General overview of SONY Corportaion

SONY Corporation, abbreviated as SONY, is a Japanese conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company works with a variety of computer devices as well as non-electronic facilities. Electronic facilities provide gaming, movies, and electronic devices such as televisions, while non-electronic services provide banking services provided in small markets around the world. The Corporation is one of the world's largest computer suppliers, as measured by the proportion of the worldwide market share it controls (SONY, 2017). SONY Corporation began during the wake of World War II. Masaru Ibuka started the company in 1946. SONY began as a shop selling electronics within a department store in Tokyo. The company had limited resources, and it had a maximum of eight employees at the time (SONY, 2017).
SONY as a corporation ventured into the global market as a way of expanding its operations. SONY ventured into the United States as a major supplier of microelectronics as part of its expansion. In 1960, the founder of SONY opened SONY Corporation of America. The corporation continued to grow within the global market, and this is regarding the products that it was supplying globally. From 1960s-1970s, SONY expanded to be the major exporter of electronics in Japan. SONY played a significant role in ensuring that Japan was recognized as one of the major exporters of electronics globally in the 1960s and 1970s. However, despite the success that the corporation has been able to experience over the years, there are challenges that it has faced in the recent years such as reduction in its sales and stiff competition (SONY, 2017).

Competitive advantage
There are various ways of ensuring that there is the creation of a competitive advantage by SONY. However, for this discussion, only two of the most significant ways that SONY can use to regain its competitive advantage have been covered.
The first aspect of competitive advantage strategy is that SONY should become more innovative. According to Su, Linderman, Schroeder and Van de Ven (2014), innovation is one of the significant aspects that is used to gain more control within the market. There is the constant development of technology, and thus for a company to keep up with the competition, it must ensure that it adapts to the trending technological advancements. In the case of SONY, it should ensure that the electronic products that it is currently producing have the current technological aspects that are highly consumed by the people.
The second issue that SONY should adopt so as to have a stronger competitive advantage is the concept of ensuring the products produced are localized to meet the requirements of the market. The localizing of products by SONY should be done and more so to ensure that there is the consideration the markets that are emerging such as in Africa and some parts of Asia. This is an aspect that will go a long way in ensuring that there is the expansion of the market served by SONY and thus reestablishing its competitive advantage within the global market. For example, in countries such as India and China, most of the people are buying refrigerators that are red in color as well as having locks (Su et al., 2014). In this situation, SONY should consider venturing into the production of refrigerators that meets the local needs of the people so as to have a bigger share of the market.
SONY's SWOT analysis
SWOT Analysis Strength Strong brand
Popular products Weakness Lack of mobile devices that are dormant
Vulnerable database and network Opportunities Rapid innovation
Business diversification Threats Cyber attacks
Software piracy
Strengths
The presence of the strong brand is one is the strengths that SONY has and this is due to the exceptional performance of its products over the years within the electronic industry. The strong brands of SONY have ensured that it attracts customers easily whenever it launches new products. The strong brand also enables SONY to attract more investors who are significant in ensuring that the corporation has enough capital to venture into more businesses. The second strength that SONY has is the presence of products that are popular. The popular products ensure that SONY becomes a successful company and this is due to the profits that are realized from the sale of the product that it deals with. Favorite products that it has includes gaming products as well as the TVs that it produces (Naganathan, 2013).
Weaknesses
The first weakness that characterizes SONY is the lack of mobile devices that are dominant. Most of the mobile devices that are produced by SONY have low performance as compared to other products that are found on the market. Low performing devices make it hard for SONY to compete effectively within the market that is characterized by highly performing devices. The low performing mobile deceives face stiffer competition from other stronger brands such as Apple and Samsung (Naganathan, 2013).
The second weakness is the presence of weak database and networks. This is major weakness due to the presence of hackers who are determined at hacking the database of SONY so as to corrupt it or steal the private information that it has about is operations or its clients. Weak database and networks make SONY perform poorly as there is fear among stakeholders regarding the security of their data and information (Gershon, 2014).
Opportunities
Rapid innovation is the first opportunity that is present when it comes to SONY. There is the growth of innovation globally within the electronic industry that is capable of boosting the performance of SONY should it incorporate some of it. The second opportunity is the presence of business diversification. Business diversification is a result of the demand for various products that SONY can be able to produce such as refrigerators that meet the needs of various consumers (Naganathan, 2013).
Threats
The first threat is the presence of cyber attacks that is aimed at corrupting the database and network of the SONY, and this is a threat because SONY is continuously relying on online networks and database. The second threat is software piracy which threatens the profitability of SONY. An example is the piracy of the gaming software used in the creation of games which hurts the sales that SONY makes and thus affecting its profitability (Gershon, 2014). SONY should deal with the present threats so as to ensures that it can make the profits that it has targeted as well as ensuring that there is the offering of quality services and products to the customer.
_x005FReferences
Gershon, R. A. (2014). The Sony Corporation. Handbook of East Asian Entrepreneurship, 225.
Naganathan, V. (2013). A Comparative Analysis on Sony's Approach to Problem Solving and Decision-Making. International journal of management and business research, 3(1), 69- 88.
Su, H. C., Linderman, K., Schroeder, R. G., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2014). A comparative case study of sustaining quality as a competitive advantage. Journal of Operations Management, 32(7), 429-445.
SONY (2017). Corporate Info. Retrieved from
https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/history.html