparations, the idea was unsuccessful. In 1885, phylloxera were discovered in the vineyards of Kyuzaemon and had to be destroyed. Kyuzaemon had to sell the land to pay off his debts. The vineyards were turned into silkworm plantations. But other traditional Morita products, such as soy sauce and sake, made it to the Paris International Exhibition in 1899, and one of them won a gold medal—a big deal for a Japanese company in those days. Be that as it may, my ancestor had a desire to experience something new, and he had the strength and courage not to give up if any of his projects turned out to be unsuccessful. His predecessor, having become the head of the family, began the production of beer by hiring a Chinese brewer who learned his craft in England. He also founded a bakery (now called Pasco), which flourished and today has branches abroad. Perseverance, perseverance and optimism are the character traits that have been passed down to me through family genes. I think my father recognized them in me.

My father's great-grandfather died in 1894, and in 1918 a bronze statue of him was erected in Kosugai in recognition of his service to the community. With his own money, he built roads, did landscaping, and did so many useful things that Emperor Meiji, who once visited near our village, rewarded him. Unfortunately, during the war, his statue was melted down for military use, but a cast was taken from it and a porcelain bust was made, which still stands in the forest in front of the temple in Kosugai.

Our family history seems to revolve around Kosugai, my parents moved from this quiet village to Nagoya, the main city of our prefecture, where I was born on January 26, 1921. Moving to Nagoya, a bustling industrial city, the capital of Aichi Prefecture, was due to his father's plans to modernize the Morita company and infuse new spirit to the old firm. In addition, this city was more suitable place For driving modern enterprise than a charming village. That's why I grew up in the city and not in the village of my ancestors, although we still believe that our roots are in Kosugai.

Recently we discovered many ancient records of the village in our family archives, and they seemed so interesting to us that I established a fund to store and study this collection of historical documents. These materials contain very detailed information about what life was like in the Japanese village three hundred years ago from a purely practical point of view. We cataloged these documents and sent bound copies to major libraries and universities in Japan. For safety, the old storerooms and three-story buildings, as parts of a single complex, were covered with a glass dome, and now scientists come there to get acquainted with the documents located there. I often think that if I ever retire, I might be able to work on these historical documents in Kosugai for many years to come.

My father was very kind to me, but after all, I carried the burden of the eldest son, and he decided to teach me commerce from the earliest years of my life. The father was a man of his time. Since he, as the eldest son, had to give up his studies to save the family fortune, he became very practical and, apparently, conservative, even too conservative, as it seemed to me at the time, a businessman when it was necessary to make decisions about creating new enterprises or do something out of the ordinary. He seemed to take too long to make decisions, and he was always worried about something. I thought that sometimes he even worried that he had nothing to worry about. I often argued with him about some of the responsibilities that fell on me, and I believe that he liked these little arguments as a way to give me the opportunity to express my opinion, teach me to reason and make logical arguments. He turned even my anger into learning. When I got older, I still often argued with him because of his conservatism. However, this conservatism has served our family well. Although he was a serious and cautious businessman, he was a passionate and kind father. He spent all his free time with the children, and I have many memories of how my father taught us to swim, fish and go on camping trips.

But business was still business for him, and there was no place for fun. When I was ten or eleven years old, he took me for the first time with him to the office and to the sake factory. He taught me how to run a business, and I had to sit next to my father in long and boring board meetings. He taught me how to talk to the people who work for me, and even in the first grade, I knew how business discussions go. Since my father was the owner of the enterprise, he could invite his managers to his home for reports and conversations, and he always demanded that I listen to them. After a while, I started to like it.

I was always told: “You are the owner from the very birth. You are the eldest son in the family. Remember this". I was not allowed to forget that someday I would succeed my father as the head of our company and the head of the family. It seems very important to me that when I was young, I was constantly warned: “Do not think that if you are at the top, you can command everyone around. You have to understand the matter very well before you make decisions and ask others to do something, and take full responsibility for your decision.” I was taught that it is useless to scold subordinates and look for someone to blame, when difficulties arise, look for scapegoats. According to the Japanese way of thinking that I was taught at home, in order to do what is beneficial for both parties, one must use common motives. Everyone strives for success. When I studied worker relations, I realized that a manager must cultivate such character traits as patience and sensitivity. You can't be selfish or dishonest with people. These concepts became my lifeblood and helped me develop a management philosophy that has served me very well in the past and continues to serve me and my company to this day.

My family was also guided by the precepts of their ancestors, which have their roots in Buddhism. My family was devout, and we held the usual religious services at home. We, children, were given a collection of sutras and demanded that we read these incomprehensible hieroglyphs together with adults. I don't consider myself a religious person, but these customs and traditions are very important in my family and we still adhere to them. In later years, when we came home to visit our father and mother, we always went to the home altar first and bowed to it.

The most important task of the Japanese manager is to establish normal relations with employees, to create an attitude towards the corporation as a family, to form an understanding that workers and managers have the same destiny. The companies that have achieved the greatest success in the country are those companies that have managed to create a belief in a common destiny among all employees and shareholders. Americans call it the relationship between labor and administration.

