Innovative Process in Sony Music Entertainment Inc - Case Study Example

Innovative Process: Sony Music Entertainment Inc (SMEI) By Introduction This study introduces Sony Music Entertainment as one of the most innovative companies, especially in the music entertainment. This study also entails the evaluation of the innovative and entrepreneurial process implemented by this organization. Secondly, this report will also discuss the important lessons learned from the innovative process that SMEI implements. Finally, this study will examine why it would be difficult for another company in the same industry to adopt some of the success factors of SMEI and explain how such a company can overcome these difficulties. The global music entertainment industry is very competitive; therefore, for a company in this industry to succeed, it must engage in innovative processes. Innovative Process: Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment is a music corporation which falls under its parent company - Sony Corporation of America. This corporation has its headquarters in New York. It also has other offices located in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore. It encompasses a broad array of both local and international music superstars. Some of its products and services include print media publishing incorporating books, newspapers, and magazines printing; bookstores; movies, movie theaters, video rental and distribution, and movie production; broadcast/cable; music audio; and sports/games/gambling. Since it was established in 2004, this company has continued to experience tremendous growth even featuring popular artists such as Britney Spear, Avril Lavigne, Alicia Key, Chris Brown, and Sean Kingston. In 2008, the company launched a digital platform in conjunction with Myspace Music, the website MyPlay.com which has a platform that offers fans the ability to purchase and download music from Sony Music products, including cassettes, CDs, video, vinyl, DVDs, and minidisks online at SonyMusicStore.com (Plunkett 2009). In Australia, Sony Music is the leading recording company, and it attributes its success to the rich Australian music industry which dates back to 1938 investing in artists such as Midnight Oil, Tina Arena, Dragon, Silverchair, and Men at Work. Other well-known artists are Guy Sebastian, Delta Goodrem, John Farnham, Jessica Mauboy, and Human Nature (Handlin 2015). First, the company engages in digital innovation in the music industry. For a long time, Sony Music has embraced digital innovation where it has invested heavily and has been licensing new business models. These models enable it to avail recorded music through various services and at different prices. These models, therefore, enable the company to distinguish itself from its competitors. Music consumers can access a wide variety of music an amount which is unmatched by any other company in Australia and at a minimal cost. There are other services that the company offers at no cost including ad-supported streaming products such as products offered by Gureva, iHeart Radio, and Spotify (Handlin 2015). Secondly, embraces IP arrangements and creativity where it invests heavily in the discovery of new local upcoming Australian talent. Sony Music has been striving to look continually for new talents and present them on the international stage to show the world the creativity present in Australia. To achieve this, Sony Music has been employing and engaging independent contractors who include people and organizations such as mixers, producers, recording studios, sound engineers, backing vocalists, photographers, arrangers, instrumentalists, hair, film crew, video producers, and make-up crew (Handlin 2015). Innovative Lessons Learned For an organization to build and grow its business into a profitable venture, it must be able to devise its ideas and possess the skills of innovation. However, such an organization must manage this innovation development. Sony Music Entertainment has learned how to manage its innovativeness. Sony Music balances unstructured and unfettered. Sony Music’s focus is to execute its innovative ideas. To become one of the best innovative companies in the world, Sony Music has achieved this balance between its culture of innovativeness and execution of those innovative ideas. Most of Sony Music ideas and innovations are unique and unreachable by its competitors. After identifying an idea, Sony Music creates a business out of it and tests the most appropriate idea and the one that will generate revenue and growth for it. DeSai (2013) observes that every organization possesses a multiplicity of ideas. The challenge for other companies in the same industry is about accessing the idea bank where these ideas are held, creating its case, and quickly identifying the most appropriate ones and the ones that will bring revenue and growth. The three important factors that an idea generator should consider are: i. Testing validity which includes devising an idea and building a business around the idea. ii. Market potential including identifying the economic engine and how it will generate revenues. iii. Execution including implementing the innovative idea and sustaining it to ensure it generates growth and revenues. Sony Music has adopted such an idea generation process. By adopting such a process, Sony Music has rejected standardized formats for problem-solving related to