What it does: Managing Sony Electronics Inc, Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC., Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Sony Music Entertainment, and Sony Music Publishing.
Mission: To fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology, and to nurture innovation to enrich and improve people’s lives
Size and presence: 33.234 employees located across 6+ locations in the US.
Best known for: the American-based subsidiary for Sony Group Corporation in Japan.
The good bits: It has a lot of big subsidiary companies that provide a lot of roles and expertise for job seekers. Offers a great exposure to a corporate working environment, hence, a good place to start for graduates.
The not-so-good bits: Mostly strict working environment, flexibility depends on each department.
The establishment of Sony Corporation of America can’t be separated from Akio Morita’s insistency to expand its business to the oversea market and how the company started to enter America through its first distributor, Delmonico International. The company’s decision to be an international market player was quite a daring step since there weren’t that many Japanese electronic companies that dare to do it. However, ironically, the establishment of the American branch itself was—more or less—caused by Sony Japan and Delmonico’s partnership drama, or at least, the dispute between the two was one of the contributing factors.
Sony entered the American market by signing marketing agents, Superscope and Agord, to handle the company’s sales. Through its agents, Delmonico, an electronic wholesaler with a nationwide marketing network, was selected as Sony’s distributor. The partnership went along quite well, but that didn’t last for long. Delmonico started to show inconsistencies toward Morita’s business plan, which was to expand their sales across America. Delmonico seemed too comfortable with New York to develop other potential markets.
Delmonico was also reported as being too picky, only choosing products that guaranteed them a sold-out. The distributor even asked Sony to produce cheaper radio, which, didn’t match to Sony’s policies. The peak tension between Sony and Delmonico happened when Delmonico announced to their retailers that they would handle the selling for Sony’s TV8-301 and started accepting orders, while in fact, they had never consulted Morita before. It was then Sony decided to end its contract with Delmonico and establish Sony Corporation of America on February 15, 1960.
As of recent updates, the company’s headquarter is located in New York. Sony’s business grew throughout the years, and it not only manufacture electronics but also owns several subsidiaries in various area. Some notable subsidiaries are Sony Entertainment Inc, Sony Music Group, and Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC.
Some former and current employees in the company urged new hires to build and nurture good relationships among co-workers in order to maintain teamwork and said that tight and strong teamwork is needed to achieve their goals. Sony appreciates productivity, an employee with high productivity is considered an asset to the company. It works with technology a lot, manufacturing various high-quality tech products to be launched before it goes to retail, so there will be a certain schedule and ‘packed season’ for employees to follow. Hence, some said work-life balance will be difficult to achieve at some point. Overall, the company is a good place with good opportunities to grow.
Some former interns reported that they have two or three rounds of interviews during the recruitment process. The first one is usually a phone call interview for a screening purpose, then it continues with an interview with the HR and the hiring manager. Though some roles will require applicants to join an exam to evaluate their knowledge before it continues with technical interviews with the hiring manager. Students can apply through its website or campus recruiting, same goes for graduates. The process from submission to hiring offer took time ranging from a week up to five weeks.
If you are a business or tech student, then Sony is a good place for a start. Sony Corporation offers career paths in various areas in business, retail, and technology departments. As a graduate, you may start off your career as a business analyst, software engineer, cloud security engineer, UX designer, or even research engineer. And as a corporation that operates nation-scale businesses, students or graduates who wish to start their career in the legal, human resource, communications, accounting, and finance departments will have an equal challenge and opportunity to grow.
Sony pays interns in a variety amount of salaries depending on their roles and departments. A global tax internship will pay $41.000, a marketing internship will pay $53.000, a cybersecurity internship will pay $49.000, and a software development internship will pay $76.000 annually.
As for full-time roles, the salaries are ranging from $64.000 up to $234.000 annually (upper managerial roles), depending on the roles and departments. Graduates who work as business analysts will receive $68.000, sales will receive $70.000, software engineers will receive $113.000, and UX designers will receive $83.000 annually.
Since 2007, Sony Corporation of America supports The Theatre Development Fund’s education and accessibility programs that make the theatre experience inclusive to everyone. The corporation also supports many non-profit organizations and initiatives which targeted underserved youth. Such as Hispanic Federation’s Early Childhood Literacy Education Campaign, Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), and Material for the Arts (MFTA).
Sony also urged its employees to participate in its company-organized volunteer activity to give back to the community where they live through its annual program SomeOne Needs You. Hundreds of Sony employees in the U.S. partake in this program. Sony Corporation of America also provides annual support to the American Red Cross, Save the Children, and the International Medical Corps, on behalf of all its U.S. companies.
In November 2014, a group of hackers ‘Guardians of Peace’, hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment’s network. They stole numerous amounts of important data and then leaked them to the journalist. Some of the leaked data include daily gossip conversations among Sony Pictures’ workforce about Hollywood celebrities, confidential documents about emails between Sony’s executives, salary information, employees’ performance data, and even several unreleased movies from the corporation. The cause of the hacking was Sony’s upcoming comedy movie at that time—The Interview—starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, which offended the group. The movie’s storyline is about two journalists who assassinate Kim Jong-Un. The group also threatened to commit an act of terrorism if Sony released the movie. The threat alarmed The National Security Agency who believed and stated that North Korea was responsible for the attack, though they refuse to disclose any further evidence to the public. As a result of this attack, Sony finally decided to pull The Interview from cinemas.