Samsung digitall everyone's invited dvd

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CASE 9

Samsung Overtaking Philips, Panasonic, and Sony as the Leader in the Consumer Electronics Industry

During the past century, industry leadership in the global consumer electronics industry (e.g., radios, TVs, movie and music players, etc.) has changed, with Philips (Netherlands), Panason- ic, Sony (Japan), and Samsung (Korea) emerging as leaders at different times. Indeed, each company achieved leadership with a different international strategy, a different organization design, and a different set of organizational capabilities. Philips built a worldwide federation of independent national organizations able to gain access to the company’s renowned tech- nological prowess and then to apply and adapt it to meet local market needs. Philips was the worldwide leader in consumer electronics from the early 1900s until the late 1970s. During the 1980s, Panasonic used overseas expansion to leverage its centralized, highly efficient opera- tions in Japan, exploiting global-scale economies in R&D and production to offer lower-cost products and overtake Philips as the world leader in consumer electronics. In similar fashion, Sony leveraged its centralized operations in Japan to produce standardized products around the globe. Sony invested far more in R&D than Panasonic did, though, and it was typically the technological and innovation leader in the industry, if not the sales leader, from 1980–2005. By 2009, Samsung had seemingly come out of nowhere to become the world leader in consumer electronics, however. Like Sony, Samsung made large investments in R&D so that it emerged as a technological leader in TVs, DVD players, and smart phones. But rather than just making standardized products that were sold around the globe, Samsung took a more decentralized approach than Panasonic and Sony, which allowed it to do some customizing of products for specific markets. By 2014, Samsung’s lead continued to grow. Observers wondered whether the pattern of leader replacement would continue or if Samsung was on top to stay.

Philips Leadership Era: 1900–1980 Philips was founded in 1891 in Eindhoven, Netherlands, by Dutch engineer Gerard Philips and his brother, Anton. The two brothers initially focused on the light bulb business, with Gerard in charge of product development and Anton in charge of sales. Gerard and Anton began a friendly competition in which Gerard would try to produce more than Anton could sell and vice versa.1 The two agreed that strong basic R&D and product development efforts where vital to the success of Philips, so the company made R&D and product development high priorities. The Philips emphasis on research and product development helped it to become a leader in its field, rivaling General Electric in the early 1900s in the electric lamp industry.

In 1914, Philips established its first research laboratory dedicated to developing break- through technologies in lighting. This investment helped the company create some of the world’s leading innovations in lighting, such as the tungsten metal filament bulb—a superior

Philips Leadership Era: 1900–1980 C-97

advancement over the common carbon-filament lamps. Moreover, the Philips emphasis on research led the company to experiment and develop new technologies that allowed it to expand its product portfolio. For example, in 1918, Philips started to produce electronic vacuum tubes, and soon after that, it was producing X-ray tubes, electric shavers, and small generators. Philips’ most successful new products were arguably its radios, which, by 1936, a mere ten years after the device’s introduction, had captured a nearly 20 percent world market share.2

Due to the small size of the Netherlands, Philips was forced to expand internationally in order to leverage its investment in R&D and develop economies of scale in production. By the early 1900s, Philips had begun selling in a wide range of countries, including the United States, France, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Australia, and Japan.3 With such a diverse group of inter- national operations, Philips decided to adopt English as the company language, requiring its use across all of its management ranks. In anticipation of what would become World War II, Philips shifted assets away from the Netherlands and further decentralized management con- trol to the national organizations (NOs) in each country. Anton Philips and much of the top management team fled to the United States, and its main research lab was moved to England. The decentralization of Philips during the war enabled the NOs in each country to become more independent, thus allowing them to respond to their local market conditions. Each of the larger country NO presidents controlled multiple functions for their countries, including R&D, prod- uct design, manufacturing, and sales and distribution (see Exhibit 1). In order to succeed in each local market, the NOs tailored the Philips products to meet consumer preferences in each different country market. For example, some countries, such as the United States, preferred large furniture-encased television sets, but other countries, such as India, demanded inexpen- sive, small TVs—often placed inside closable shutters to keep the dust away. Additionally, dif- ferent countries had different ways to penetrate the market, such as through establishing a TV rental business or selling through department stores or discount retailers.4 The NOs had the flexibility to address the local market as they saw fit while drawing upon Philips’s technology and financial resources. For example, Philips of Australia made the first stereo TV, and Philips of the United Kingdom created the first TV with teletext.5 Other countries could then access those technologies and adapt them to their local markets.

