索尼如何起死回生

????歷史上曾經跌下神壇的消費電子公司為數不少，但恐怕沒有哪家公司比索尼跌得更猛了。不過，在多年跌跌撞撞的摸索和改錯之后，索尼終于展現出真正的復蘇跡象。

????正如蘋果在本世紀初的復蘇主要是靠iPod的推動一樣，索尼最初大獲成功，也是因為抓住了“幫助人們隨時隨地聽音樂”這個賣點。上世紀50和60年代，索尼首先推出便攜式晶體管收音機，然后又推出風靡一時的Walkman磁帶式隨身聽。這些產品加上優秀的工藝，使索尼這一品牌幾乎成為“完美品質”的代名詞。

????進入21世紀后，索尼開始漸漸失去競爭優勢。三星等競爭對手迅速崛起，蠶食了索尼高端電視和立體聲業務的不少份額。在MP3播放器等新市場上，索尼也沒能獲得立足之地。早些時候，索尼曾向保險領域擴張，并在影視和音樂行業投入重資，導致它的業務結構變得臃腫而碎片化。

????2005年，索尼任命霍華德?斯特林格擔任公司CEO。斯特林格雖然魅力非凡，但他不會說日語，在媒體行業干了一輩子的斯特林格也缺乏工程方面的背景。斯特林格企圖把索尼的電子和媒體資源進行整合，但最終還是沒了下文。（斯特林格也是時代公司的董事會成員。）此外，索尼還接連遭受各種天災人禍：2009年的全球大蕭條，2011年的福島大地震，強勢日元也對索尼的出口業務造成了沖擊。

????過去7年，索尼有6年都宣告虧損。2012年，索尼在紐交所交易的美國存托憑證（又稱ADR，是一種在美國交易的股票，但代表的是一家外國公司特定數量的股權）也從2008年的55美元下跌至10美元以下。它的信用評級也下跌到接近垃圾級。但在此之后，情況開始有所好轉：2012年跌至不足10美元的谷底之后，時至本月，索尼ADR已反彈至33美元，也就是說，在短短兩年半的時間里上漲了238%。

????這種變化是從2012年初，平井一夫接替斯特林格執掌索尼后開始的。平井一夫是索尼的老臣子，曾經幫助PlayStation等不景氣的業務重新獲得利潤，由此聲名鵲起。和斯特林格一樣，平井一夫也不是傳統的日本白領。平井一夫在日本和北美兩地長大，能說流利的英文，同時說話也十分坦率。比如他曾對《華爾街日報》的記者談到他的新工作：“簡直是一個問題接著一個問題。那種感覺就像是：‘我靠，又咋了？’”

????在隨后的三年里，平井一夫開始了一項雄心勃勃的重組計劃。他迅速宣布實施“一個索尼”架構，該架構以斯特林格的整合計劃為基礎，并將重點放在通訊和各個碎片化部門的聯合決策上。在電子業務方面，他決定重點發展移動、游戲和圖像產品。在此期間，他相繼裁掉數千名員工，出售Vaio電腦部門，剝離過時的電視業務，并重組了智能手機產品線。

????所有這些，再加上重組成本，都加劇了索尼的財務虧損。不過真正的谷底直到去年11月才到來，那場著名的黑客入侵事件使索尼影業的許多敏感文件曝露在公眾的視線之下。但也就是在這個最艱難的時候，有些分析師開始斷言索尼即將扭虧為盈。對于這次轉折，辛苦種樹的人是斯特林格，到了平井一夫這里終于結出了果實。

????在索尼最近的收益報告里，這種令人欣慰的勢頭顯得更加明顯。去年，索尼的財務狀況出現了一些令人鼓舞的跡象，比如營業收入上漲了6%，電視業務也出現了11年以來的首次盈利。更好的消息則是經過謹慎預測的來年收益。

????索尼財務總監吉田健一郎表示，索尼更大的重組還在后面。而且雖然本財年的營收可能會下降4%，但營業利潤可能會上漲4倍，達到26億美元，這也是索尼自2008年以來營業利潤最高的一年。平井一夫曾預言，到2018年，索尼的凈收入會也到40億美元以上，這也將是索尼自1998年以來凈收入最高的一年。

????盡管如此，索尼仍有一些重組工作要做。索尼今年的營收下降，主要是因為它放棄了中端智能手機，全力進攻高端市場所致。另外雖然索尼的照相機業務持續下跌，但它用于智能手機的圖像傳感器業務卻出現了強勢增長?？偠灾?，索尼將成為一家營收更小但銷售額更大的公司，同時它將緩慢而穩定地從過時的市場轉向新興市場。

????要想真正扭虧為盈，索尼需要的不只是削減成本和重組這么簡單。要想在新興領域占據領先地位，索尼還有很長的路要走，還有很多的工作要做。但至少現在看來，能夠重新盈利，就已經是10多年來索尼最重大的一個轉折點了。（財富中文網）

????譯者：樸成奎

????審校：任文科

????In the annals of consumer electronics companies that have slipped from great heights, none has taken a bigger fall far from its glory days than Sony. But after years of struggling to right itself, the company is finally making real progress on a turnaround.

