Sony to swap expatriate honchos with local talent

Think global, hire local. This is precisely Japanese electronics giant Sony’s tack to crack the desi market.

The company is betting its bucks on local talent as it looks to replace 20 expats who occupy top positions in the company. This is part of the company’s strategy to nurture local leaders to hold the reins of the company, going ahead.

Sony India managing director Masaru Tamagawa said, “Local talent development is an important part of Sony’s growth strategy. We are tuning our business to align ourselves to the 21% revenue growth target that we plan to achieve in 2009-10.”

Though the company did not give a time frame for completing the replacements, it said that they are currently in the process of identifying local leaders.

“We would like to replace these positions with Indians in the next few years by nurturing employees as local leaders,” added Tamagawa. The company did not elaborate on exactly what positions these officials occupy.

In an email response, the company said it has 750 employees, but most of the top positions (around 20) are held by expatriates.

Sony is following a new three-pronged approach for India — brand enhancement, channel development and local talent development. Under the last initiative, it aims at successfully nurturing employees to become high-quality local leaders, thus improving business infrastructure, added Tamagawa.

According to an official from a top HR firm, multinational companies are wielding the axe on expat jobs as the deep global recession forces them to cut costs. The reasons may vary from the high cost of expat compensation packages, cultural differences and inability to adapt in a few cases to the increasing availability of Indians returning to work in the country.

“In many cases, expats are being asked to work under the terms that Indian employees are offered. While in others they are being replaced by highly qualified Indian managers,” said an official of an MNC talent management consultancy.

Some of the sectors where expats are present in sizeable numbers include retail, telecom and aviation.

To address the challenging economic situation, Sony aims to maintain profitability through cost controls and new products launches.

“As a strategy, we are planning to increase marketing investments across all key categories,” said Tamagawa.

Some of the fastest growing product categories for the company are the Bravia LCDs, Vaio notebooks, Cyber-shot digital cameras, Walkman MP3 players and the PlayStation series.

Sony India had consolidated sales of Rs 3,300 crore in financial year 2008-2009, an increase of 33% over FY08 (figures without sales of cathode ray tubes). The company expects consolidated sales of Rs 4,000 in the current fiscal.