As time went on, Philips matured into its postwar organization. Fourteen product divisions (PDs) with responsibility for each product’s development, production, and global distribution were established in Eindhoven. The product divisions were created to better coordinate across country markets. But the real power remained with the NOs.6 The NOs were highly autonomous and reported directly to the management board (often sending proxies

CEO and Management Board

National Organizations (U.S., U.K., Germany,

Japan, etc.)

R&D Product

Development Manufacturing Marketing

Product Divisions

Development

Production

Distribution

International Concern Council

Administration -Finance, Legal HR

EXHIBIT 1 Philips Organization Structure in the 1950s

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to represent their interests). But after the European Common Market broke down trade bar- riers during the 1960s and 1970s, Philips’ competitors—especially Panasonic (then named Matsushita) and Sony—started to gain the upper hand. Products started to become more standardized across markets. Whereas Panasonic and Sony were producing large volumes of standardized products in low-wage countries in Asia, Philips was producing smaller vol- umes of more tailored products in many different countries. Over time, Philips products could not compete with the products of its Japanese competitors on price or reliability. As a result, Philips’s market share in various consumer electronics products started to fall. The company made numerous attempts to centralize the company in order to compete against its large-scale competition. Such attempts included consolidating production to a smaller number of high- volume plants called international production centers, closing inefficient operations, shifting production to low-wage countries, and reorganizing the company into core and noncore busi- nesses. But Philips’s market share and profitability continued to decline.

Other problems outside of production also arose for Philips as a result of its decentral- ized organization structure. In the 1970s, Philips lost the battle as the provider of the preferred videocassette technology when its V2000 format had to be abandoned due to its North American NO deciding to license and sell Panasonic’s VHS format (originally developed by JVC, a subsidiary of Panasonic).7 Despite being a technologically superior format, V2000 was unable to capitalize on world market demand because it sold only in Europe on the PAL standard, whereas its Japanese competitors sold globally. VHS would eventually become the market’s preferred format, surpassing both Philips’s V2000 and Sony’s Beta formats, and it would lead Panasonic to the top of the consumer electronics industry in the 1980s.8 By 1987, Philips was one of only two non-Japanese consumer electronics companies in the world’s top ten (the other was General Electric). Its profit margins of 1 to 2 percent lagged behind its Japanese competitors’ 4 to 6 percent (see Exhibit 2).

Between 1990 and 2005, Philips continued to reorganize to centralize operations in an attempt to gain greater efficiencies. In the early 1990s, CEO Jan Timmer reduced headcount by 68,000, or 22 percent, earning him the nickname “The Butcher of Eindhoven.”9 Due to European

E X H I B I T 2 Philips Group Summary Financial Data, 1970–2016

In millions of dollars: 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005 2010 2013 2014 2015 2016

Net Sales $4,163 $16,993 $32,996 $35,253 $25,628 $19,228 $31,209 $33,423 $29,335 $29,664

SG&A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A $556 $1,270 $9,173 $8,499 $8,147

Cost of Sales N/A N/A N/A N/A $4,006 $3,968 $6,789 $20,602 $17,409 $16,824

As % of net sales N/A N/A N/A N/A 16% 21% 22% 61.6% 59.3% 56.7%

R&D Expenses N/A N/A N/A N/A $2,152 $1,192 $2,318 $2,555 $1,463 $1,022

As % of net sales 8.4% 6.2% $0 7.6% 5.0% 3.4%

Advertising Expenses N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A $1,235 $1,355 $1,427 $1,210

