Can Stringer stop Sony malfunctioning?

Sony has ditched its chief executive and brought in the head of its American division to run the media and electronics conglomerate. But resolving the conflicting aims of its two main businesses may take more than a fresh face at the top

IN HIS efforts to revive the flagging fortunes of Sony, Nobuyuki Idei was widely credited with embracing western business practices. On Monday March 7th the giant corporation’s boss found himself on the wrong end of a western business practice that is rarely encountered in Japan. He was nudged aside, along with his deputy, presumably for his inability to improve the fortunes of a firm that has failed to make the various prongs of its business pull successfully in the same direction. During Mr Idei’s five-year tenure as chairman and chief executive, Sony’s share price fell by around 60%.

Mr Idei’s replacement is Sir Howard Stringer, the Welsh-born boss of Sony’s American operations. His appointment gives him a position in Japanese business unmatched by any other foreign national—indeed, some even speculate that it marks a turning-point for the Japanese boardroom. Sir Howard is likely to apply a far more powerful dose of American-style management to the ailing behemoth. But finding a way to align the competing concerns of the different parts of the Sony empire may prove beyond even the sharpest businessman.

Sony is essentially a firm of two parts: electronic goods and media content. It was founded in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka, an engineer, and Akio Morita, a physicist, and to this day the core consumer-electronics division, based in Japan, is still dominated by technically minded engineers intent on turning out whizzy new gadgets. But blockbuster new products have been in short supply of late, and the Sony name is no longer a by-word for up-market electronic goodies. As consumers have