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"An enterprise's most vital assets lie in its design and
other creative capacities. I believe that the ultimate winners of the 21st
century will be determined by these skills."1
- Kun-Hee Lee, chairman, Samsung Corp., in 2006.
"We want to be the Mercedes of home electronics."2
- Yun Jong Yong, chief executive, Samsung, in 2004.
"Good design is not simply about aesthetics or making a
product easier to use. It's a central part of the business process, adding value
to products and services and creating new markets."3
- Tony Blair, prime minister, UK.
Introduction
In the 2006 IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Awards4)
competition, Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung) won a gold (for
a touch messenger5) and two silver (for a
portable digital projector and a digital presenter) awards. With these wins,
Samsung held on to its number one position as the company that had won the most
IDEAs in the last five years.
Samsung had made the decision to adopt design as a source of competitive
advantage in the 1990s. Earlier, the company's products had been uninspiring and
undifferentiated. In the early 1990s, the Group chairman, Kun-Hee Lee (Lee),
initiated Samsung's transformation from a low-end OEM6
into a world-class electronics company.
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Sharpening the company's design skills was a significant part
of the initiative.
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However, this required major changes in culture,
processes, and systems within the company. The decade-long initiative
proved to be successful and Samsung came to be perceived as a company
with an exciting product portfolio. The IDEAs and numerous other awards
that Samsung won in the 2000s reaffirmed the company's newly-acquired
design prowess.
With stylish products in its portfolio, the company was able to record
higher sales and higher profits. Interbrand7,
a leading branding consultancy firm, named Samsung as one of the fastest
growing brands in its 2005 brand survey. The top management attributed
the company's success to a great extent to its new design capabilities. |
Samsung Electronics: Success by Design
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