The Reason for Successful of Sharp Corporation - Essay Example

ESSAY Why has Sharp been so successful for so long Sharp Corporation, a Japanese company, which was founded as a small metal workshop in Osaka in 1912 by Tokuji Hayakawa, is today one of the leading manufacturers of electronic components and computer hardware and peripherals. Today Sharp makes LCDs, mobile phones, audio visual entertainment equipments like CD and DVD players, video cameras, home cinemas, flash memory, integrated circuits, and laser diodes used in optical data drives. It also produces PCs, printers, microwave ovens, cash registers, CMOS etc as well as a variety of appliances, such as air purifiers and air conditioners, calculators, fax machines, refrigerators, and vacuum cleaners. It is one of the world's largest manufacturers of photovoltaic solar cells. The founder played a great role in the establishment and maintenance of the company. His good timing provided the company a significant and profitable market share. The company was not a leader in a wide range of technologies, initially; it led only in a narrow section of the market. Also, it did not receive any benefit of financial backing from the zaibatsu conglomerates or the government. Hayakawa and his company were forced to produce devices for the military during the Second World War and was renamed as the Hayakawa Electrical Industries in 1942. The company re emerged after the war much damaged but still motivated to go on. The company has been through all the ups and downs in this long period but has not only sustained itself but has emerged as one of the leaders in electronic product market. Innovation and technological prowess along with diversified product portfolio has been the reason behind the success of sharp corporation behind its success. It is note worthy that the product mix has been kept changing so that they are not outdated and people expect more out of sharp products. This leads to investment in R& D and the cutting edge technology which acts as a driving force behind the successful sustainment of sharp as the leader in technology domain. The cutting edge technology combined with a never ending quest for creating newer products that have never been seen before has brought the company to where it is today. The spirit of creating new and innovative products has been the major driving force for the success of this company which has passed down over generations as the "DNA of creativity". The companies R&D works on the basic motto as mentioned by its founder, Tokuji Hayakawa, "make products that others want to imitate". In his words "products that get imitated are good products that consumers want; products that sell. Therefore, if you always try to come out with products that your competitors imitate, your company will steadily grow. Imitation gives rise to competition, raises the level of technology, and leads to progress in society" and this has been something what the company has been trying to do since its inception. Sharp attributes its success to the company's wide range of electronic products including the IMAGER series of copiers and networkable copier/printers ranging in speed from 15 to 50 pages-per minute and its solar panels (Sharp 2008) 2. .In what ways does being a Japanese company contribute to Sharp's success Sharp Corporation is a Japanese electronic company which was founded in the year 1912 by its founder Tokuji Hayakawa. The company initially started as a small metal workshop. The company was not a leader in the market at that time and had a low profile. Then the innovative product "ever sharp pencil" gave the company a boost in 1915. Slowly and steadily the company started to make more and more profit. It started focusing on innovative technologies and newer products. It followed two basic principles of "creativity and sincerity". The company started to make newer innovative products which people would like to imitate. In the year 1973, the company started focusing on liquid crystal displays (LCD) and then later on more lifestyle products were introduced in the market. Down the line Sharp flourished and developed expertise in the fields of optoelectronics, LEDs, electroluminescent devices, laser diode etc and became the leader in the field of optoelectronics. As a Japanese company, it is mainly focused on Japanese management principles which are towards the overall benefit of the company in long term. It has been instrumental in developing its highly skilled workforce. The human resource and management practices in Sharp are able to keep them for longer time with little attrition rate. Japanese Companies rely exclusively on teamwork. Teamwork is the key to their success. The sheer failure rate of an individual can be downsized by the team effort. There is a mutual dependence between employers and employees. The benefits are interlinked with the welfare of the employees, which is best taken care of at Sharp. Management of business is implemented jointly by Employers and Employees. Management by motivation plays a great role in the rise of Sharp as a futuristic company. The customer base is developed such that they have strong loyalty to sharp products, so that fewer incentives are required to promote them. Sharp Corporation has top down traditional organizational structure which is functional and make things implemented quickly. They shared responsibilities among eight manufacturing groups, five sales and marketing groups, an international business group, a corporate research and development group, and a number of central service groups. All of these groups, except the International Business Group, reported directly to the five top managers. The manufacturing groups, the International Business group, and the sales and marketing groups were profit centers, while the corporate R&D group and central service groups were cost centers. Sharp Corporation had a paternalistic relationship with its employees, and top management reinforced the view that the company was a family, or community, whose members should cooperate. Employee turnover was very low in accordance with the practice of life time employment. If a research project or a manufacturing plant closed, researchers and workers were not laid off but transferred elsewhere in the company. The rewards are on fitting in consensus and coordination. Its sound and transparent management practices have always helped the company maintain a good public image. Sharp is committed at delivering complete satisfaction and peace of mind to its customers. Its responsibility towards the environmental issues and its vision to foresee the future has further boosted up the company's image. Being a Japanese company has really benefited Sharp. Japan is the known for its technological expertise; it leads the world in technology in so many high tech products. Japan's GDP is still more than twice the GDP of the rest of Asia combined, and also Japan spends 20% of the world total amount spend on R&D spend . Also Japanese brands dominate the consumer products and components (Why Bother with Japan when China is all the buzz Pdf). Japanese are known for their loyalty, trust and friendly nature. The honor, mutual trust and loyalty of the employee towards the company helps in fostering team work, as well as the technological expertise of Japan and its cultural background has really helped the company to a large extent. 