Essay on Samsung
Samsung Electronics is a South Korean firm of electronics. Nowadays Samsung is the one of world’s leaders in producing any kind of electronic devices, which we daily use.
Samsung started as a company, producing cheap electronic products and now it’s a premium brand with exceptional products and with strong wish to dominate on electronic market worldwide.In the external environment, Samsung has such competitors as Sony or Mitsubishi, well-known brands that provide high-priced products. Samsung tries not only to stand in one row with them, but overtake them on electronic market. So there is need not only to make competitive prices, but also to offer customers more of interesting models of electronic devices.As became obvious from this case, basic strategy of Samsung is “development of products that would impress consumers with their attractive design and advanced technology” (807), following this strategy it has been decided to emphasis on hardware development, i.
e. on development of all components, which Samsung is use in it’s own products and not to copy the products of another brands (for example Sony) any more. For software Samsung prefer to use products of partner firms. Also Samsung made special emphasis on advertising and creation of new image of company, “in order to create a consistent global brand image for its products” (808).For reorganization they sacked more than one third of their workers, sold a part of business, and hired new managers and engineers, who target new aims of company.
To compete successfully with well-known brands, Samsung must create new ideas and solutions. For that purpose internal environment of Samsung is organized in a way of making competition between departments of developing new products. This helps Samsung to reduce developing process and to establish more of new products on the electronic market.As a future of this strategy, Samsung see a creation of devices for so-called “digital home” (808). They see realization of this idea in situation when “all home appliances from hand-held computers to intelligent refrigerators [will] be linked to each other and adapt to the personal needs of consumers” (808).Nowadays strategy, emphasized on developing it’s own hardware solutions, brings Samsung real benefits.
It became a leader in producing of some core devices, which are “vital to almost every digital product that we use”. But, same time, future of strategy seems a bit futuristic and depends on technical progress and nice economical situation of whole world. Not excluded, the development of this strategy will be corrected.SWOT analysisStrengths of Samsung: Samsung obviously has 3 valuable strengths: they have short period of developing new product, they can introduce in the same time more models than any of Samsung’s rivals and they refresh their lineup faster than any of Samsung’s rivals. Obviously, they have 2 strong preconditions to achieve these results: decreased bureaucracy in a process of approving “new products, budgets, and marketing plans”(808) and system of competition between units of company.Weaknesses of Samsung: Samsung has 2 main weaknesses: one is specific for Samsung and one is common for all electronic companies.
Specific weakness is in its strong wish to emphasis only on hardware developing and uses software of partner companies. “Samsung will remain vulnerable if it does not branch out into software and content”(810) – this is the opinion of “several industry experts” (810). Common weakness is in following fact: “the life cycle of most electronics products tends to be brutally short”(810). So Samsung, as any other electronic company should take in account short high-price period of any innovative product.Opportunities for Samsung: If the idea of digital house will became realistic, Samsung would have a real chance to dominate on the market of devices for this home.
CEO of Samsung “believes that his firm is in a better position to benefit from the day that all home appliances from hand-held computers to intelligent refrigerators will be linked to each other and adapt to the personal needs of consumers”(808).Another opportunity for Samsung is in their emphasis on hardware developing. For continuing the success of this idea, firm must “develop[ing] new factories in locations that offer lower costs”(810). “By choosing to focus on hardware, Yun (CEO of Samsung) has placed his faith in the ability of Samsung to stay at the forefront of core technologies and to master its manufacturing capabilities”(810).Threats for Samsung: The main threat for Samsung is in question: if the idea of digital house will be reality? Nowadays strategy of Samsung is fully relying on that hope. But if somehow this idea will stick – maybe Samsung will be ought to find new ways of strategy developing.
Also threat is in possibility of such world brands as Sony, to find solutions and make a big step forward, overtaking Samsung in electronic market.Another threat for Samsung’s strategy is in possible change of CEO. This can lead changing the strategy to less innovative and Samsung will have a risk to become average company with average results.As we can see out of this case, Samsung now is in a strong competitive position thanks to its modern strategy, management solutions and emphasis on hardware development. On the other hand, weakness of this company is a strong wish to concentrate only on one branch of development (hardware).
This can be counted as weakness, because it can put the company under risk of serious problems, if the situation on hardware market will change in unexpected way. So, Samsung should seriously think about development also of other branches of electronic production.;;
