14 DAY TRIAL // When it rains, it pours, and the same goes for Sony, one of the global leading manufacturers of consumer electronics, and bad news. Today, the company has announced plans to improve profitability across the entire Sony Group by undertaking a series of measures, which also include cutting jobs and reducing the number of manufacturing sites by approximately 10 percent. Basically, by 2010, the company aims to reduce the number of its employees by approximately 8,000, all of them being part of Sony's worldwide electronics business unit.
According to Sony, its recently announced restructuring plans take into account the “sudden and rapid changes in the global economic environment.” Basically, Sony claims that, in light of the new financial global situation, the company needs to take several drastic measures that will aid it in not losing a major part of its capital. As it was to be expected, such measures also include cutting jobs, which will thus reduce the company's headcount by approximately 8,000 people.
Sony has presented three major initiatives as part of the plan to boost profitability, and they include a review of the investment plan, the realignment of manufacturing sites, and the aforementioned workforce reallocation and headcount reduction. In other words, the company's consumer electronics business unit is the one that will be the most affected by the plan, as it is this segment that has suffered the most recently because of the economic downturn.
As part of the review of the investment plan, Sony will reduce investments in the electronics business by approximately 30% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010. Also, the company has postponed its recent plans of investing in a production expansion in Nitra plant in Slovakia. The total number of its manufacturing sites will also be reduced by 10%, from the current total of 57, by March 31, 2010.