innovativeness. As a creative thinker, Sony Music engages in many related and divergent fields including print media publishing incorporating books, newspapers, and magazines printing; bookstores; movies, movie theaters, video rental and distribution, and movie production; broadcast/cable; music audio; and sports/games/gambling. Most of these products are related in one way or another. Dundon (2002) categorizes innovative thinking into three areas namely creative, strategic, and transformational thinking. In creative thinking, an organization leaves the known and enters the unknown. When an organization moves from the known to unknown, creative ideas get an opportunity to surface. Many organizations stay in their comfort zone, a factor that makes them unable to experience new and creative ideas. Often, these organizations seek out more control and order despite their knowledge that mastering control and order and control the current competitive business world is a formidable challenge. This is the challenge most organizations find difficult to overcome; however, Sony Music has overcome this challenge and made it one of its major sources of success. Another principle of creative thinking is being curious (Dundon 2002). The company has been challenging its assumptions and those of its competitors. It has learned that creativity and innovativeness requires a new mindset. The final principle is discovering new connections (Dundon 2002). Sony Music seems to have learned that most ideas already exist in some form somewhere in the world. Sony Music finds new ideas and then experiments, mixes, matches, cuts, and pastes them into new ideas. Regarding strategic thinking, Sony Music connects creativity with value. To achieve this, Sony seeks to understand its customers’ current and emerging needs; understand the firm’s current and anticipated future core competencies, culture, and resources; and future view of the industry marketplace or sector. Sony Music spends much time defining the real problem. The second principle is looking to the future (Dundon 2002). To achieve success in its strategic thinking, Sony Music explores the opportunities and patterns in the strategic landscape and then develop a vision of what it intends to be and what it wants to be renowned for. Over time, Sony Music has evolved from an ordinary company to an extraordinary company, and it has attained the position of an extraordinary company using various strategies including targeting the most profitable customers. Setting its innovation priorities; profiting from the power of branding; offering new and better products and services; picking up the pace; creating magnet works; adding credibility, and systemizing with modules. A successful creative thinker engages in transformational thinking. The first principle is seeking greater awareness which involves seeking a shift in mental models to enable people to see the bigger picture of team dynamics and the organizational design. Difficulty in Adopting Sony Music’s Success Factors and Ways of Overcoming Them Sony Music Entertainment is a multinational company which has taken much time to attain the position it holds. Sony Music has a large capital base. Thus, it has the financial power to bring its ideas into action and completion. Most of Sony Music competitors do not have a capital base large enough to enable them to bring their ideas to completion. Sony Music has invested much in R&D initiatives. R&D and product development departments represent the main areas from which a company derives innovative ideas (DeSai 2013). This ability represents the reason it would be hard for other companies in the same industry to adopt some of the Sony Music’s success factors. Also, Sony Music protects its innovative ideas with patents. Protection for innovation is given by the difficulty in copying new ideas, new products, or new processes (Baldwin and Hanel 2003). Even when new products are fully described in patents documents (as they are in Sony Music Entertainment patent documents), the act of turning that knowledge into new products or processes is difficult and costly. Since new technology involves a mix of codified knowledge and implicit know-how that is difficult to transmit or to digest, intellectual property associated with innovation retains its value even in the face of attempts to copy it. The only way for an organization in the same industry as Sony Music Entertainment is to develop its idea that is in line with Sony Music’s idea and adopt a creative process aimed at developing a product or service higher than that of Sony Music. References Baldwin, J. and Hanel, P. 2003. Innovation and Knowledge Creation in an Open Economy: Canadian Industry and International Implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DeSai, J. 2003. Innovation Engine: Driving Execution for Breakthrough Results. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Dundon, E. 2002. The Seeds of Innovation: Cultivating the Synergy that Fosters New Ideas. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Handlin, D. 2015. Submission to the Productivity Commission in Response to the Inquiry into Intellectual Property Arrangements. East Sydney: Intellectual Property Arrangements Inquiry Productivity Commission. Plunkett, J. 2009. Plunkett's Entertainment & Media Industry Almanac 2009: The Only Complete Guide to the Entertainment & Media Industry. Plunkett Research Limited. Read More