Income Before Taxes N/A N/A −1414 2814 1500.0% 1562.0% $2,664 $759 $754 $1,681

Net Income 123 247 −2631 N/A 1097.0% 1085.0% $1,568 $642 $797 $1,804

As % of net sales 3% 2% −8% N/A 4.3% 5.6% 5% 1.9% 2.7% 6.1%

Total Assets $5,273 $18,440 $30,530 $35,885 $28,551 $24,409 $35,530 $44,300 $37,481 $39,087

Employees (in thousands) 359 373 273 219 159 119 116 1,12,959 1,13,678

Labor Costs 1,627 7,134 10,404 7,895 5,760 N/A N/A

As % of total employees 39% 42% 32% 22% 23% 24% N/A

Net Income Per Employee $13,761

Exchange Rate (fiscal period end; guilder or euro/dollar)

3.62 2.15 1.69 1.074 1.186 1.322 1.25 1.25 1.1 1.1

Source: Annual reports.

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laws that require substantial compensation for layoffs (typically 15 months of pay), the first round of 10,000 layoffs cost Philips $700 million. However, after three years of cost cutting, a McKinsey study estimated that the value added per hour in Japanese consumer electronic factories was still 68 percent above that of European plants. In 1996, Cor Boonstra replaced Timmer and announced that “There are no taboos, no sacred cows” and “The bleeders must be turned around, sold, or closed.”10 Within three years, he sold off 40 of Philips’ 120 major businesses, including well-known units such as Polygram and Grundig. While closing 100 of the company’s 356 factories worldwide, he argued, “How can we compete with the Koreans [new competitors Samsung and LG]? They don’t have 350 companies all over the world. Their factory in Ireland covers Europe and their manufacturing facility in Mexico services North America.” He also increased advertising by 40 per- cent to raise awareness of the Philips brand and de-emphasize most of the other 150 brands it supported worldwide—from Magnavox TVs to Norelco shavers to Marantz stereos (many of these local brands had been acquired to strengthen Philips’s position in specific local markets). These and other actions helped Philips become more efficient and improved profitability from losses in the early 1990s to profit margins typically in the 4-6 percent range from 2000–2010 (see Exhibit 2).

During the first decade of the new century Philips continued the trend of closing fac- tories in high wage countries, outsourcing most of the production of its consumer electronics lines and moving in house production to China, Poland, or Mexico. Still, by 2012, Philips had 118 production plants in 24 countries

In addition to looking for savings in manufacturing, Philips also cut back on its advertising budget and focused its channel management on 200 large chains (as opposed to 600 prior to 2001). These moves bore fruit as Philips’ net margins increased to 4.3% in 2005 and 5.6% in 2010, but the increasingly intense competition cut their margins to 1.9% in 2014. In response, Philips increased its advertising but cut its R&D budget by 60% by 2016. That revived the bottom line, bringing it up to 6.1% in 2016, but at what cost for a firm that was known for its innovation? The cost turned out to be very steep indeed.

Philips decided to restructure its company in fundamental ways. In 2011 net profit had dropped 85% and in response Philips laid off 4,500 workers and vowed to cut costs by $1.1 billion dollars.11 To meet that goal, they sold their television manufacturing operations12, their audio and video businesses13, consumer electronic operations14, and even divested themselves of their lighting business15 - the business that launched Philips in 1891. This move was highlighted by a change in the name from Philips Electronics to just Philips16. Their new focus was on medical equipment, consumer lifestyle products17, and products for emerging markets (e.g.; they acquired Preethi, a leading India-based kitchen appliance firm in 2011). Philips had gone from being the un disputed market leader in consumer electronics and lighting to exiting both businesses. With such fundamental change it was anyone’s guess as to whether Philips could turn things around.

