Sony PlayStation: Partnering through change

The gaming industry has been through a massive period of change in recent years.

As gaming has moved online, gaming brands have had to fundamentally change their business models. They’re no longer just selling consoles and cartridges through high street retailers. Now they’re selling directly to consumers who are downloading games at home.

It was a privilege to be Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe’s trusted change partner across five years, helping Sony PlayStation leaders navigate the multitude of changes that came their way, and align around their new direction.

What we did

It was vital to Sony PlayStation’s continued success that it took an intentional, structured, and human-centred approach to managing and communicating the changes they were going through.

Each of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe’s divisions operates as regional business units, with each of their business leaders needing to translate big strategic decisions into reality.

Working closely with Jim Ryan – now CEO of PlayStation – we devised bespoke programs to help align leaders across those changes, and then explore how they would respond in their regions.

Our job was to help make those transitions as fluid, seamless and joined up as possible. We worked together through changes such as how the business can better understand and serve their customers, grow through change, bring the PS5 to market, and more.

In addition to working strategically with the team, we also brought leaders together for large-scale exercises – such as to go through the Experience Change program – to help them develop their approach to managing change.

Together we explored what the strategic issues meant, and then used design thinking methods to think about how they applied to their region, and what they needed to do to adapt to them. The entire approach was designed to enable this group of leaders to guide their teams forward in each new strategic direction.

“This was such an exciting time to work with Sony PlayStation. The business was going through a period of huge transition, and it was fantastic to work together to get input and buy-in on the changes happening, and think about how they cascaded through the business. It was great to partner with the business across a long period, and use design thinking to help the organization continue to grow significantly through times of change.”

Adam Billing,
Founder, Treehouse Innovation