No matter how good or lucky you are, no matter how smart or clever you are, your business and its fate are in the hands of the people you hire.

This year, peering into the faces of seven hundred young energetic graduates, I spoke to them with instructions, which I have been doing for almost forty years.

“First,” I told them, “you must understand the difference between a school and a company. When you go to school, you pay the school tuition, but now our company will pay the tuition for you, and as long as you master your profession, you will be a heavy burden for the company.

Secondly, if you did well in school exams, you got a hundred points. This is wonderful. But if you couldn't write anything on your test, you got zero. In the business world, you have to take exams every day, and you can get not a hundred, but a thousand points, or as little as fifty. True, in business, if you make a mistake, you don't just get zero points. If you make a mistake, it will always be some kind of negative value, and there is no limit to losses. Therefore, a mistake can become a threat to the company.”

Speaking to high school students, I usually say, “We don't mobilize you. This is not an army, it means that you have voluntarily chosen the Sony enterprise. It is your decision, and we hope that if you join our company, you will work with us for twenty to thirty years.

No one can live twice, and the next twenty or thirty years is the best period in your life. It is given to you once.

I don't want thirty years from now, when you leave our company, or at the end of your life, you'll regret spending all these years here. It would be a tragedy. It cannot be overstated that you are responsible to yourself, so I tell you that the most important thing for you to do in the next few months is to decide whether you will be happy with us or not. After all, although we hired you, we, the administration from the outside, cannot make other people happy. Happiness must be created by you."

The idea that an employee should spend their entire working life in one company is not a Japanese invention. Ironically, it was forced on us. To put history in a simplistic way, the Japanese system of so-called lifetime or at least long-term employment was actually imposed on us by labor laws established by the occupation authorities, when many economists were sent from the United States to Japan to demilitarize and democratize the country, adhering to liberal, leftist

The concept of lifetime employment emerged when Japanese managers and employees realized that they had a lot in common and that they should have long-term plans. The laws made layoffs legally difficult and costly. The concept of lifetime employment didn't seem like such a bad idea, since workers badly needed jobs, and struggling companies needed dedicated workers.

Working with people in industry, we've learned that they don't just work for money, and that if you want to incentivize them, money isn't the most effective tool. To stimulate people, you need to make them members of the family and treat them as its respected members. Of course, in our ethnically homogeneous country, this is probably easier to do than anywhere else, but with a certain level of culture of the population, it is still possible.

Investor and worker are in the same position, but sometimes the worker is more important because he will work for a long time, while the investor often, without hesitation, enters or leaves the company, wanting to make a profit.

Companies take different positions on this issue further in Japan. However, at the core there must be mutual respect and a sense that the company belongs to the workers and not just to a small handful of managers. The duty of the people in charge of the company is to honestly lead the family of the employees of the company and take care of its members.

Our policy is that wherever we are in the world, we treat the people we hire as members of the Sony family, as dear colleagues.

In the US, a craftsman can be a craftsman all his life, and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as it satisfies him and the company. It seems to me, however, that it is better to transfer people to another job, and not to leave them for too long in one workplace, where they can go dumb.

I started publishing weekly newspaper companies where we post vacancies. This gives workers the opportunity to covertly try to move to another job. We are trying to transfer our employees to new job about once every two years. But energetic, growing workers should be given the opportunity to change jobs within the company earlier so that they can find a job that suits their level. We get a double benefit from this: a person usually finds a job that is more satisfying for him, and at the same time, the personnel department can identify potential problems for managers that subordinates seek to get away from.

Initially, newcomers are assigned to work by the personnel department. True, the personnel department or managers are not omniscient, and managers are not always able to deliver right person to the right place. Rather, the worker himself should strive to find suitable job, which is why I said to one young worker who complained about his boss, “If you are not happy with your job, you have the right to look for a better job. Why don't you do it?" If a person chooses a job he likes, this gives him a certain incentive, since he got the job he wanted, and, in all likelihood, will try very hard in a new place.

Many Japanese companies like to use the word "collaboration" and "consent" because they don't like employees who are different.

A few years ago, when I was vice president of the company and Michiji Tajima was chairman of the board, there was a clash between us that illustrates what I want to say.

“Morita, you and I have different views. I don't want to stay in a company like yours, because you have different ideas than me, we will have conflicts."

I answered him very boldly, because I was sure of my rightness then, just as I am now. I said:

“Sir, if you and I had exactly the same opinion on everything, why would it be worth keeping us both in this company and paying us a salary. In that case, either you or I would have to resign. Precisely because you and I have different opinions, our company is less likely to make a mistake.

Please consider my opinion without getting annoyed with me. If you are going to resign because I have a different opinion, you are showing your disloyalty towards our company.”

An American director of one of the joint companies in Tokyo complained to me that he could not find the culprit in one accident in his company, and he asked me what, in my opinion, was the reason that he could not identify the culprit, no matter how hard he tried. I explained to him that the merit of his company lies precisely in the fact that everyone admits their responsibility for this accident and that if he finds any one employee guilty, this can lead to the moral decay of the entire team.