Panasonic and Sony Leadership Era: 1980–2000 In 1918, a 23-year-old Osaka Electric Company inspector named Konosuke Matsushita (affec- tionately known as “KM”) invested a mere 100 yen to start Matsushita Electric Industrial (MEI). KM started MEI in a two-room house with his wife, brother-in-law, and two employees. The company’s first product was a light bulb attachment plug, and KM aimed to produce products 30 percent cheaper than its competition. MEI was effective at efficient production, and, by 1931, it had grown to employ 1,200 people in 10 plants, producing more than 200 prod- ucts. KM argued that “what manufacturers should aim for is to produce as abundantly and as cheaply as tap water; when this is achieved poverty will be conquered from the face of the earth.” A public offering in 1935 allowed Panasonic to diversify further into domestic fans, light bulbs, small motors, and a variety of domestic appliances. Soon the wave of new products became a flood: black-and-white TV sets in 1958; transistor radios in 1959; color TVs, dishwash- ers, and electric ovens in 1960. By 1968, Panasonic produced 5,000 products compared to

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80 for Japanese rival Sony. Capitalizing on this broad product line, the company opened 25,000 domestic retail distribution outlets. With more than six times the number of outlets than Sony, the ubiquitous “National Shops” represented about 40 percent of all appliance stores in Japan in the late 1960s.

Panasonic’s Organization Structure KM organized MEI into product divisions and forced each division to become self-sufficient in various activities including product development, production, and marketing (see Exhibit 3). This structure allowed KM to easily measure each division’s profit performance because each was a semiautonomous business unit. If a division needed additional funding, it needed to make a loan request to headquarters; a loan request was then received and reviewed, and, if granted, it was accompanied by an interest rate comparable to market rates. Headquarters received 60 percent of each division’s earnings and expected high performance from its division managers (a drop in operating profits to below 4 percent of sales for two consecutive years led to the replacement of the product division general manager). As a result, internal rivalry among the 36 divisions was intense—a characteristic that was believed to fuel the company’s focus on efficiency and rapid growth. Even the central R&D laboratory was underfunded, which forced it to go directly to the product divisions to ask for R&D projects that would be funded by the product divisions. These management practices helped MEI efficiently produce low-cost products, and by the 1960s, MEI was a dominant player in Japan. As the company looked for growth options, it decided to expand internationally and leverage economies of scale from its large-volume factories in Japan. It wasn’t long before MEI was exporting a diverse set of products, including transistor radios, color TVs, dishwashers, and electric ovens under the Panasonic brand.

As MEI expanded internationally, the strategic direction and product development for the company remained closely regulated by its headquarters in Japan. For the most part, prod- ucts were researched, designed, and manufactured in Japan, and then foreign managers came and tried to negotiate for changes to accommodate the products for their region’s pref- erences. Headquarters, however, ultimately had the final say as to whether these proposed changes were approved. In order to ensure efficient control of international operations, the

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd (MEI)

Matsushita Electric Trading Co. (METC)

Tape Recorder Division

Radio Division

Europe Department

Middle East and Africa Department

Planning Department

Foreign Relations Department

Asia I Department

Asia II Department

Latin America Department

Overseas Advertising Department

Overseas Sales

Companies

(ex. N. America)

Overseas Sources

Companies

Overseas Sales And Manufacturing

Companies

North America Sales

Companies

North America Department

Television Division

Corporate Overseas

Management (COM)

Personnel Division

Financial and Accounting

Division

EXHIBIT 3 Panasonic’s (Matsushita) Headquarters Organization for International Companies in 1987 Source: Adapted from Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett, “Matsushita electric industrial (MEI) in 1987,” Harvard Business School Case 9-388, 1990.

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company sent hundreds of expatriate Japanese managers and technicians abroad to oversee international operations and to report back candidly on the state of the company in their assigned areas. As one senior executive noted, “Even if a local manager speaks Japanese, he would not have the long experience that is needed to build relationships and understand our management processes.”18 As such, Panasonic maintained centralized control of local opera- tions around the globe.