????Just as Apple helped revive itself in the early 2000s with the iPod, Sony built much of its success on the idea of helping people carry music around in their pocket–first with the transistor radio in the 50s and 60s and later with the Walkman portable cassette player. Those products, coupled with smart engineering, made the Sony brand synonymous with peerless quality.

????In the early 2000s, Sony began to lose its competitive edge. Rivals like Samsung had emerged to undercut its higher-priced TVs and stereos. Sony couldn’t get a foothold in new markets like mp3 players. Its earlier expansion into new areas like insurance and its overspending on film and music studios left it with a structure that was at once bloated and siloed.

????Sony named Howard Stringer as CEO in 2005 to turn things around. Stringer cut a charismatic figure, but couldn’t speak Japanese and, as a lifelong media executive, lacked an engineering background. Stringer tried to conjure a convergence of electronics and media properties that never quite gelled. (Stringer is on the board of Time Inc.) Meanwhile, further setbacks struck: the global recession in 2009, the Fukushima earthquake in 2011 and a stronger yen that hurt Japanese exports.

????Sony has posted net losses for six of the past seven years. As a result, the price of its ADRs traded on the NYSE fell from $55 in early 2008 to below $10 in late 2012. (An ADR is a stock that trades in the U.S. but represents a specific number of shares in a foreign corporation.) Its credit ratings eventually fell to near junk levels. But then things began to look up: After bottoming out below $10 in 2012, its ADRs have risen back near $33 this month, a rally of 238% in the last two and a half years.

????The change came after Sony replaced Stringer with Kazuo Hirai in early 2012. Hirai was a Sony veteran known for wringing profits from troubled businesses like the PlayStation gaming division. And like Stringer, Hirai didn’t fit the mold of the Japanese salaryman. Hirai grew up in Japan and North America, giving him a fluency in English and also a gift for being plainspoken, like when he told theWall Street Journal on taking the job, “It’s one issue after another. I feel like, “Holy shit, now what?”

????Hirai began an ambitious restructuring of Sony over the three years that followed. He quickly announced a “One Sony” structure that built on Stringer’s convergence with an emphasis on communication and joint decisions among siloed divisions. He focused the electronics business on mobile, gaming and imaging products. Over time, he cut thousands of jobs, sold off the Vaio PC unit, separated the ailing TV business into its own company and overhauled the smartphone lineup.

????All of this added to financial losses with restructuring charges and made for a tumultuous 2014. But the low point came last November, with the infamous hack that left sensitive documents from Sony Pictures Entertainment in public view. But it was just around this time when some analysts began voicing their conviction in a Sony turnaround. The turnaround painstakingly plotted by Stringer and Hirai was finally bearing fruit.

????That became more evident when Sony reported its most recent earnings. There were encouraging signs in the past year’s finances, like revenue rising 6% and the TV business posting its first profit in 11 years. But the better news was in the cautious forecast for the coming year.

????The bulk of the restructuring was behind Sony, CFO Kenichiro Yoshida said, and while revenue may decline 4% this fiscal year, operating profit would rise fourfold to $2.6 billion, its highest profit since 2008. Hirai had earlier projected net income to rise above $4 billion by 2018, which would be its biggest profit since 1998, before the great fall began.

????There’s still some restructuring to do. The revenue decrease this year will come largely from Sony’s move away from mid-range mobile phones to focus on the high end of the market. While camera sales continue to decline, Sony is seeing strong growth in imaging sensors used in smartphones. Overall, Sony will be a smaller company in terms of revenue but with bigger sales and slow, steady move from aging markets into growing ones.

????A turnaround needs more than cost cutting and restructuring. Sony has a long road ahead to go from playing catch-up in technology markets to playing a leading role in new ones. That step requires a lot more work, but Sony’s return to profitability makes a major turnaround as feasible as it’s been in more than a decade.