I always tell our employees not to give too much importance to what their supervisors tell them. I say: "Act without waiting for instructions." I explain to the manager what it is important element in education of abilities and creative possibilities of their subordinates. Young people have a flexible and creative mind, so managers should not hammer them ready-made ideas, since it can suppress their personality before it even has a chance to open up

I love to come to the factory or branch office and talk to people when the opportunity presents itself. Not so long ago, when I was in the center of Tokyo, I had a few free minutes in my schedule, and I saw a small office of the Sony travel agency. I have never been there before, and so I just went there and introduced myself. “I came here so that you could see my face,” I said. “I'm sure you've seen me on TV screens or in the newspapers, so I think you'd be interested in seeing Morita live.” Everyone laughed, I walked around the office, talking with the staff, and in these few minutes we all felt good from the knowledge that we are all doing a common thing. One day, when I arrived at a small Sony lab near Palo Alto, our manager, an American, asked me to pose for some photos. I said that I would be happy to do so. In less than an hour, I took a picture with each of the thirty or forty employees and said to the manager: “I like your position. You understand correctly the policy of Sony, according to which its employees are one family.

But the main thing I want to say by this is that these mistakes or miscalculations are inherent in a person, what they represent normal phenomenon and ultimately did not harm the company. I am ready to take responsibility for any decision that I make as a leader. But if the person who made the mistake is shamed and deprived of a career opportunity, he may lose the incentive for the rest of his working life, and the company will lose everything that he could subsequently give it. If, on the other hand, the causes of the mistake are found out and reported, the person who made the mistake will never forget it and others will not repeat it. I always tell our people: “Keep working and do what you think is right. If you make a mistake, you will learn from the mistake. Just don't make the same mistake twice."

We had a district sales manager who seemed very promising, so promising that I even sent him to Tokyo on a long business trip to get to know everyone in the Tokyo office and learn the philosophy and spirit of our organization. He did a great job, made a good impression on everyone in Tokyo. Returning to the States, he continued to work and please us until one fine day, without any warning, he came to my office and said: "Mr. Morita, thank you for everything, but I'm leaving." I didn't believe my ears. But it wasn't a joke. One competitor offered him two or three times the salary, and he accepted the offer. I realized that this is the American way of doing things. This episode was very upset and upset me and, frankly, I just did not know what to do. A few months later I went to an exhibition electronic goods, and there in the pavilion of one of our competitors sat this traitor. I thought that he would avoid meeting me, but instead of hiding from me, he rushed towards me and spoke to me casually, as if he had nothing to be ashamed of. He enthusiastically showed me the exhibition and demonstrated his New Product as if he had not committed a dishonorable act towards me. Then I realized that from his point of view and from the point of view of the American system, his departure, although he had information about our marketing and knew the secrets of our company, did not represent anything bad. Obviously, this happens here every day and this is far from a paradise for managers. I vowed that my company would make every effort to prevent this aspect of American management from being internalized.

After the oil embargo, Japan suffered a lot of damage because we are completely dependent on foreign sources of oil. In one year 1973/1974, our inflation rate exceeded twenty-five percent, and some companies simply could not keep their enterprises running, so they had to send people home. But these people just couldn't sit at home when their company was in trouble. There were cases when workers returned to the company, cleaned the premises, cut the lawns, took on any odd job. One electrical appliance company sent workers to local electrical stores to work for free to help retailers who were also losing money. This idea did not come from the administration at all. It came from the workers themselves, who understood that their jobs depended on the fate of the company. I was told about a laid-off Osaka worker who returned to his factory and confessed to a reporter that he was shamed by his wife: “How can you sit at home all day with your hands folded,” she said, “when your company is in trouble?”

I don't see anything good in firing people. If management takes risks and takes responsibility by hiring workers, then its duty is to keep them employed. The hired worker is not responsible for decision why should he suffer during a recession because of the administration's decision to hire him?

I don't want my managers to think they're high class people chosen by god to lead stupid people to miracles

If we talk about management, then the amazing thing is that a manager can make mistakes for years that no one is aware of. This is because the art of management, despite the work of Harvard Business School and other institutions, as well as the growing number of holders of high degrees in business management, is something elusive, which cannot always be judged by the results of the next quarter.

I recently told my managers: “You must not act in front of your workers as an artist walking on a tight wire under a circus dome. You have to show them how you try to convince a large number of people to volunteer and enthusiastically follow you in order to contribute to the success of the company. If you can achieve this, good results will come by themselves.”

In the US and Europe, managers too often abandon promising products because development costs seem too high to them. This is a very short-sighted policy that can lead to loss of competitiveness.

I think that among the people I hired, there are more creatively gifted workers than mediocre ones. They don't always agree with me, but that's fine, of course.

“Your company is full of engineers,” he said, and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was not saying this as a compliment…

Since these engineers established the company, they believe they should continue to run it. From an outsider's perspective, this company is old-fashioned and poorly managed.

