Sanyo is losing money. The solution? Make everyone who works there buy Sanyo stuff!
posted February 2nd 2005 7:03AM
Sanyo is expected to announce a loss of nearly $700 million for its most recent quarter, but fortunately the brilliant execs there have a plan: they're asking everyone at the company to pitch in and buy Sanyo products! Everyone, from senior management on down, has guidelines for how much they're expected to spend. We're not experts or anything, but we're pretty sure that begging your employees to buy their own company's products in an attempt to boost your bottom line is usually a sign that things are really, really not going so well. Sanyo spokesperson Ryan Watson, a man obviously skilled at soothing nervous shareholders, did make it clear that this "is not the first time we've conducted the 'buy Sanyo campaign.'" That makes us feel loads better.
Is this Fucked Company or Engadget?
duh, sanyo makes gadgets.
There's one thing your article failed to mention - that the main reason SANYO have incurred such a loss is because of major damage caused to a factory by the recent earthquake in Japan. This natural disaster has hit SANYO hard and the only way of ensuring that things can get back to normal, especially for those employees whos jobs have been affected by the quake, is to sell more SANYO products. I'm sure that most SANYO employees would be more than happy to purchase a few products to keep other people around the world in jobs and I for one feel that this is a reasonable request for SANYO staff.
it's a shame they have to resort to this; IMO sanyo makes the best cellphones. especially compared to samsung, who constantly packs more and more new features in while seemingly ignoring basic features like signal strength and sound quality.
I would be willing to bet that the natural disaster was merely the catalyst to a much larger problem. I don't think Sanyo has done particularly well over the last few years. Their booth at CES this year wasn't very impressive. The big thing they were pushing were little flash memory based camcorders.
The main benefit won't come from the revenue from employees buying Sanyo, but from employees having new gear to show of to their friends, who will buy new Sanyo gear and show it off to _their_ friends, lather, rinse, repeat.
Word of mouth marketing will ultimately result in more profits than the revenue from employees buying Sanyo stuff will.
don't the employees get a discount anyway? employee purchases don't have a lot of profit.
if anything, they should ban employees from buying their products!
I have the cell pohone that is in the picture. Same exact model. Great phone. But yeah Sanyo looks to be in a rather bad state.
They are offering incentives for employees to buy their products. It isn`t a "required" thing, but more like a socially required thing - just like car companies who don`t let their employees drive other makers` cars.
It is REALLY a good thing to buy the products.
In Japanese companies, at the end of the financial year (April) you get a bonus based on how much was sold during that year. If there is a minus, then your bonus dwindles and disappears. The goal is to buy products to try and save the bonus for this year.
(Have a relative working here: http://www.solar-ark.com/ )
This kind of thing is very common in Japan. A friend owns a large printing company and they are often asked (with no right of refusal) to buy a lot of expensive equipment produced by their customers.
Sanyo is not out of line for asking it's Japanese workforce to buy its products in bad or slow times. And this is not the first time for an Asian company. I think it's a great idea.
I was born in an Oriental country and if my Asian company asked me for help, I'll put my heart into it. If I were to work for an American company I would not put my heart into it. The culture here (in the US) is different. You are expected to put your time in the company you work for and that is it. I pick up my check, I don't give a dang about picking up trashes I find in the parking lot. Don't give a hoot about how I handle the tools either. And this is mimiced by most workers. My day is done, my check is sent, so what.
Before, I use to pick up trash, clean up around the restroom, be polite to others, etc. Do this now and you'll just get mugged in the parking lot. And by the way, who ever jump- kick my Honda parked outside a California warehouse where I work, left a huge dent and a shoe print, should better come forth. >:-(