More than meets the eye

As a manufacturer, Sony is one of the best known brands for consumer electronics and broadcast equipment the world over. But there is much more to the company than this...

The expansive headquarters of Sony Professional Solutions MEA (Sony PSMEA) in Dubai’s International Media Production Zone is a tribute to what the company has achieved in the region over the years. From small beginnings, the company has built its local presence and reputation to a level where it believes it can best serve the needs of its customers.

‘We started the full operation in 1995 and at that time we had about 10 staff,’ recalls Sony PSMEA managing director Rob Sherman. ‘Over the years we’ve grown and grown, now we’re in our third location. We moved here so we could have one site where we have our integration works and our office together,’ he explains. ‘We now have just under 100 staff, so it’s been quite a growth over those years. We’ve taken on more and more of the work that we used to be doing in Europe or in other areas and we’re trying to localise it.’

The ability to offer local service has been a key factor in the growth of Sony PSMEA. And from the modern, comfortable design of its reception area through to the large warehousing space filled with systems being pre-built for various projects, it is easy to see that the old mantra ‘the customer is king’ is taken very seriously. ‘We have the capability to pre-build everything in Dubai. We pre-build it, pre-test it and ship it to site,’ explains Mr Sherman. ‘We’ve found that people much prefer to come and have a look at the things being built. They can come along and see it and say “I like that” or “I don’t like that, can you change it?” We can do changes if it is sat on the production floor in Dubai. If it is sat on the customer premises it is very difficult. There is a lot more flexibility we can offer here.’

One of the most obvious areas where the company has been active is with broadcast studios. As a systems integrator it has equipped many high profile projects across the region including the likes of the dedicated EPL studios in Abu Dhabi and a pair of facilities for Oman TV. For these projects it is not only Sony equipment that is being installed.

‘We’re now doing a lot more of a full systems approach. For example, we are kitting out the whole of Oman TV for HD with full automation systems,’ says the managing director. ‘That sort of project involves probably about 40 per cent of the content as Sony products and around 60 per cent as other vendors who we work with. We act as the main integrator for the whole project.’

For Mr Sherman, this approach brings an advantage for the end customer. ‘It puts a lot of responsibility on our shoulders, but I think it gives the customer more confidence because he’s got a company locally, with a big international backing that can actually deliver it locally,’ says the managing director. ‘Our systems team is now upwards of 10 people to actually do that work. We sub-contract a lot of the work in – the wiring and that sort of work – but the management of it is all done by us.’

The company is currently involved with a large number of broadcast-based projects and Mr Sherman can understandably see a lot of potential in Sony PSMEA’s core sector. ‘The broadcast business is still growing but there is still a lot to do. There are a lot of customers in different stages of progression in the Middle East .You’ve got the big guys at the top who are looking at more digitisation, more automation and trying to be more advanced because they’re really competing on the world stage. You have a lot of the national televisions who are moving like Oman from standard definition to high definition and all that that involves. They’re actually managing to do that and change their operations at the same time, so it’s quite complex for many of them and there are still a lot yet to do that transition,’ he explains. ‘In Africa we have a lot of people either just growing or just starting a new operation and particularly I see that coming in Egypt, that will start to build. I can see still a lot of opportunities.’

Leading on from its experience with studios, Sony PSMEA is now also looking to get involved with fitting out OB vehicles. ‘We’re bringing our first small OB van into Dubai to go to Ethiopia. It’s only four cameras, it’s a small one but it’s a start. Once again we’re trying to start to build those – not the big ones but the small ones,’ says Mr Sherman. ‘We’ll bring in the vehicle itself and then we’ll kit it out locally. That then means the customer can come and see it more easily, they can also come and do their training before it’s delivered.’

This training is one of the most important factors for Mr Sherman. ‘Education is an important thing for us, particularly in Africa. We’ve found that customers really appreciate really understanding what to do and how to operate, and we do have that knowledge because we bring it from all the other operations where we work,’ he explains. ‘We tend to do a lot more seminars, a lot more teaching rather than traditional selling. Also, any system we put in place, we always provide training packages with it. That’s training not just on the technical aspect of a camera, but how to operate it as well, how it fits in.’

While broadcast has been one of the key business areas for Sony in the Middle East, it was not where the company started. That came with servicing the education sector, and now Sony PSMEA is actively targeting this area again. ‘The area we started in 20 years ago was education. We were supplying language laboratories for learning, we were supplying projection systems for the classroom and this was a huge amount of our business,’ recalls Mr Sherman. ‘It sort of dropped off over the years but we still have that knowledge of what goes on in that area.

‘Education is a market we focus on, but we hadn’t been able to offer it as full a range of solutions,’ continues the MD. ‘Now we can do that, all audio-video based but using IP technology. We have a lot of products that we can adapt to that environment. Education is a big and growing market, we will move in that area quite strongly over the next few months.’

Education is not the only market that Sony PSMEA is targeting, it is looking at servicing the wider A/V integration sector. ‘We’re moving into the A/V area,’ explains Mr Sherman. ‘We’ll probably work more with third parties there rather than doing it so much ourselves.

‘I feel we’ve got a big potential based on our history, what we know and how we can do it,’ continues the MD. ‘We are hoping to put together some solutions in some focused areas. We don’t want to go into the general conference room and that sort of thing, we’ll be working more with partners in that area to do installs and put solutions together.’

Targeting these different sectors, the company is understandably looking to grow its business units independently. ‘A/V installations and broadcast are separate business units really. The broadcast industry is a very special and specific industry, you can’t use those sorts of specialists in a general environment,’ says the MD. ‘Education is also a specialist area, so we aim to grow that specialism back in the company. We had it before, we just need to renew it. It will become a separate area, it will be the A/V systems unit as opposed to our broadcast systems.’

Despite this, the company is still keen to bring the different sectors together to highlight to its partners exactly what it can do. ‘We held a big event in Dubai recently where we invited all our dealers and partners from the region,’ concludes Mr Sherman. ‘Previously we’ve done it by business, but this time we did it so the A/V guys could come along and see security products and videoconferencing and they started to understand that there was a lot more to it that just what they have been doing.’

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