“All jobs are basically the same. You have to put in the effort, whether you're in the repertory department of a record company, a street vendor, or an accountant. You are getting wages and must work one hundred percent to complete the work assigned to you. When I worked in the repertory department, I was very interested there, I was enthusiastic and happy, but as long as you are satisfied with your work and use your energy, you will naturally be happy. I was also interested in working in accounting. Battling through a whole bunch of invoices, payrolls, balance sheets, profit and loss statements and working with all these numbers, I discovered something new every day. I began to get a general idea of the company, its financial situation, what happens every day and what way the company is going. I found it to be just as interesting as working in the studio."

I sometimes compare American companies to a wall built of bricks, while Japanese companies are like walls built of stones. I want to say that in American company all her plans are drawn up in advance and the scope of the work of each is determined. In addition, as the job advertisement sections in American newspapers show, companies are looking for people who are suitable for a particular job. If during the verification of the applicant for workplace it is found to be outside or below the established limits, it is usually rejected. This is why such a structure resembles a wall of bricks: each worker must fit exactly into the niche assigned to him or he will be rejected. We in Japan first hire people and then we look at how they can be used. This is a highly educated but diverse audience. The manager takes a long look at these "rough stones" and builds a wall, combining them in the most the best way just like a bricklayer lays a stone wall. The stones are round, square, oblong, large or small, but the stewards must determine how to put them together. In addition, people change with age, and Japanese stewards should also keep in mind that the shape of these stones changes over time. When the company's activities take on a new character, it becomes necessary to re-lay the wall. I do not want to take this analogy too far, but the adaptability of workers and managers to new conditions has become a hallmark of the Japanese enterprise.

The main function of managers is decision-making, which requires professional knowledge of technology, as well as the ability to foresee the future direction or trends in the development of technology and technology. I believe that a manager should have a wide range of general knowledge regarding the area in which he conducts business. It also contributes to the emergence of a sixth sense, which gives rise to knowledge and experience - an instinct in one's business, which is no longer associated with knowledge of facts and figures, and such intuition is a gift inherent only to people.

I once had lunch in New York with management specialist Professor Peter Drucker and advertising specialist Bill Bernbach, whose agency has put together many wonderful campaigns to support us, including the popular and successful series of Tammy TV. The conversation turned to management, and Drucker said: “When I talk to Japanese managers, I think they think irrationally, but, oddly enough, they eventually come to the right conclusions. How does it work?

business management,” he admitted. “But in order to accept rational decisions, you need to know all the facts and the big picture in which they fit. However, one cannot know everything. American managers may think they are rational, but they can only reason based on the facts they know. Of course, there are many facts and factors environment that they don't know about. If this knowledge does not exist, then, no matter how rational the conclusions may seem, they will naturally be erroneous.

“In contrast to them,” he continued, “Japanese managers seem to have a kind of Oriental sixth sense. Probably, instead of comparing one fact with another, they grasp the whole idea and then use the information, along with this "sixth sense", when making decisions. Therefore, they grasp the general idea better than those who go to it by strict logical reasoning.

I think that in the US and Japan, these firms are the most overused and misused after legal firms. I use consultants on a selective basis and have come to the conclusion that the best of them can gather valuable information and analyze the market. But their use can be, and indeed is, taken to ridiculous extremes. So often, when the results of market research are wrong, you can hear the reference to the fact that after the study, market conditions have changed. Then what is the point of the study itself?

Once a decision is made - whether it comes from the shop floor or the board of the firm - it is typical for the Japanese that all employees of the company give their all to the project without any attacks from the corner, slander and obstruction, which can sometimes be observed. in some Western companies.

One journalist who came to Japan to interview a number of Japanese businessmen came to see me near the end of his visit to the country. I asked him what his impression was, and he answered me very frankly. He said that after a few weeks, he finally learned to understand the Japanese: “I don't have to listen to what they say in the beginning. I begin to listen to their words only after they say “however”, because before that they express all kinds of other people's thoughts. After this word, they express their own ideas.

From the very beginning, television made such a strong impression on people and they were so deeply aware of this that they did not really think about the main drawback of television, which is that, no matter how good or interesting these programs are, the information disappears just as quickly. as it comes.

I constantly encourage my employees to look for ways to keep up with the changes that are taking place and turn them into our advantage in the fight against competitors, because it is clear that these changes will occur constantly and cannot be reversed, slowed down or undone.

One of the most important concepts of value that we have retained since ancient times is the concept of "moat-tai-nai", which cannot be literally translated. This is a key concept that can help to understand a lot about Japan, the Japanese people and our hard work. This expression means that everything in the world is a gift from the Creator, and we should be grateful for this gift and not waste anything. Literally, "moat-tai-nai" means "irreverent", "impious", but in a deeper sense it implies sacrilege, an insult to Heaven. We Japanese believe that everything is given to us as sacred property, entrusted to our care and, in fact, given to us only on loan, so that we can make the best use of it. Spending something in vain is considered a sin.

I know that such a concept exists to a certain extent in the West and throughout the East, but in Japan it has a special meaning. The struggle for survival under the eternal threat of hard times and natural disasters, the desire to produce goods with a minimum of raw materials - all this has become a way of life for the Japanese, and therefore waste is considered a shame, almost a crime.

