1. What do you think of the change in Sony Music Entertainment’s organizational structure, from a geographical structure to an artist-driven organization?

2. How would you produce a sales and marketing budget for Pink’s forthcoming single and album?

3. How would you control your budgets? What key figures would you monitor?

4. Which marketing mix would you suggest to increase Sony Music Entertainment’s share in the UK market, where the company has less than 20 per cent market share?

5. What are the pros and cons for Sony Music Entertainment and Pink making all Pink’s music available on an online music service like Spotify.

6. What can Sony Music Entertainment do to reduce the level of digital piracy of their music?

With a world market share of 24 per cent (Universal Music has 27 per cent) SME is still No. 2 in the industry among the Big ones (see Table 1 in the case). But Sony Music Entertainment cannot relax – the competitors (EMI and Warner Music) are not far behind. In Spring 2009, SME introduced a new organizational strategy for its music labels and corporate staff that would allow the company to focus on creating global music superstars who reach across geographical boundaries. The streamlining of the organization eliminates regional corporate groups in Europe, Asia and Latin American regions.
Sony Music Entertainment wants to strengthen relationships with its artists. The top management of the company thinks this structure allows its creative executives to be closer to artists, while allowing managers to better support their creative executives. Sony Music Entertainment wants an organization built on record labels with global reach. The labels and the creative executives should be able to work more closely with artists while being able to rely on effective global marketing capabilities.