18 Laws of Sony

Sony’s Laws 18 Articles

• 1: Make “what works for the customer”, not “what the customer wants”.
  • Customers change their minds. Don’t chase after customers, get ahead of them.
• 2: Make things from “your perspective,” not “the customer’s perspective.
  • Make what you want. - Use your own deliverables. と関連してる
• 3: Don’t decide on size and cost targets based on possibility. Decide based on need and necessity.
  • Instead of “3% reduction here and 5% reduction there,” we will reduce the number of parts and design by 50% by changing the way of thinking.
• 4: The market may be mature, but the product is not mature.
• 5: Reasons why you can’t is evidence of what you can do. You can resolve the reasons why you can’t.
• 6: “New things quickly” rather than “Good things cheaply”.
  • In this day and age, delay is fatal.
• 7: Solving a product’s weaknesses creates a new market, while improving its advantages expands the existing market.
• 8: The amount of wisdom you squeeze out is the amount of value you add.
• 9: No cost reduction is better than the wisdom of planning
• 10: Think failure at a later stage is not a reoccurrence.
• 11: Things are either too expensive or too bad to sell.
• 12: Sow new seeds (products) in fields where they will grow.
• 13: When you start worrying about what other companies are doing, it’s the beginning of losing.
• 14: Possible and difficult are within the possible.
  • There are only two things in this world: the possible and the impossible.
  • In-between “difficulties” are also within the realm of possibility.
• 15: Don’t be reckless, but let them take some chances.
  • If you go through the impossible, you will change your mindset.
• 16: New technologies are always destined to be replaced by the next.
  • It is only when you do it again with your own hands that you can be a technician.
  • If I don’t do it, other companies will just do it.
  • The cost of goods is exactly the same.
• 17: Markets are created, not investigated.
  • There is no way to do the research for a world-first product, and even if you do, you can’t rely on it.
• 18: If you are unfortunate enough to have a boss who is not very enthusiastic, don’t tell him about your new idea, but make a thing (prototype) first.

Sony’s Laws” (Shogakukan bunko. Written by Osamu Katayama)

• Sony

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