Panasonic Overtakes Philips The birth of the videocassette recorder (VCR) propelled Panasonic into first place in the consumer electronics industry during the 1980s. In 1975, Sony introduced the technically superior “Betamax” format VCR, and the next year JVC (a subsidiary of Panasonic) launched a competing “VHS” format. Whereas Sony decided to maintain full control over its Betamax format, Panasonic aggressively licensed the VHS format to a host of other manufacturers, including Hitachi, Sharp, Mitsubishi, GE, RCA, Zenith, and, eventually, Philips. The company quickly built production facilities to meet its own needs as well as those of OEM customers, such as GE, RCA, and Zenith, who decided to outsource production to Panasonic or other Japanese manufacturers. Between 1977 and 1985, capacity increased 33-fold to 6.8 million units. Leveraging the distribution channels and brand names the company had established with earlier products (e.g., Panasonic, National, JVC), the new VCRs met with huge success abroad. Panasonic’s overseas sales growth increased a remarkable 52 percent in 1980 and then by a further 35 percent in 1981. In 1985, VCR sales comprised an estimated 43 percent of over- seas revenue. Increased volume enabled Panasonic to slash prices 50 percent within five years of product launch, while simultaneously improving quality. By the late 1980s, VCRs accounted for 30 percent of Panasonic’s sales and 45 percent of profits.

It wasn’t until the late 1980s and a change in CEO that Panasonic looked to move toward a more decentralized strategy. CEO Toshihiko Yamashita launched “Operation Localization” in hopes of dispersing innovation development and increasing local customization of products; however, for a company so entrenched in a centralized mentality, the change was met with resistance. By 1995, only 250 of the company’s 3,000 R&D scientists and engineers were located outside of Japan, and this was viewed as a problem given the emergence of lower-cost sources of high-quality engineers and scientists outside of Japan. Panasonic did establish numerous factories in countries such as Malaysia where wage rates were significantly lower than they were in Japan.

Due to low cost competition and Panasonic’s difficulty in decentralizing operations, Panasonic spent nearly 20 years in decline. Overall profit margins were 3.9% in 1990 but steadily declined until they hit rock bottom at −9.8% in 2013 (see exhibit 4). The decline in profits were accompanied by exiting the analog TV business (30% of Panasonic’s TV business) in 200619, exiting the HDTV segment in 200820, and much of the rest of its television manufacturing businesses in 201121. CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga stated in its annual report, “Our status is one of deep crisis. If we fail to act now, we will lose our standing in the eyes of the world.”

In 2009 Panasonic merged with Sanyo in a bid to increase market share22. It did increase sales temporarily but resulted in overlapping businesses. Panasonic laid off 40,000 workers in 201123 and another 10,00024 in 2012 after their stock dropped to its lowest point since 197525. Clearly something was not working.

Finally, Panasonic made the decision to build more plants in low wage countries, starting with a factory in Vietnam in 201326. Following that move, Panasonic began a series of projects and joint ventures including a stake in a Slovenian household appliance business27, the acquisition of a video surveillance service28, a joint venture to make personalized digital store signs29, entry into Africa30, an indoor vegetable growing factory in Singapore31 and the acquisition of a satellite communication service provider32.

The jewel of the scattered approach to recovery was the 2014 announcement of a joint venture with Tesla to build a “GigaFactory” in the U.S. to manufacture batteries for Tesla’s electric cars33. This joint venture went so well that in June 2016 Tesla named Panasonic its sole supplier of batteries34. In response Panasonic raised $3.86 billion in bonds to complete the Gigafactory35.

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Despite the scattered approach, all of these moves, particularly the alliance with Tesla, revived Panasonic’s fortunes. Profit margins slowly rose. By the end of 2016 they were at 2.5 percent (see exhibit 4). And perhaps the cherry on top of the cake was that in 2016 Panasonic was able to re-enter the television market with a transparent TV36.

Both Philips and Panasonic had been leaders in consumer electronics. Both suffered deep losses and, in order to survive, ended up divesting themselves of consumer electronics and re-creating themselves in other businesses. While Philips focused on a few businesses where it was a market leader, Panasonic struck out in dozens of directions from vegetables to satellites. Which approach will pay off? Or will both companies decline again?