3. What historic strategic technologies does Sharp choose to invest in Sharp Corporation, a leader in consumer electronic product manufacturing, has been in the market since 1912. It specializes in consumer/information products as well as electronic components. The company is dedicated to use its unique and innovative technology to benefit the common man. The journey from a small metal shop, invention of the ever sharp pencil, radio, television, calculators, solar cells, LCDs to the more latest lifestyle products with optoelectronics, air conditioners, enhanced LCD production, PDAs, cell phones and becoming the world leader in photovoltaic cells has been a very long and tortuous way. The main strategy of this company was to develop the basic component like the LCD, develop the products that make use of it, and then to improve the components and products before market competition. In the year 2000 Sharp planned to produce a device that would combined the functions of television with personal computers, it joined hands with Xerox Corporation to develop next-generation ink jet printers and copiers. Further, in 2001 Sharp started manufacturing next-generation LCDs which were low-temperature, liquid continuous-grain silicon display systems with semiconductor chips inside them. Today Sharp', electroluminescent devices, laser diode, CCDs (charge coupled devices), and LEDs technologies provide growth opportunities for the company in fast expanding areas such as audio-visual and data communications. The main areas of technology development includes liquid crystal display technology, sharp continues to boost the production of LCD panels and invests in the small, medium and large size display panels, creation of energy saving equipments, and energy generating solar cells and creation of health related equipments. LCDs have a huge market potential and Sharp has a 40% of the market share (Sharp Corporation: Developing a Technology Strategy1, pdf). Its strategies have long provided the better performance to the company than its much larger competitors. All this makes Sharp well-positioned and prepared to face the future challenges seizing the opportunities of the present and the future generation. 4. What is the main difference between Sharp today and 30 years ago Today the Japanese company, Sharp Corporation has become much more sophisticated, than it was before. It is a market leader in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and digital technologies. The company which was first confined to just Japan has now spread all over the world. The company that took off as a small metal workshop came in the market full-fledged with its consumer electronic products, like calculators, cell phones, air purifiers, air conditioners, televisions, PCs, LCDs and so on, today is much more focused and well positioned. Sharp has expanded its corporate governance and improved its internal control system. It has evolved its own strategy and is determined to excel in its field. About 56,600 people in the world are employed in Sharp (as of April 30, 2007) and it has recorded consolidated annual sales of 3,127,771 million yen for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007. (http://www.japancorp.net/Company_Show.aspcompid=1781) LCD TVs continue to move well both in Japan and overseas, with sales reaching 2.05 million sets ( http://sharp-world.com/corporate/ir/event/press/0903_41_04.html) Sharp has made a full scale entry into the LED sector, new generation lighting fixtures) 5. Should Sharp enter into an alliance with Apple or Intel I think Sharp should enter into alliance with Apple or Intel. If Sharp enters into a joint venture with Apple (which is undergoing its own transition with Intel), it can use its flash memories and their own LCDs to produce laptop. The potential for the new Intel Mac systems to run four classes of software at near native speeds: Mac OS X binaries, Java/.NET applications, Unix applications, and the latest Win32/x86 applications. No other hardware vendor can offer more than three of these. The combination of Apple, Intel and Sharp can lead to the future generation laptops as all of them are proven leaders in their respective cutting edge technology. The near simultaneous running of different emulation software, a dual, triple or quadruple booting system for compatibility of the hardware and operating systems (including Windows drivers for Mac hardware) has been on the way to facilitate the customer experience. The expertise of Sharp in semiconductor chip development can be of great use in facilitating the convergence process. There are concerns over the system performance as the compatibility of Intel chipset in the architecture of x86 device is questionable , affecting the system performance and application quality. This particular problem can be solved in cooperation with Sharp corporation which is the market leader in semiconductor chip development. Intel owns 85% of the flash memory market today and it is $ 130 m. market. Sharp should get flash memories from Intel to produce its own products requiring flash memories or to sell other companies. For example to build wizard organizer, the company needs flash memory and their products of LCDs, ICs and computer software. The development of such products which needs flash memory devices like integrated chips can be jointly developed through collaborative R&D between Sharp and Intel. This in turn will thrust the market share of these two companies upwards in the flash memory devices market. Now-a-days the electronic market specially related to computers and laptops is growing rapidly, thus an alliance with either of these or both will in turn be profitable for the company in the long run. REFERENCES 1. Sharp. 2008 Sharp corporation. 12 Aug 2008 2. Sharp. 2008 Sharp corporation. 12 Aug 2008 < http://sharp-world.com/corporate/info/philosophy/index.html> 3. Sharp 2008 Sharp corporation. 12 Aug 2008 < http://sharp-world.com/corporate/ir/event/press/0903_41_04.html> 4. Japan Corporate news network. Sharp Corporation, 12 Aug 2008 JCN 12 Aug 2008 5. Sharp Corporation: Developing a Technology Strategy1 6. Why Bother with Japan when China is all the buzz Read More