I remember one American expression - "an inexhaustible source." We do not have such an expression.

Accuracy is probably in the blood of our people. Perhaps this has something to do with the care with which we have to learn to draw the complex characters of our language. But whatever the reasons, when we tell a Japanese worker, for example, that the tolerances of a particular part are plus or minus five, he automatically tries to work this part with zero tolerance. When we set up our factory in the US, we found that the workers followed the instructions exactly. If we told them: “Make this part with a tolerance of plus or minus five,” we got parts with about such tolerances, but these tolerances were extremely rarely as close to zero as the Japanese workers. We discussed the question of what to do about it and quickly found the answer. For American instructions, we simply set tolerances within plus or minus two, and American workers turned out the products we needed that met these tolerances. If we needed American workers to make a part with zero tolerances, this requirement was met if it was indicated in the instructions.

Before being drafted into the army in 1941, Yokoi was a tailor. He served in the commissariat in China and in March 1944, shortly before the fall of Guam, was transferred to this island. After American forces regained control of Guam, he was presumed dead by the Japanese military authorities and posthumously promoted to sergeant. On the Buddhist altar of his family was installed Memorial plaque, but his parents did not believe that he died until his death. Apart from anemia, he was in excellent health. When he was admitted to the hospital, he only asked for "something salty". He lived without salt for twenty-eight years. He bathed and took drinking water from a small stream, not far from his cave. He dug a hole eight feet deep, using an artillery shell casing as a shovel; he made a roof of bamboo and built a sewer and latrine.

When the island was captured by the Americans, he was ordered to burn his military uniform, and he, along with two other soldiers, fled to the deserted tip of the island. Yokoi said that two other soldiers lived separately and died several years before he was discovered. In order to have clothes, he stripped the flexible bark from the pago tree, made thread from it and wove fabrics from it on a homemade loom. He then cut the fabric with tailor's scissors, which he still had, and sewed trousers, shirts, and jackets. He made needles by breaking copper cartridges and sharpening their fragments. He found an abandoned box of American ammunition and several machine-gun shells that served as his vessels. He found pieces of rope floating in the river, a piece of cloth, some wire and a plastic box on the bank. The wire went to the buckles for the belt, he made buttons out of plastic. He pressed the oil from the pulp of coconuts and used the shells as cups.

He also learned how to light a fire by rubbing sticks and kept the fire going with a coir wick. The lit fuse smoldered for several days, and he fanned it when he needed to start a fire to cook food. Sometimes he ate wild rats, which he caught with makeshift traps. He used to catch deer and smoke meat over his hearth in a basket-like contraption he invented to reduce the amount of smoke coming out of his vent. He caught freshwater shrimp and fish and managed to grow some vegetables.

One of Sony's strengths is that our company's structure is not so rigid that it suffers from the "not invented here" syndrome.

I mean by this that it is unwise to do something new and then rest on your laurels. Something must be done to make a new invention a commercial success, and for this it is necessary to constantly upgrade your product and maintain a leading position in the market.

In my opinion, Japanese industry made such progress because the companies felt they were way behind. Therefore, they began to study more actively, mastering modern techniques and paying "fees" for imported technology. But what is learned at school becomes useful only when you add something of your own to it and do it yourself.

The challenge facing all companies, not just ours, is to master new technologies, new inventions and new products. We need a lot of new ideas. We will have to combine all of our technologies to create the complex systems that will be required in the future. It will mean big changes. When we created our company, we had one department making transistors, another making tape recorders, and a third making radio equipment. This will not work in the future. We will have to combine all the huge engineering power of our company and use it as single system. We are starting to do this now. The approach taken by most companies, including ours, to date has been fine as long as people are happy and as long as every department has its place in the overall balance sheet of the company. But in the future, more flexibility will be required, and engineers from one department of the company can be assigned to work in any other department of the company. The ability to make the best use of their engineers will be the measure of a company's success in the coming century. Some of our competitors are starting to have problems now. They will understand that they need to merge their independently existing departments into a single entity, but they will have to figure out how to do this. Solving technological problems will be the key to the success of companies around the world in the coming years.

X. Friesewinkel studied companies in the industry on thirty-two indicators and came to the conclusion that there are five main types of firms. For clarity, he called them "proud lions", "mighty elephants", "clumsy hippos", "cunning foxes" and " gray mice". We will return to the first three groups a little later. The fate of the "sly foxes" and "gray mice" is directly related to the problem of specialization of companies. "Cunning foxes" (according to Friesewinkel, "enterprises pursuing a successful niche policy") will survive the crisis safely. As a rule, each of the "foxes" is the leader in the production of two or three drugs and, moreover, has sufficient financial resources. A different future awaits the "gray mice". For a small or medium-sized firm, a low level of specialization in difficult times is fatal. Lacking "crown" products, she will immediately face a drop in revenue, and a lack of money, in turn, will deprive her of the chances to develop such products later. “In essence, this business is like the life of a one-day butterfly, which will tremble tomorrow, wondering if it will still be alive the day after tomorrow,” the researcher writes.

