Sony Corporation has announced that it will be carrying out a major restructuring of its organization and management next month in an attempt to improve the company’s balance sheet. The multi-billion dollar Japanese conglomerate says that as a part of its upcoming reorganization, it will spin off its semiconductor business into an autonomous, wholly-owned subsidiary, and also evaluate the feasibility of doing the same for its profit-making Imaging Products and Solutions business. Sony’s Game & Network Services, Sony Mobile Communications, Sony Pictures and Sony Music are just some of the Sony Group companies that have already been operating as autonomous subsidiaries for a while now, and over the past couple of years, the company has also split out its home entertainment businesses into subsidiary units, including its television business in July, 2014, and its audio/video business last October.
The company has also announced more far-reaching changes to the company structure, saying that with effect from April 1st, the company will “realign the platform functions that support each of its business units in order to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of these operations”. What it means in essence is that some of the operations that were until now the responsibility of the parent company, Sony Corp., will now be transferred to the applicable Sony Group companies. These operations include “the consumer AV sales platform, the manufacturing, logistics, procurement, quality and environmental platform for Sony’s electronics business, as well as certain cloud-based platforms and service-related businesses, will each be transferred to the related Sony Group companies”, according to the official announcement by Sony.
The company has also said that with effect from next month, four of its senior executives who’re currently in charge of four of Sony’s group companies will be designated as ‘Corporate Executive Officers’ of Sony Corporation, bringing the total number of people within the organization with that designation to ten. The re-classification of Sony’s executives will extend to other positions within the company’s senior management as well. Those who’ll be put in charge of HQ functions under the Corporate Executive Officers will be designated as ‘Corporate Executives’, whereas those who’ll be tasked with carrying out specific assignments related to the subsidiaries will be designated as the company’s ‘Business Executives’.