But shifting to an innovation-focused culture without losing an engineering edge is not a simple matter. It involves managing a number of very real tensions. The authors describe how the company created a committed, resourceful corps of designers who overcame internal resistance by deploying the same tools they use in pursuing innovation: empathy, visualization, and experimentation in the marketplace.
Samsung Electronics knew that in order to become a top brand, it needed a design-focused culture that would support world-class innovation. Managers who were invested in the status quo had to be persuaded to buy in to idealized visions of the future. The company built a corps of designers with a capacity for strategic thinking and the tenacity that enabled them to overcome resistance by deploying the same tools—empathy, visualization, and market experimentation—that they use in pursuing innovation.
Its marketers set prices and introduced features according to what original-equipment manufacturers wanted. Its engineers built products to meet prescribed price and performance requirements.
The few designers working for the company were dispersed in engineering and new-product units, and individual designers followed the methods they preferred. In a company that emphasized efficiency and engineering rigor, the designers had little status or influence. By any measure, his goal was achieved. Samsung now has more than 1, designers. The company has built an impressive record on design, garnering more awards than any other company in recent years. The bold designs of its televisions often defy conventional style.
With its Galaxy Note series, Samsung introduced a new category of smartphone—the phablet—which has been widely copied by competitors. Design is now so much a part of its corporate DNA that top leaders rely on designers to help visualize the future of the entire company. It has been a bumpy journey. Shifting to an innovation-focused culture without losing an engineering edge is not a simple matter.
Suppliers must be brought on board. Managers invested in the status quo must be persuaded to buy in to idealized visions of the future. A risk-averse culture must learn to accommodate experimentation and occasional failure. The corps has helped institute policies and structures that embed design thinking in all corporate functions and provide a framework for reevaluating products in the face of dramatic technological change.
By the first quarter of profits were recovering but were still below prior-year levels. Nevertheless, the big picture is one of impressive innovation and marketplace success. In Lee had launched an initiative to integrate Western practices on strategy, HR, merit pay, and design into the conglomerate, but he had been unsatisfied with subsequent progress. To fuel its design revolution, the company could have sought first-rate expertise from outside.
That certainly would have been the fastest approach, and a number of senior managers pushed to have an internationally known Korean designer take over the design function.
As part of its investment in developing an organization-wide design capability, Samsung brought in faculty members from a well-known art college and created three training programs.
One program trained in-house designers, taking them away from their jobs for as long as two years. The other two were a college and graduate-level school and an internship program.
Lee made the programs a personal priority, which prevented them from being derailed by the objections of business and design executives who were furious about losing their designers for so long.
Numerous Samsung executives now agree that dependence on outside expertise would have done long-term damage. Developing in-house expertise, while laborious, created a group of designers who take a holistic view. It seems doubtful that any group of outside designers, no matter how brilliant, would have been able to do that—even with support from the chairman.
In large companies, the process of innovation is long and tortuous. Samsung was the first pioneer, and one of the only ones since, to build a watch that doubled as a phone — dubbed the Samsung SPH-WP This unique watch phone could not only tell time, but also make phone calls for up to 90 minutes. The screen was of the back-lit monochrome LCD variety, and there were physical buttons navigating around the menu. There were even voice commands for dialing your contacts — fancy.
Wow, things sure have changed a lot since then. By the time production of the phone ended in , Samsung had sold a whopping million units. That makes this device the 8th best selling mobile phone of all time. The second-best selling Samsung phone, in 14th place overall among mobile phones is the Galaxy S4 , with 80 million total sales. Speaking of Android phones, Samsung had a chance to purchase the startup responsible for the operating system — and passed.
The Android team showed the assembled Samsung executives their plans for an OS designed for mobile phones. Rubin then said the Samsung team expressed disbelief that this small startup would be able to make this kind of operating system.
The rest is history, as Google and the Android team developed the OS and officially launched it in October Perhaps it would be Samsung dominating the mobile OS business, not Google. What do you think is the most interesting thing about Samsung? Any interesting facts we missed? Share them with us in the comments below. One of the early strategies that allowed Samsung to compete has been innovating on the advancements of the market leaders. Using the technology and design of the market leaders and then innovating from that advanced starting position seemed to benefit Samsung.
By using the best starting position whether or not that is their devices or competitors, allowed them to stay competitive in so many industries. The approach to innovation using global input and in expensive global expertise seems to be some of their largest advantages.
Since the late 90s Samsung has been able to use their relationship with the Russian Academy of Science to develop and circumvent technology patents of all kinds of devices. This inexpensive expertise is used to not only work directly on innovating its products. TRIZ is an innovative method that allows for problem solving by seeking contradictions in current approach. The amount of training that is put into instilling this innovative system in all of the engineers is close to 3 weeks to make sure that they are properly using this innovative method.
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