CRH plc is one of the largest building materials companies in the world. It is based in Ireland with its main headquarters in Dublin having no more than 100 employees. CRH exists in a very competitive environment; prices between competitors are very similar and loyalty is built with customers through always delivering expectations on time. Sony Corporation is based in Japan and is a conglomerate business with interests and products in many different fields. CRH and Sony both have very different traditions and management systems which results in both companies having different strategies and ethics which will be explored in detail throughout this essay.
In 2009, CRH released results highlighting their second successive annual reduction in overall income. The main reason for the considerable drop in income was because of the current state of the economy at the time: suffering from the worst worldwide recession since the 1930s. There were other external factors associated with this such as the social aspect where people were more hesitant to spend money due to the price hikes almost everywhere. This didn’t just only affect CRH, Sony also fell victim to the recession - recording a loss of £720 million for the year ending March 2009. This loss was unexpected for Sony - considering it was only their second loss since the late 1950s. In light of the recession, both companies were affected and income was considerably lowering with expectations of the following year to be worse than the current year. Furthermore, other factors have also played a small part in affecting both CRH and Sony financially such as exchange rates: which are forever changing in today’s world due to the weakening and strengthening of individual currencies.
CRH and Sony are both global companies which provide products and services to a very large combined population. CRH have the better opportunity