Dec 11, 2024
We are here for creators. — Connecting with Creators Around the World with Technology at Our Core (1/2)
At Sony’s 2024 Corporate Strategy Meeting, Sony Group leadership shared Sony’s aim to build the future of creation alongside the creator community. They referred to this strategic direction as the “Creation Shift.” For Sony Group, which operates businesses in many creator-focused domains such as games, pictures, electronics, research and development is an essential part of this vision. What role will Sony R&D organizations play in building this future, and how do they plan to get there?
We spoke with Sony Group CTO Hiroaki Kitano about this directionality.
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Hiroaki Kitano
CTO of Sony Group
Profile
Bulding Technology for Creators,
Creating the Future with Them
──It has been two years since you assumed the position of CTO. What have you been working on since then?
One of my key roles as Sony Group CTO is to set the direction of Corporate R&D (Research and Development) and decide how it will be implemented.
I believe that the role of Corporate R&D is not only to create technology, but also to propose stances on innovation. John Seely Brown, former director of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC), discussed this in his book Seeing Differently (Harvard Business Review School Pres, 1997) and in an article published in the Harvard Business Review.
“The most important invention that will come out of the corporate research lab in the future will be the corporation itself. As companies try to keep pace with rapid changes in technology and cope with increasingly unstable business environments, the research department has to do more than simply innovate new products. It must design the new technological and organizational architectures that make possible a continuously innovating company. Put another way, corporate research must reinvent innovation.”
引用元：John Seely Brown, “Research that Reinvents the Corporation”, Seeing Differently, Harvard Business Review Press, 1997
参考：https://hbr.org/2002/08/research-that-reinvents-the-corporation
In order to achieve this kind of corporate R&D, it is necessary to define how to carry out various R&D activities. First, I decided to take a hard look at the R&D activities being conducted within the group.
After hearing insights from R&D leaders across Sony about the truly diverse range of activities taking place, I felt strongly that we needed to establish a unifying direction for the entire organization.
Therefore, we have set our R&D direction as "We are here for creators" to support the Sony Group's purpose: "Fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology.” We hope to build technology for creators and to create the future with them. This is where the Sony Group's technology is headed, our North Star.
──How exactly did you approach organizing Sony’s corporate R&D?
Before my appointment as CTO, there was a major change in the Sony Group, which was the launch of Sony Group Corporation ("SGC"). This change was not simply a change of company name, but a major change in our corporate architecture, which also had a major impact on how we execute corporate R&D.
With Sony Group’s new corporate structure, SGC focuses on group headquarter functions, while each of Sony’s six operating companies focus on needs of the individual businesses.
This means that each of the operating companies will take the lead in their business area, while SGC will concentrate on functions that contribute to group operations. Based on this approach, research and development organizations for technologies closely related to specific business areas were merged from the group headquarters into the operating companies. We have changed to a system that can easily improve the speed of development and contribute to business.
Sony Group Corporation is structured to support and accelerate innovation across Sony. As a result, SGC and its direct subsidiaries are currently working on projects with cutting-edge R&D themes that could have an impact in a wide range of areas. For example, Sony Research / Sony AI, an AI-focused research organization directly under SGC, has research sites primarily in North America, Europe, Japan, and India. Its mission is to conduct AI-related research that will have a significant impact on a wide range of areas within the Sony Group, including the future of creation.
Building a Community with Technology as its Core
──How do you address cross-sectional communication among engineers and researchers?
Within the Sony Group, there are various communities of researchers and engineers who have crossed organizational boundaries to form deep collaborations over many years.
For example, the Sony Technology Exchange Fair (STEF) is an annual technology exchange event that has been held within the Sony Group since 1973. At STEF, employees from across Sony gather to share and discuss technology being developed throughout the company. Other activities include the "Corporate Distinguished Engineer" community, which is responsible for formulating and executing Sony Group's technology strategies while fostering growth among Sony’s rising technical talent., The "Technology Strategy Committee" is another collaborative group which shares the latest technologies and know-how across the group in each technical domain.
As a creative entertainment company, the intersection of technology and creation is also very important. In 2023, we launched the "Sony Creators Conference" to externally introduce our new initiatives in creating entertainment by leveraging Sony Group's technologies across various fields. In addition, we held the Sony Entertainment Technology Showcase (SETS) in Los Angeles in 2023 and in London in 2024, which provided an opportunity for Sony Group employees and creators involved in the entertainment business to introduce technologies that can be used immediately in production, as well as exchange ideas and opinions. Through these activities, a community has been formed at the intersection of technology and creation, and we have created diverse connections.
We also believe that we will see more and more of the type of exchanges where one business unit provides technology to another.
