Mkt421 Marketing - Environmental Factors

Environmental Factors
MKT421 Marketing
STUDENT
University of Phoenix
INSTRUCTOR
DATE
























Environmental Factors
The Sony Corporation is a leading manufacturer of video, audio, communications, and information technology products for consumers and professional markets. Naval lieutenant Akio Morita and defense contractor Masaru Ibuka founded Sony in 1946 by establishing a partnership with $500 in borrowed capital and named their partnership as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation (TTK). During the first year TTK made a profit of $300 and total sales of $7,000. In the next few years, Ibuka and Morita abandoned the home-appliance market and focused on new electronic goods   Constantly looking for new technologies, TTK started the production of transistors radios, called "Sony" in 1954.
The popularity of the radio "Sony" encouraged Ibuka and Morita to change the name of the company to Sony Corporation in 1958. Since then Sony climbed the ladder of the success and reached its top in 1990 when it registered a record earnings of 58.2 billion yen, which is an increase of 38.5% compared to the previous year. Sony's success was a direct result of its founders who could anticipate the demands of consumers and develop products that have met their wants and needs (Funding Universe, n.d.). Additionally, with the arrival of faster communication, transportation, and financial flows, Sony could expand into international markets and become a global firm.
A global firm is "one that, by operating in more than one country, gains marketing, production, R&D, and financial advantages   that are not available to purely domestic competitors" (Armstrong & Kotler, 2009, p. 451). However, global firms such as Sony are exposed to environmental factors (e.g. economic, political, cultural, technological and so forth) that increase the risk and jeopardize the company's success. In this research paper several environmental factors that affect...