It seems very important to me that when I was young, I was constantly warned: “Do not think that if you are at the top, you can command everyone around. You have to understand the matter very well before you make decisions and ask others to do something, and take full responsibility for your decision.” I was taught that it is useless to scold subordinates and look for someone to blame, when difficulties arise, look for scapegoats. According to the Japanese way of thinking that I was taught at home, in order to do what is beneficial for both parties, one must use common motives. Everyone strives for success. When I learned to work with workers, I realized that the manager must cultivate such character traits as patience and sensitivity. You can't be selfish or dishonest with people. These concepts became my lifeblood and helped me develop a management philosophy that has served me very well in the past and continues to serve me and my company to this day.

I was inexperienced and still a bit naive, but I had my head on my shoulders. I considered all the consequences that I could imagine, and then sat down and drew a curve that looked like a skewed letter Y [The story told is an example of A. Morita's intuitively correct approach to the problems of the theory of the firm. “Y-shaped curves reflect the typical course of development of many processes in the economy. So, the growth of production volume has a positive effect on the affairs of the company (leads to a decrease in labor, material costs, etc.) only up to a certain point, then the process reverses. ed.]. I took the price of five thousand receivers as a basis, it became the starting point of the curve. Ten thousand receivers will be sold at a discount, and their price has become the bottom of the curve. When ordering thirty thousand, the price began to rise. With orders for fifty thousand, the price of the receiver would be higher than with orders for five thousand, and with orders for one hundred thousand, the price of the receiver would be much higher than with orders for the first five thousand. I know it all sounds weird, but that's how I reasoned. If we have to double our production capacity to fill an order for a hundred thousand receivers, and if we cannot get a second such order next year, we will be in a difficult position, perhaps even bankrupt, because we will not be able to employ everyone. additional hired workers and pay for all new unused production capacity.

In Japan, the greatest success in the economy as a leader is not achieved by the one who fusses, handing out detailed instructions to their subordinates. The one who gives his subordinates only general directives, inspires them with confidence in their abilities and helps them to do their job well achieves the greatest success.

In America, you can often hear: “There is no time!”, “Do it immediately!”, “He who hesitates has lost!”. As a result of one of these emotional outbursts, America was embroiled in the Vietnam War. American politicians argued that the US should have intervened in the Vietnam War for the sake of world peace. They have lost the ability to see events in the right light. If Americans love something, they will love it too much, and if they hate something, they often go too far in their hatred. This is how many of her foreign friends think about America

We have a saying that every seventy days everything changes. This saying encourages us not to rush, not to overreact or overreact too quickly. Between these two approaches - too hasty and too slow - one must choose a middle path.

Many years ago a European friend told me that if you had the manuscript of a great book and were confident that you could sell a hundred copies of the book, then a European publisher would print ninety-nine copies. Printing one hundred and one copies, according to my friend, would be, according to European concepts, indecent. And here's how the Japanese would behave in such a situation: we would continue to print this book and sell as many copies as possible. The more copies of this book we produced, the cheaper it would cost, and through advertising and information we would increase demand and provide this book to more and more people.

In theory, there are usually five main components of a marketing policy (the so-called "marketing mix"): the product itself, which is to be sold; sales network; advertising; public relations; prices. The experience of the post-war period has clearly shown that among these components there are no secondary ones.

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Akio Morita SONY MADE IN JAPAN

Formation of a transnational concern (Introductory article)

The book before the reader is written by an outstanding capitalist of our day. Hearing is hard to put up with such a combination of words. An outstanding scientist, an artist or a great politician - all this sounds quite familiar, even if we are talking about a figure in a Western country. But a talented capitalist... We don't know the names of the architects very well. modern business and we have very little idea of their real functions in the economy. Henry Ford, two or three more entrepreneurs from bygone eras - and that's practically all. As if bourgeois society could show its amazing vitality without promoting talented people to the posts of organizers of production.

The brilliant tandem of Akio Morita, who was in charge of the commercial side of the business, and Masaru Ibuki, the technical genius of the company, turned a small and unknown company into one of the largest multinational corporations in the world. Moreover, their efforts created not only big company but the firm is an innovator. It was Sony Corporation that was the first to mass-produce a transistor radio and created the world's first home video recorder. A portable cassette player with headphones - an indispensable attribute of modern youth culture - is also the brainchild of Sony, and first of all A. Morita personally. Together with the Dutch concern Philips, the company developed and introduced a fundamentally new laser sound recording technology, and silver compact discs have already been squeezed out, and in the 90s they will finally replace the usual long-playing records. Finally, in Lately Sony has come closer than most companies to creating high-definition television (HDTV) technology that promises to turn the home screen into a true window on the world.

A. Morita's book is simply interesting to read. But it is also interesting as a document of the era, as a self-portrait of a modern capitalist. And if some features of his work shock the reader (say, the skill in suppressing a strike and split the trade union), while others delight (for example, the ability to maintain a friendly, purely human atmosphere in the company's team), then the image is not to blame. Controversially, the depicted object itself is the big businessman of our day.

