Case Study

Submitted to
Dr Shereen Soliman

Prepared By:

Ahmed Fouad
Amr Sabri
Engy Shaker
Mohamed Badr
Mostafa ElBaz
Agenda

● Samsung in a glance

● Samsung personal leadership traits impact on the business

● Effective leadership cruciality in the industries

● Samsung’s leading ability

● Samsung Success vs Nokia Failure

Samsung Group [4]
Samsung Group

● Founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul

● Samsung Electronics Established in January, 1969
● 1972: Began production of black and white televisions
● 1975: Initial public Offering (IPO)
● 1976: Reached one millionth black and white television
● 1979: Begun producing microwaves
● 1983:Samsung entered personal computer market
● 1987: Lee Kun Hee became the Chairman
● 1992:Produced it very first mobile phone system
● 1998:The world first digital TV
● 2004:reached mark of 20 million cellular phone sold in U.S
● 2018:Samsung ranked 6th in the interbrand “Best Global Brands”
 [5]

Samsung Electronics
A total of 320,671 employees work across Samsung Electronics' global network (as of December, 2017)
 [5]

Samsung Electronics
A total of 320,671 employees work across Samsung Electronics' global network (as of December, 2017)
 [5]

Samsung Electronics
A total of 320,671 employees work across Samsung Electronics' global network (as of December, 2017)
 [5]

Samsung Electronics
A total of 320,671 employees work across Samsung Electronics' global network (as of December, 2017)
 [5]

Samsung Electronics Business Areas

Samsung Electronics Sales & Profit
Samsung Market Share
South Korea GDP Position
[8] [9] [10] [11]
Samsung Leadership Traits

● Studies on different managers revealed that the

followers tend to admire leaders who have these
traits and behaviors

● Samsung have adopted these traits and

achieved the best in its operations
Drive
● In 1993 Lee Kun-Hee introduced his “New Management
Initiative” based on the success of firm's semiconductor
business model.

● He introduced the “Second Foundation”, to drive

the company to one of the top five electronics
players in the world.
Self-Confidence

● Lee’s charismatic and aggressive leadership has

performed the new management Initiative

● Media doubted about Samsung executives’ decisions,

even some economic acknowledged experts’ doubts about
his leadership

● Lee’s self confidence, experience and abilities

allowed him to lead samsung to 1st company in
Korea
Creativity

● Technological innovation is the main contributor to this

impressive performance

● Samsung submitted the highest number of patents

granted.

● First to introduce new products to the market

○ Flat panels,
○ LCDs
○ DLP projection sets
Cognitive Ability

● Established formal management principles learnt from

Japan

● In 1957 Samsung also institutionalized 'open competitive

recruitment', much the American way

● Lee Kun-Hee built a technology-centered

management to raise the company to its new
heights.
Job relevant Knowledge

● Scouting core talent

● Recruitment of outstanding foreign talent

● Vision based on talent and technology

● Building large cooperative alliances

Motivation

● In 1959, the company formed an advanced

human resources management practice
○ Principles of fairness
○ Job fitment
○ Incentives

● “Plan a business that creates the future, rather than

responding to it” Lee Kun-Hee
Flexibility

● Shift from a quantity driven mindset to a quality driven for

○ People
○ Products
○ Management

● Focus on intangibles, such as

○ Brand
○ Design
○ Technology competence

● Change everything but your wife and kids. “Lee Kun-hee”

Honesty and Integrity

● Samsung Business Principles:

○ Principle 1. We comply with laws and ethical standards.

○ Principle 2. We maintain a clean organizational culture.
○ Principle 3. We respect customers, shareholders and employees.
○ Principle 4. We care for the environment, health and safety.
○ Principle 5. We are a socially responsible corporate citizen.
Effective Leadership cruciality in Samsung

Democratic leadership style

● Samsung emphasized on
○ Contribution to the nation through business
○ People first
○ Hiring talents is the key to Samsung
maintaining an advantageous position in an
era of technology competition