Sony Enters the Fray In 1946, Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita launched Sony (originally Totsuko) as a radio repair business and short-wave converter manufacturer.37 Although the company had humble beginnings, during the inauguration of the company, Ibuka prophetically declared that the company would create technologies that large corporations could not match. Ibuka said, “The reconstruction of Japan depends on the development of dynamic technologies.”38 The found- ers then set out to use the surplus of electricity left by the wartime factories to create consumer electronics. The founders hired engineers with a desire to create new products and focused the company on innovation. Some products, such as the vacuum-tube voltmeter and the electrically heated cushion, “sold like hotcakes,” but others, including the primitive electric rice cooker, were memorable failures.39 The company learned from its successes and failures, how- ever, as the founders guided their employees with the slogan “Research Makes the Difference.”

Sony’s focus on innovation motivated its leaders to invest a much higher percentage of their revenues on R&D, an amount typically estimated to be 2-3 times higher than that invested by Panasonic. The innovations that followed included Japan’s first transistor radio,

E X H I B I T 4 Panasonic Summary Financial Data, 1970–2016

In millions of dollars: 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Net Sales $2,589 $13,690 $37,755 $70,864 $73,847 $89,373 $80,889 $73,497 $64,035 $69,494

SG&A N/A N/A N/A N/A $18,890 $22,723 $11,945 $17,029 $14,989 $16,459

R&D Expenses N/A $479 $2,176 $5,107 $5,220 $5,747 $5,363 $4,549 $3,795 $4,138

As a % of net sales 6.2% 5.9% 6.0%

Advertising Expenses N/A N/A N/A N/A $207 N/A $21,000*

Cost of Sales $53,569 $45,876 $49,128

As a % of net sales 72.9% 71.6% 70.7%

Income Before Taxes $408 $1,521 $3,597 $2,126 $2,093 −$349 $451 $1,959 $1,514 $1,997

Net Income $194 $587 $1,484 $971 $492 −$2,060 −$7,961 $1,144 $1,490 $1,769

As % of net sales 7.6% 4.3% 3.9% 1.4% 0.7% −2.3% −9.8% 1.6% 2.3% 2.5%

Total Assets $2,042 $11,638 $49,377 $77,233 $68,280 $100,699 $68,052 $49,523 $49,443 $51,492

Employees (units) 78,924 107,057 198,299 290,448 334,752 384,586 293742 271789 254084

Overseas Employees N/A N/A 59,216 143,773 184,110 231,733 175000 150000 147387

As % of total employees N/A N/A 30% 50% 55% 60% 59.6% 55.2% 58.0%

Exchange Rate (fiscal period end; yen/dollar)

360 213 159 103 118 83 0.0125 0.0103 0.0095 0.0083 0.0092

* Advertising Expenses are for 2012. Note: Data prior to 1987 are for the fiscal year ending November 20; data from 1988 and after are for the fiscal year ending March 31. Source: Morningstar.com & Panasonic Annual Reports Source for Advertising Expenses: http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Panasonic_Corporation_(PC)/Data/Advertising_Expenses/2010

http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Panasonic_Corporation_(PC)/Data/Advertising_Expenses/2010
http://Morningstar.com
Panasonic and Sony Leadership Era: 1980–2000 C-103

the first all-transistor TV, the first VCR (Betamax), the first personal stereo (Walkman), the first CD player, the PlayStation game system, Blu Ray, and many other products.40 Panasonic was usually content to reverse engineer Sony’s products and to be a fast follower with a “me-too” product that was lower priced. Consequently, Panasonic would wait and see how the market responded to Sony’s new products before imitating them.41 Sony, on the other hand, was an industry pioneer. Sony’s innovative new products allowed it to successfully expand on a global scale, particularly to major industrialized nations looking for innovations, such as the United States. In 1960, Sony established Sony Corporation of America (SONAM) in the United States and Sony Overseas, S.A., near Zurich, Switzerland.42 Sony followed that with overseas product development and production facilities in San Diego, California, and Bridgend, Wales. How- ever, these represented a small percentage of Sony’s product development and production activities because Sony’s operations, like Panasonic’s, were largely centralized and conducted in Japan. The main difference between the two companies was that Sony’s R&D focused more on breakthrough technologies that would lead to new products, whereas Panasonic’s focused more on process technologies that allowed for low-cost and reliable production of products.