A few words about the aims of this introductory article. In the Western literary tradition there is a genre, almost unknown to us - "success story" ("Success story"). A person who has achieved a lot in life does not write cold, objective memoirs, but tries to show the qualities thanks to which he achieved victory. But what you have done can only be assessed by comparison. Our commentary will be mainly devoted to comparisons: the fate of the Sony Corporation against the background of what usually happens with an average company, and the style of A. Morita as the head of Sony in comparison with the common methods of managing capitalist enterprises.

1. Firm and market

How does the modern capitalist market function? What are the conditions under which Sony was able to develop its activities very successfully - not only for itself, but also for the economy as a whole? Until relatively recently, this question could have been of interest only to a narrow circle of specialists. Now, however, it has taken on an unexpected poignancy. The prospects for a fundamental change in the structure of the Soviet market force us to take a closer look at the interaction in the Western market of powerful elements: monopoly and competition.

A simplistic view of things reduces the market mechanism to one of two extremes: "the dominance of monopolies" or "complete freedom of competition." Both of these approaches (oddly enough, they are easily combined with each other: the economy is alternately considered as purely competitive, then as monopolized) are unproductive. Moreover, they do not reflect the real situation in modern world. Another is even worse. With such a focus of research, the most important thing eludes him - the mechanism of coexistence and complementarity of both principles, which are equally necessary for the current capitalist economy.

In its rapid development, the Sony Corporation has gone through three major stages: a small manufacturer, specialized company and big monopoly. Firms of all these types constantly operate in the capitalist market and perform important functions on it. Let's follow the history of Sony and the demands that the market made on it in every new capacity.

SMALL MANUFACTURER. Sony, then still called Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, began in 1946 as a radio conversion shop. Few people could foresee the great future of this enterprise, which suffered from a lack of financial resources, did not have attractive products in its production program and constantly fearing being squeezed out of the market by more powerful competitors. Thousands of companies operating in any capitalist country in the field of small business, and to this day exist in such seemingly unenviable conditions.

Akio Morita

MADE IN JAPAN

Formation of a transnational concern

(Introductory article)

The book before the reader is written by an outstanding capitalist of our day. Hearing is hard to put up with such a combination of words. An outstanding scientist, artist or a great politician - all this sounds quite familiar, even if we are talking about a figure in a Western country. But a talented capitalist... We know very little about the names of the architects of modern business and have very little idea of their real functions in the economy. Henry Ford, two or three more entrepreneurs from bygone eras - and that's practically all. As if bourgeois society could show its amazing vitality without promoting talented people to the posts of organizers of production.

The brilliant tandem of Akio Morita, who was in charge of the commercial side of the business, and Masaru Ibuki, the technical genius of the company, turned a small and unknown company into one of the largest multinational corporations in the world. Moreover, their efforts created not just a large company, but an innovative company. It was Sony Corporation that was the first to mass-produce a transistor radio and created the world's first home video recorder. A portable cassette player with headphones - an indispensable attribute of modern youth culture - is also the brainchild of Sony, and first of all A. Morita personally. Together with the Dutch concern Philips, the company developed and introduced a fundamentally new laser sound recording technology, and silver compact discs have already been squeezed out, and in the 90s they will finally replace the usual long-playing records. Finally, in recent times, Sony has come closer than other companies to the creation of high-definition television technology ("HDTV" system), which promises to turn the home screen into a genuine window on the world.

1. Firm and market

A simplistic view of things reduces the market mechanism to one of two extremes: "the dominance of monopolies" or "complete freedom of competition." Both of these approaches (oddly enough, they are easily combined with each other: the economy is alternately considered as purely competitive, then as monopolized) are unproductive. Moreover, they do not reflect the real situation in the modern world. Another is even worse. With such a focus of research, the most important thing eludes him - the mechanism of coexistence and complementarity of both principles, which are equally necessary for the current capitalist economy.

In its rapid development, the Sony Corporation went through three major stages: a small manufacturer, a specialized company, and a large monopoly. Firms of all these types constantly operate in the capitalist market and perform important functions on it. Let's follow the history of Sony and the demands that the market made on it in every new capacity.

SMALL MANUFACTURER. Sony, then still called Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, began in 1946 as a radio conversion shop. Few could have foreseen the great future of this enterprise, which suffered from a lack of financial resources, did not have attractive products in its production program, and was constantly afraid of being squeezed out of the market by more powerful competitors. Thousands of companies operating in any capitalist country in the field of small business, and to this day exist in such seemingly unenviable conditions.

Nevertheless, their number is not decreasing, and in recent years has even been growing.

If you try to briefly convey the content of Table. 1, it boils down to demonstrating the enormous role of small business. The fact that monopolies do not completely crowd out small enterprises is widely known. But the numbers say more. Namely, that small enterprises, at least in purely quantitative terms, represent the largest sector of the economy. Indeed, it follows from the data in the table that in most capitalist countries at least half of all employed people work in small and very small enterprises. For some countries, this share is much higher. So, in the homeland of Sony - in ultra-modern Japan - half of all workers are employed in the smallest firms alone, and small and smallest enterprises together provide work for three-quarters of the Japanese.

