EGP Sales & Marketing Excellence
The European Graduate Programme (EGP) is aimed to develop enthusiastic graduates with an excellent academic track record, who are looking for an enriching and diverse experience.
Over 2 years, the graduates rotate on 2 challenging business assignments contributing to current business priorities within an international environment. Throughout the two years, they attend 8 panEuropean training modules, each module focussing on a part of Sony's value chain in Europe. For their fourth training module, Sony Europe's Marketing Strategy Office Director, Tim Kaner, guided the second year graduates (EGP07) through the process of generating a solid marketing strategy through to the creation of a tactical marketing plan. Each graduate will be able to apply this in their various business units across Europe establishing a common language and building core skills for customer focused marketing. Tim noted "it was refreshing to see the way everyone got stuck into the module, working together to reveal insights and develop strategies and ideas. I'm grateful to Sony Deutschland and Audio Marketing Europe for providing real life data and background information on the case since this made the challenge much more stretching. Real-life is always more complex than theory. The energy all brought to the module definitely showed how much a motivated, passionate team can accomplish even in a short space of time." Before and during the training module they worked as virtual teams on a perfectly designed SDL case study allowing the graduates to apply the methodology on a real life business issue: the introduction of Reader to the German market. At the end of day two, each team presented their Sony Reader marketing plan to a Jury consisting of Sony Deutschland's top management. Jeffry Van Ede, Managing Director of Sony Deutschland commented "it is always refreshing to see a young and dynamic group of people working so passionately together to give their best shot at a case. Their big advantage is the fact that they have limited experience and thus do not yet have the weight many of us have in knowing all the obstacles and past failures. This freedom of thought is their strength and something Sony should leverage more on. I hope they will keep 'fresh' for many more years and wish them all the best with their careers in Sony."
A former European graduate (EGP06) and now Product Manager for Reader in Sony Deutschland and member of the SDL Jury added "as a former Eurograd and now being responsible for the Reader I could really put myself in their shoes. During training modules you have to work out a plan about a relatively unknown topic in a very short time and present it to top management. One big advantage for them was that they had the chance to work on a really interesting project which has high business relevance for Sony. A case you don't really get to work on every training module." Finally, one the graduates participating at the module concluded "I really enjoyed the two days we spent in Berlin for the EGP SDL Reader module. Taking the marketing excellence methodology and applying this to the Reader launch  from situation appraisal and analysis to developing key insights and using these as a basis for the strategic direction and marketing plan was an interesting challenge. In particular, I think the opportunity to present our results to and exchange thoughts and ideas with SDL management and the team responsible for the Reader was very much appreciated by all of us."