Although Sony and Panasonic were leaders in the industry in 1990, the following ten years brought new challenges. Most significantly, Japan’s domestic market for consumer electronics collapsed due to a recession—from $42 billion in 1989 to $21 billion in 1999. Excess capacity drove down prices, and profits evaporated (see Exhibits 4 & 5 for Panasonic and Sony financial information). Although offshore markets were growing, the rise of new competition—first from Korea, then China—created worldwide overcapacity. Samsung had become a particularly effective new competitor by focusing on design and innovation as a way to differentiate its products. By 2005, Samsung was rivaling Sony as a leader in innovation and design and its brand had surpassed Panasonic’s in terms of general desirability by consumers.

E X H I B I T 5 Sony Summary Financial Data, 1970–2016

In millions of dollars:

1970 1980 1990 2000 2005 2010 2013 2014 2015 2016

Net Sales $414.37 $4,191.38 $22,745.39 $66,301.00 $56,718.00 $75,957.00 $70,111.87 $73,789 $68,192 $74,573

SG&A $89.31 $1,010.69 $5,583.48 $15,660.86 $3,675.00 $18,094.00 $15,027.07 $16,421 $15,035 $15,566

R&D Expenses N/A $220.54 $1,294.26 $4,045.71 $4,545.00 N/A N/A $3,740 $3,332 $3,771

As % of net sales N/A 0.2% 1.7% 5.3% N/A N/A 5.1% 4.9% 5.1%

Advertising Expenses

$4,507 $3,689 $3,600

Cost of Sales $56,584 $43,784 $55,887

As a % of net sales 76.7% 64.2% 75.0%

Income Before Tax $56.58 $573.55 $1,900.51 $2,187.83 $(532.00) $2,407.00 $2,372.16 $245 $413 $2,801

Net Income $28.51 $322.27 $735.38 $16,754.00 $(569.00) $(3,128.00) $443.65 −$1,220 −$1,037 $1,360

As % of net sales 7.6% 4.3% 3.9% 1.4% −1.0% −4.1% 0.6% −1.7% −1.5% 1.8%

Total Assets $445 $4,119 $28,946 $75,999 $90,665 $85,089 $146,300 $145,670 $131,425 $153,395

Employees (units) N/A N/A N/A 36,700 158,500 N/A 91,500 140,900 131,700 125,300

Overseas employees

N/A N/A N/A 22,387 N/A N/A 62.50%

As % of total employees

N/A N/A N/A 61% N/A N/A

Exchange Rate (fiscal period end; yen/dollar)

0.0360 0.0213 0.0159 0.0103 0.0118 0.0083 0.0097 0.0095 0.0083 0.0092

Note: Data prior to 1987 are for the fiscal year ending November 20; data from 1988 and after are for the fiscal year ending March 31. Source: Sony Investor Relations Historical Data; Morningstar; Sony Form 20-4 SEC Filing

C-104 Samsung

Samsung Leadership Era: 2000–Present Samsung group was founded in 1938 by Byung-Chull Lee as a simple trading company in Taegu, Korea that exported basic goods such as dried fish, vegetables, and fruit before expanding into several business lines, including insurance, securities, and retail.43 In 1969, Lee decided to enter the electronics industry and established Samsung-Sanyo. The new unit would undergo several name changes due to joint ventures with foreign companies and mergers with other units, but it would eventually settle with the name Samsung Electronics Company (SEC).44 At first, SEC was primarily a low-cost manufacturer of black-and-white televisions, which it sold to other companies that would then resell them under their own better-known brand names. The company followed a neo-Confucian culture that led engineers and designers to imitate the masters of their industry, Japanese firms such as Panasonic and Sony.45 However, Samsung was exceptional in at least one area—manufacturing. By 1976, the company had produced their millionth black-and-white TV, and two years later, SEC produced its 4 millionth black-and-white TV, which made it the market share leader in units produced.46 Shortly thereafter, SEC started mass production of several products, including the successfully reverse-engineered designs of the Panasonic microwave oven and VCR. A couple of years later, SEC entered the telecommuni- cations and semiconductor businesses, and by 1985, it had started mass production of its own DRAMs and integrated circuits.47