● Samsung’s vision “Quite simply, a

company is its people”
Methodologies for Samsung’s Industries

● Customer Behavior & Expectation

○ Samsung delivers a level of quality no other brand can surpass
● Fast Pace Needs Quick Adjustment
○ Samsung leaders focus on business transformation
● Innovation
○ At Samsung innovation center mission is to discover and develop technologies that lead
happier, healthier & richer lives all over the world

● Product Competitiveness & Process Development

○ Samsung Electronics’ manufacturing efficiency is a major source of its product
competitiveness
● Conquer Global Market By Diversity
○ Samsung’s has introduced the hybrid system management
○ Cross-Cultural Communication
Samsung’s Hybrid System Management

● Samsung management is challenging the process by globalizing the hybrid

systems

● Samsung faced a challenge in implementing certain western management

○ Because of the deeply rooted traditional Japanese style of management their company was
built on
○ In-order to overcome this obstacle Samsung implemented their hybrid management system
which combine facets of both styles
Samsung’s Hybrid System Management
Cross-Cultural Communication

● Samsung has overcome its barriers culture, technology, language, workforce

and environment to create its advantage through the sense of celebration
diversity & cultural integration

● It creates a closure environment, comfortability and community among

international employees

● Samsung introduced the Samsung’s Regional specialist program → Samsung

employees has come back with new knowledge, outlook & business
Samsung’s leading ability

● Communicate the vision

○ ”I am afraid that I might be feeling isolated, alone, and disconnected at
times once I became CEO of Samsung. But I know that is part of the
process though. ” Lee Kun Hee
■ Getting new ideas, vision, feedback and orders from his staff

○ “Our goal must be to plan a business that creates the future, rather
than responding to it” Lee Kun Hee
■ Diversified business rather than focusing on a few selected items
Samsung’s leading ability

● Build enthusiasm
○ “With the sincere devotion of our employees, Samsung has achieved
stellar performances” - Lee Kun Hee
■ Weeds out disqualified employees
■ Hire innovative persons and Built International Recruit Offices
(IRO)
■ Retain skilled and different valuable workers
■ Amount of patents from samsung
■ Established Samsung Human Resource Development Center
(SHRDC)
■ Established Samsung design institutions (SADI)
■ Established Samsung Strategy and innovation center
Samsung’s leading ability
Samsung Electronics has a total of 335,155 granted patents and 462,601 patent applications distributed into
336,266 patent families. Based on the countries of patent applications, the key markets for Samsung Electronics are
South Korea, USA and Japan. The main technology areas are semiconductor devices; electric solid state devices,
pictorial communication and electric digital data processing.
Samsung’s leading ability
By showing the geographic breakdown of the company‘s patent portfolio, it is possible to determine the

territorial markets that the company is focusing on.

Samsung’s leading ability

● Motivate commitment and hard work

○ “Samsung attracts the brightest minds in South Korea”, but added that
“his new goal is to attract talent from all over the world to ensure that
Samsung will remain one of the top companies in the world” - Lee Kun
Hee
■ Improved employees working environments to every department
■ Reduced working hours
■ Ordered to executive boards to increase all of employees’ salaries
“Introduced a merit based pay style”
■ Promised that he will be keep watching on employee’s conditions
and environments continuously
Samsung Success vs Nokia Failure
Where has Nokia gone?!
A concise timeline of Nokia’s important
moments
A concise timeline of Nokia’s important
moments
A concise timeline of Nokia’s important
moments
Sales Comparison: Samsung, Nokia, Apple
Analysis of the Failure reasons (Leadership Style)
A study consisted of interviewing 76 Nokia top and middle managers, engineers and external experts and
conducting in-depth investigations resulted in the following:

● Nokia’s technology was inferior to Apple’s &

Samsung’s
○ Executives were afraid to publicly acknowledge the inferiority of
Symbian, Nokia’s operating system
○ They knew it would take several years to develop a better operating
system that could compete with Apple’s iOS
Analysis of the Failure reasons (Leadership Style)
● The arrogance among top level
managers
○ Top managers intimidated middle managers by
accusing them of not being ambitious enough to meet
their goals
○ Top management was lied to by middle management
who felt it was useless to tell the truth
○ With an autocratic leadership and not concerning
different layers in hierarchy, Different layers started
not to be transparent and honest to avoid punishment.
Analysis of the Failure reasons
(Leadership Style)
● Lack of vision
○ Top managers lacked technical competence which influenced
how they could assess technological limitations during goal
setting; by comparison, the top management at Apple were all
engineers
○ Instead of allocating resources to the achievement of long-term
goals such as developing a new operating system, Nokia
management decided to develop new phone devices for
short-term market demands, not even using Android.
○ Lack of Knowledge or Participation from lower levels, Lead to
driving the organization in a wrong direction
Analysis of the Failure reasons
(Leadership Style)
● Organizational Fear
○ At that time Nokia suffered from organisational fear
○ The organisational fear was grounded in a culture of temperamental
leaders and frightened middle managers
○ The middle management was scared of telling the truth because they
feared being fired
○ Top managers were afraid of the external environment and not
meeting their quarterly targets
○ Top executives were afraid of losing investors, suppliers and
customers if they acknowledged their technological inferiority to Apple
○ No One told the truth to avoid its consequences leading not to achieve
Honesty and Integrity.
Steps They should have done

● Having the power of constantly challenging the status quo will allow leaders and their organisation to
embrace a culture of change
● Collaborative leadership style will be mandatory, the policy of closed doors will die
quickly — innovation process should be encouraged at all levels but for this leaders have to learn again
how to properly listen to their customers, partners and employees
● Middle managers should have been:
■ Able to challenge the CEO or Sr. Leadership for the benefit of the whole organisation
■ Empowered by Top Managers
Steps They should have done

● Transformational Leadership was required at this situation to avoid:

■ Lack of motivation and engagement
■ No Shared vision
■ Organizational boundaries
■ Inflexible goals
● Leaders should master the power of taking responsibilities for:
■ bad decisions
■ failed innovation
■ lost market share despite the danger of losing their status, role, bonuses
■ Learning fast from failures
References

● https://research-methodology.net/samsung-leadership-chance-new-era/
● https://newyorkessays.com/essay-samsungs-ceo-lee-kun-hees-leadership/
● https://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/10/02/8-leadership-lessons-from-the-appl
e-v-samsung-conflict/#6257964f186b
● https://web.archive.org/web/20140502005229/http://sgsg.samsung.com/Introducing_Samsung_
GSG_final.pdf
● https://news.samsung.com/global/fast-facts
● https://www.samsung.com/common/aboutsamsung/download/performance/SAMAR04.pdf
● https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/republic-samsung
● "World Economic Outlook Database". International Monetary Fund. 17 April 2018.
References
● "GDP (current US$)". World Development Indicators. World Bank. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
● "GDP and its breakdown at current prices in US Dollars". United Nations Statistics Division.
December 2017.
● "United Nations Statistics Division - National Accounts". unstats.un.org.
● "Samsung's Share of Global DRAM Market Exceeds 40%". Taiwan Economic News. 8 November
2010. Archived from the original on 7 March 2014.
● ^ "Large-Size TFT Shipments and Revenues Fell as Supply Chain Sought Inventory Reductions in
3Q10". DigiTimes. 12 November 2010.
● ^ "SMD Enjoys Soaring Demand for AMOLED Panel". Maeil Business Newspaper. 1 July 2010.
● ^ "Samsung Takes The Second Place in Rechargeable Battery Market, Following Sanyo, in the First
Quarter of 2010". Solar&Energy. 20 May 2010.
● ^ "Seagate Still Number One in Global HDD Shipments". TechSpot. 23 March 2010.
● ^ "WD, 올해 1분기 시게이트 제치고 점유율 1위 달성(English: Western Digital Has Been a 1st
Market Sharer on Q1)". Bodnara (South Korea). 3 June 2010.
References
● ^ "Samsung Devours TV Market Share". SmartHouse. 18 February 2010. Archived from the original
on 7 September 2012.
● ^ "(Samsung's share grows while Apple's declines in Q3 smartphone market)". Infoworld. 29
October 2013.
● ^ "Samsung Sees Hybrid Camera Mkt Growing 10-Fold by 2015". Reuters. 14 September 2010.
● ^ "Qualcomm Captures 50 Percent Revenue Share in the Smartphone Apps Processor Market in
2011". Strategy Analytics. 20 February 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2013.