Why was Abel Makhraz the Deputy General Manager at Sony Australia walked to the door last week and why have staff and other senior management not been given a reason and have still not been given a reason?
According to current Sony executives as well as former executives senior management are normally given a reason and staff an explanation. At this stage no replacement has been announced with a major shakeup of the consumer business tipped at Sony Australia.
Irrelevant of why he was forced to leave the Company, Makhraz held a lot of sway at Sony and questions are now being asked as to what will the fallout be and what, is the future for distributors such as Directed Electronics who had built up a close working relationship with Makhraz since his early days in Sony selling and marketing car radios and accessories.
He joined the Company in 2006 rising through the ranks to become part of the top management team reporting to new Sony Managing Director Australia Yuzo Otsuki who sanctioned the exit of Makhraz.
Otsuki is an experience Sony executive who is believed to have initiated a major audit of Sony Australia’s operations when he took on the top role in April 2019 resulting in several changes, we have also been told that during the audit “irregularities” were found in the way the Australian subsidary operated.
Prior to Australia Otsuki was based in several Countries including China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan and was responsible for establishing Sony’s So-net operation in Taiwan and the China Shenzhen Sony office for the Japanese Company.
He speaks Japanese, English, and Mandarin.
Makhraz was primarily responsible for Sony’s consumer business spanning TV and audio he was also responsible for marketing and channel relationships.
Currently Sony sells their consumer products direct to Harvey Norman, JB Hi Fi, and The Good Guys with the rest of their business via distributors such as Dicker Data, Melbourne based distributor Directed Electronics who have seen their Sony business grow from car audio to TV’s and a big range of audio products.
ChannelNews understands that Directed Electronics is turning over approximately $300M with Sony business worth an estimated $60-70M.
According to sources Makhraz was protective of Directed Electronics with two distributors telling ChannelNews that when they approached Sony with proposals to distribute Sony products their requests were dismissed by Makhraz who highly successful growing Sony’s channel business had been.
We have also been told that recently Sony reached out to distributors to see whether they are in a position to Sony consumer products.