Samsung New Management Initiative In 1987, Lee passed away of lung cancer and was succeeded as chairman by his youngest son, Kun-Hee Lee. The younger Lee had been involved in Samsung’s leadership since he started at the company in 1968.48 When he took his father’s place, Samsung had already established itself as Korea’s undisputed leader in most of its markets, which were largely components such as semiconductors (DRAMS), TV screens, hard drives, and batteries. In some product areas, such as DRAMs from the semiconductor business, Samsung emerged as the worldwide market-share leader.49 But the Japanese, notably Panasonic and Sony, were still the clear leaders in most consumer electronics products, including TVs, VCRs, DVDs, and cameras. Lee saw an opportu- nity when Samsung’s Japanese competitors faced recession in their home market, however. The Japanese, leaders in analog technology, which was used in most products, were reluctant to adopt digital technology due to the large investments that would be required to displace analog. The market, however, seemed to be moving in the digital direction in the form of cameras, audio equipment, and other electronic goods.50 Lee knew that this was a chance to overtake the competition. But, in order to take advantage of its rivals’ hesitancy, Samsung needed to not only act quickly but also to prepare itself for the digital transformation. As the leader of a Korea-centric company, Lee felt that a change was needed.51 That change came in 1993 when Lee introduced the new management initiative, which emphasized four issues: de- centralization, innovativeness, globalization, and outward-looking management.52 The aim was to retain core competencies in manufacturing and production processes while improving R&D, design, and marketing. The company decentralized by establishing more production and R&D centers around the globe. Although most of Samsung’s manufacturing had been done in Korea, the company established a number of new factories in China, India, Hungary, Slovakia, Mexico, and Brazil. Samsung also established new R&D centers in Japan, Frankfurt, and the United States—each working on the development of products for their respective regions of the world.53

Additionally, SEC hired IDEO, a US-based innovation design firm, to help in the design process for their consumer products.54 Designers and design thinking were introduced to the company. Before this time, the engineers controlled the design process.55 This resulted in prod- ucts that were imitations with no distinct design. The new management initiative, however, empowered designers by requiring them to take a yearlong course in mechanical engineering so that they could properly defend their ideas.56 Engineers were also taught basic ideas in design in order to better work with designers. At first, progress was slow. For example, Gordon Bruce, a veteran design consultant who helped Samsung set up the $10 million state-of-the-art

Samsung Leadership Era: 2000–Present C-105

Innovative Design Lab of Samsung (IDS), was teaching a class to designers and engineers and asked what they considered to be a perfectly designed object. He suggested a banana and said, “Nature is the best designer. The banana fits in your pocket. It comes in its own sanitary package. It’s biodegradable. And the color indicates when the fruit is ripe.” After he explained there was a confused silence in the class. Then one a student asked, “You mean you want us to design a cell phone in the shape of a banana?”57 Gradually, SEC started to see improvement in their product designs.

Through the new management initiative, Lee created a “hybrid management system” that imported Western best practices and combined them with their existing Korean management practices.58 This implementation was done sensitively. Only practices that needed change were implemented in a process that employees could understand and embrace. Some of those changes were adopted faster than others depending on the level of resistance from employees. For example, Samsung slowly added into its seniority-based pay structure a merit-based compensation system like those of General Electric and Hewlett-Packard. Some changes such as stock options were abandoned completely when resistance was too strong.59 The new system challenged key fundamentals and established a long-term commitment to investment in premium products and brand value—an area that had troubled Samsung in the past. The company had suffered from an image of “cheap Korean goods” due to its low-cost mass production methods that made it successful during the 1980s.60 To the chagrin of Lee, that image was sometimes validated. For example, as a New Year’s gift in 1995, Lee sent out some of Samsung’s newest phones, only to be informed shortly afterward that the phones didn’t work in the way they were meant to.61 However, the new management initiative aimed to correct such problems with the adoption of General Electric’s Six Sigma, which was custom- ized to involve not just management but every Samsung employee.62 The new management initiative started to “internation