The article The Welshman, the Walkman and the salarymen discusses the transition process at Sony, as conducted by a team of relative outsiders headed by Sir Howard Stringer. The article outlines many of the challenges that Sony faced. These include a lack of technological innovation, an obsolete organizational structure and an organizational culture in need of significant overhaul. Stringer had been able to enact an overhaul of the structure and culture at Sony's American group and was now being asked to do the same in Japan. The Japanese operations, however, presented many challenges not faced in the US operation. Among them were retired salarymen who blocked progress, senior engineers who were so hardware oriented as to be dismissive of software (today the key driver in the industry) and a complete lack of focus on shareholder value.
             Stringer's program sought to modernize Sony on many different levels. One was to reduce holdings to core businesses. From there, much of the dead wood on the payroll was shed as well. The leaner Sony was in a better position to enact greater strategic changes. Stringer demanded that shareholder value again become a significant point of focus for the firm. He also sought to shift organizational focus towards interbusiness communication. Prior to his arrival, different arms of Sony not only did not work together, but would sometimes compete. There was little cohesive, corporate-wide focus.
             The article was written partway into Stringer's tenure, so the end results were unclear. There was evidenced presented with regards to some of the positive results from his initiatives, such as including Spider-Man 2 with the PlayStation Portable to highlight its alternate uses. Shift in marketing focus were also highlighted, to show the positive impacts of the structural and cultural overhaul at Sony.
             The Sony case serves as an allegory for Japan's economic recovery. By 1990, t...