Sony Ericsson revamping to attain status as top three vendor

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications this week eliminated one job in its North American operations-sidelining VP for Corporate Communications Cherie Gary-in an effort to realign its global public relations efforts, which in turn will help it realize its ambitions as a top handset vendor, according to the company.
Gary quietly announced the news to contacts within the industry this week. At the company’s corporate headquarters in London, Merran Wrigley, director of corporate public relations, said the move was part of an ongoing audit of the company’s global communications effort in light of its new goals.
Those goals include attaining the rank of a top-three handset vendor-no timeframe given-and coordinating its global PR efforts by hiring a new, global PR agency. A search for the latter is underway, Wrigley said.
SEMC’s PR efforts previously had been designed to “sell more phones,” she said, and now that the company sought leading market share, it has to position itself as a “thought leader” through events and forums outside the traditional tradeshow circuit.
Attaining the ranks of a top-three handset vendor is a “credible aspiration,” Wrigley said, given Motorola Inc.’s recent woes.
“This has led to internal realignments to get scale and market share,” Wrigley said.
She said that the company’s North American management team would otherwise be unchanged. The decision to eliminate Gary’s position had been made in tandem with SEMC’s North American management team, she said.