Strategic Analysis Of Sonic Records Employee Compensation

Entertainmentnow.com is an international Internet retail Website offering an array of books, music, videos, DVDs, toys, and small electronics. The company has historically marketed and sold to individual consumers, but has recently expanded their market to serve corporate and institutional customers as well. The company purchases products from vendors, holds the products in inventory, and then fulfills customer orders directly. This business model is similar to Amazon.com’s, making them one of the company’s main competitors.

Starting a business can be an exciting time for an entrepreneur but new market concepts and opportunities are useless without the strategies to operate the company to success. Day to day strategies are needed to achieve the organizations goals. The largest expense of any company is usually the compensation strategy. The face of the retail company is the service staff and their relation to the customer are paramount to success. Firms are in competition to find qualified, engaged employees. The pressure for an organization to get it right is the key to competitive success. Companies now look to creative compensation strategies to create a environment that employees want to

As a component of the structural variables in the organization of Henderson Printing the reward system is archaic and ineffective at best, it is therefore important to understand the contextual variables affecting Henderson that will determine the most appropriate managerial strategy for this organization. Of the five contextual variables, Environment is the most critical. Henderson Printing is operating in an environment that is stable, their technology is not changing rapidly, they do not have an unpredictable regulatory environment, the life cycles of their products are long term, and demand for the their

Emusic. EMusic’s success results from much more than just selling music, it’s what and how they use technology to get their customer 's attention to meet their needs. Their relationship with their customers is based on a customer-focused marketing strategy. By trying and targeting their customers, eMusic use digital music service for independent-minded music collectors to satisfy online customer experiences. The thing that eMusic use to drives genuine value for their customer’s music is focusing on the independent-minded music lovers and collectors. The ‘Independents’ are defined by certain behaviors. Their musical tastes are more offbeat, as opposed to mainstream. They are also more passionate about music overall and are always actively seeking out music that’s new to them. 71% of the ‘Independents’ purchase digital music files online to own (Business Wire, 2011, p 1).

A. E-Sonic NAICS falls into two different codes 334614 and 512220. The first code 334614 definition is, “Providing mass duplication of recorded products; Software and other Prerecorded Compact Disc, Tape, and Record Reproducing” (). This code is given in reference to E-Sonic’s producing of music on to various forms of products.

The resulting data was then analyzed for each structure. A regression equation was provided and resulting annual salaries for each position based on allocation of evaluation points was calculated. A table providing minimum, first quartile, average, median, third quartile, and maximum pay for each position in the structure based on the data was also provided. Using this information and the pay policy level decisions on whether or not to lead or lag the market a preliminary pay level for each position was also reached. Whether or not to overlap pay grades came into consideration when deciding on the spread for each structure. Depending on overlap in compensable factors between structures a spread of 50% or 10% was chosen. For example, in the customer service structure the positions have little in common and thus a 10% spread in order to have no overlap was chosen while for the software engineering structure the positions included a lot of overlap in knowledge and skills thus the spread of 50% was chosen.

A well-articulated compensation philosophy drives organizational success by aligning pay and other rewards with business strategy. It provides the foundation for plan design and administration and anchors current and future plans to the company's culture and values (Kaplan, 2006, p.32). Recognizing and rewarding achievement is the cornerstone of the company A’s compensation philosophy. The mission of the company is to attract, select, place and promote all individuals based on their qualifications. The company believes that performance-based compensation helps attract, develop and retain talented professionals. In addition to base pay which based upon local market conditions and targeted to be above market, the company provides the following types of potential compensation to reward performance:

Executive Summary: This strategic analysis focuses on many aspects needed for Sonic Records to build a competitive and successful online music store. E-sonic, subsidiary of Sonic Records was created with the vision of becoming the world’s leading online music store. This strategic analysis contains company objectives, strengths, weaknesses, functionality, potential challenges and insight on what makes competitors successful. It also contains trends, projections, and opportunities within a fast growing global market.

This paper will examine setting the stage for strategic compensation and bases for pay. There are three main goals of compensation departments: internal consistency, market competitiveness, and recognition of individual contributions. Internally consistent compensation systems define the relative value of each job among all jobs within a company. (Martocchio, pg. 22, 2011) With this system companies want employees to be paid more based on their qualifications and responsibilities. They believe someone with less experience should be paid differently. To determine such evaluation companies use job analysis in order to provide job descriptions. The job evaluation is to determine pay according to a particular position. Market-competitive

In 2000 the digital music was the next big thing in how consumers listen to music. The technological shift in music changed how the relationship is between the artists, recording companies, promoters and music stores on how they operate today. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks allowed free exchange of music files with companies like Napster and Kazaa was a big step that allowed consumers to store large libraries of music. With the cost of hard drive space going down; it allowed for pocket-sized computers to store more information in a smaller space that open the door for apple to step in with the unveiling of the iPod and iTunes. These systems made it possible for storage and playback that gave consumers the

Labor Market is vital for every company seeing that it relates to having the best employees within your organization. In fact, E-Sonic is no different, so they need to seek out skilled, knowledgeable and qualified workers for E-Sonic to be a success in all areas in their new business model. According to Martocchio (2013), E-Sonic must adapt quickly to the market shift by employing skilled workers with the knowledge of online marketing with marketing initiatives to operate their new and tech savy online music industry delivered to their current customers and future ones. Based on the Bureau of Labor statistics when it comes on to Software developers they obtain the median pay of $100,690 per year in 2015. There will be a 17 per cent increase

No one can deny that technology is actively changing the music industry. Production, distribution and sales of music have been affected dramatically within the last 10 years along with artists, composers, and technicians. Most of the changes have been great for consumers, but vastly negative for professionals in the music industry, however a few artists have found ways to adapt to the changing atmosphere of digitally downloaded music and use it to their advantage. We’ve seen music change form from physical, tangible products like records and CD’s to electronic single tracks stored in an invisible cloud. Two major factors in this sudden revolution are online music stores (specifically iTunes) and file sharing websites that allow music to be downloaded illegally.

Contained in this analysis is a recommendation as to the content and structure of Sonic’s mission statement,

When speaking economically, the digital music sector of the international music industry is undoubtably the most important sector in the industry. Within the last decade, music has seen cardinal changes in the way both major and independent labels distribute their products. An industry that once relied on Payola 's and mass distribution of physical records and CD 's now relies heavily on the power of the internet. The first instance of mass distribution of music through the internet was by the service Ritmoteca.com in 1998 [1]. Ritmoteca had a library of over 300,000 songs, offering individual songs for 99 cents each and albums for $9.99. After signing distribution deals with many major music labels such as Warner

In the midst of the United States’ “dot com bubble” (years 1997-2000), there was a surge in technology that brought about file sharing and digital downloads. Threatening the survival of the music industry and introducing a unique set of challenges for the industry to overcome. To remain relevant in the new global market of digital music online, the music industry would have to evolve and change with the introduction of each new facet technology had to offer. The introduction of digitally compressed music files, so easily attainable for a small fee or downloaded legally (pirated) for free, made the music industry reevaluate how to make a profit and protect copyrights. Social media created a visible opportunity for both consumers and artists to maintain digital relationships while providing a platform for consumers to follow and discover new musicians and bands, naturally, making the internet a promotional medium for artists. As the corner record shops closed to make way for virtual storefronts and instant downloads; the internet, digital downloading, and social media made an enormous impact on the music industry that has changed the way consumers purchase, source, listen to, and produce music today.