Table I

Firms with the number of employees from 1 to 19 are referred to the smallest, firms with the number of employees from 1 to 19, small - from 20 to 99, medium - from 100 to 499, large - more than 500. In the UK and Italy, firms with 1-24 and 24– 99, 1-9 and 9-99 busy.

Source Midland Bank Review, Spring 1987, p. 17.

The role of small business is great not only quantitatively, but also functionally, that is, in terms of the tasks that it solves in the economy. Unfortunately, as the Soviet economist A. N. Tkachenko rightly notes, “in the available economic literature, all small companies operating in the sphere of material production are often considered exclusively as an appendage of monopolies, completely and completely dependent on the interests and goals of the largest commercial and industrial corporations. Such an opinion, which has already become commonplace, which for some reason avoided the need for strict factual evidence, in practice is difficult to reconcile with current realities. Of course, dependent small businesses exist (according to estimates, about 1/3 and, apparently, no more than 1/2 of all small firms). But this does not mean that you can neglect the role of independent small companies or assume that dependents are absolutely loyal to their "suzerains". In our opinion, small firms form a kind of foundation on which higher "floors" of the economy grow and which largely determines the architecture of the building. First of all, this refers to competitive relations in the economy. Tough for a small business competitive fight is a natural state that follows directly from its distinctive properties. The fact is that strengths small companies are associated with their ability to almost instantly respond to market requirements and take into account the specific needs of a particular consumer. This is a kind of competition in flexibility, going under conditions of strict selection. In Great Britain, for example, in the first half of the 1980s, eleven per cent of all registered firms ceased to exist annually. Considering that most of the liquidated firms are small, it is easy to calculate that in five to seven years the entire set of small companies is almost completely renewed.

For an individual small firm, a collision with a monopoly most often ends in death, the famous "stranglehold of an outsider." In the relationship between the entire small business and big capital, the roles are distributed differently. The attackers are often small firms. Any omission in the production program of the leading corporation threatens the appearance of a competitor who will satisfy the corresponding need. If the giant does not change his behavior, the newfound rival will grow and may turn into a real danger.

Akio Morita

Made in Japan

Formation of a transnational concern

(Introductory article)

The brilliant tandem of Akio Morita, who was in charge of the commercial side of the business, and Masaru Ibuki, the technical genius of the company, turned a small and unknown company into one of the largest multinational corporations in the world. Moreover, their efforts created not just a large company, but an innovative company. It was Sony Corporation that was the first to mass-produce a transistor radio and created the world's first home video recorder. A portable cassette player with headphones - an indispensable attribute of modern youth culture - is also the brainchild of Sony, and first of all A. Morita personally. Together with the Dutch concern Philips, the company developed and introduced a fundamentally new laser sound recording technology, and silver compact discs have already been squeezed out, and in the 90s they will finally replace the usual long-playing records. Finally, in recent times, Sony has come closer than other companies to the creation of high-definition television technology ("HDTV" system), which promises to turn the home screen into a genuine window on the world.

1. Firm and market

A simplistic view of things reduces the market mechanism to one of two extremes: "the dominance of monopolies" or "complete freedom of competition." Both of these approaches (oddly enough, they are easily combined with each other: the economy is alternately considered as purely competitive, then as monopolized) are unproductive. Moreover, they do not reflect the real situation in the modern world. Another is even worse. With such a focus of research, the most important thing eludes him - the mechanism of coexistence and complementarity of both principles, which are equally necessary for the current capitalist economy.

Nevertheless, their number is not decreasing, and in recent years has even been growing.

Table I

Source "Midland Bank Review", Spring 1987, p. 17.

The role of small business is great not only quantitatively, but also functionally, that is, in terms of the tasks that it solves in the economy. Unfortunately, as the Soviet economist A. N. Tkachenko rightly notes, “in the available economic literature, all small companies operating in the sphere of material production are often considered exclusively as an appendage of monopolies, completely and completely dependent on the interests and goals of the largest commercial and industrial corporations. Such an opinion, which has already become commonplace, which for some reason avoided the need for strict factual evidence, in practice is difficult to reconcile with current realities. Of course, dependent small businesses exist (according to estimates, about 1/3 and, apparently, no more than 1/2 of all small firms). But this does not mean that you can neglect the role of independent small companies or assume that dependents are absolutely loyal to their "suzerains". In our opinion, small firms form a kind of foundation on which higher "floors" of the economy grow and which largely determines the architecture of the building. First of all, this refers to competitive relations in the economy. For a small business, fierce competition is a natural state that follows directly from its distinctive properties. The fact is that the strengths of small companies are associated with their ability to almost instantly respond to market requirements and take into account the specific needs of a particular consumer. This is a kind of competition in flexibility, going under conditions of strict selection. In Great Britain, for example, in the first half of the 1980s, eleven per cent of all registered firms ceased to exist annually. Considering that most of the liquidated firms are small, it is easy to calculate that in five to seven years the entire set of small companies is almost completely renewed.

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Introduction

War Salvation and hope

Chapter 1

War
Salvation and hope