Why Sony's like no other

Amit Ranjan Rai, New Delhi
Business Standard
It's eyeing significant growth focusing on fewer product categories - without targeting the mass market.

Enter the Sony Center, the company’s franchisee outlet, in Delhi’s prime shopping location Connaught Place. Straight on, a bright and huge 62-inch Bravia LCD television will hook your eyes. No, it won’t be playing the regular movie, sports or entertainment channel. Instead, most likely, it will have Street Fighters Dhalsim or Blanka showing off a killer move and calling you for a duel, “Wanna fight?” The fantastic high-definition imagery of the Playstation 3 game on the Bravia will only tempt you to take on the call, “Let’s do it!” Next, you’re on a couch, eyes glued to the screen, palms to the wireless game controller, your thumbs move fast on the buttons to battle out the opponent. If you’re an amateur, an attendant’s ready to guide you through.

Done with the duel, you’re likely to be drawn to a range of sleek, colourful Vaio notebooks on an elevated podium and some of the hippest MP3 players you’ve ever seen displayed round the corner. An attendant may invite you to check on the latest features the Vaios offer, the zipping speed at which you can run applications or surf the Net. He may also connect a notebook to an MP3 Walkman to show how the two work together. That’s not all, perhaps what you’ll find most exciting is a dark theatre room in the outlet with several Bravia LCDs where you can play a movie and experience the home theatre in peace.

Exciting and engaging retailing, isn’t it? That’s what Sony India has been focusing on ever since it renamed its Sony World retail stores to Sony Center in August last year — part of a global initiative to re-align all Sony stores. This was when Sony India Managing Director Masaru Tamagawa rolled out a nationwide refurbishment programme across its network of 240 retail brand stores. “It was an opportunity to take the customer’s retailing experience to a new level. The idea has been to create exciting and engaging store environments with passionate and knowledgeable staff to deliver a compelling hands-on experience,” says Tamagawa. “While the focus earlier was on individual products, now it’s more on demonstrating ‘solutions’ — such as how pictures can be transferred from a digital camera to a notebook or music from a notebook to an MP3 player.”