Samsung Case Analysis Essay

Executive Summary Korean enjoys a competitive edge due to command and power in 4 key areas: cost management, superior products, research and development, and unique company culture. Although these critical ingredients include led to Samsung’s domination in the memory sector, Chinese companies are threatening it and looking to enter the legacy product market by offering low prices to capture business.

In response for this threat, Korean should: (i) cut rates on legacy products, (ii) invest in cutting edge memory products and (iii) look at a cooptation strategy with a competition. Samsung’s Competitive Advantage Samsung enjoys a competitive benefit by being able to charge more income00 than the competitors because of customers’ larger willingness to pay (“WTP”). While it is unclear from the facts of the case whether Samsung’s suppliers in reality have a lower willingness to offer (“WTS”) to Samsung, it is clear that Samsung maintains a cost benefits over the competitors because of its ability to produce more products in a offered run. Both the WTP plus the price to get Samsung memory space products happen to be higher relative to its rivals, thereby creating value.

Samsung’s customers’ WTP is higher because of the reliability of Samsung’s products. Actually customers might pay up to a 1% average selling price premium for any reliable product due to the risk that faulty memory may destroy the complete product’s worth. Also, Korean has the ability to personalize products to customer needs, thereby differentiating alone from its rivals. Due to the stability of the goods, the risks connected with defective memory, and Samsung’s ability to differentiate from competition, consumers include a higher WTP for Korean memory items.

Samsung offered 1200 different versions of DRAM products which include “frontier, musical legacy and specialty” products. Once market progress for DRAM shrunk to single digits, Samsung began to move to Adobe flash, further displaying its capacity to differentiate. Samsung has lower costs than its competitors and, as mentioned above, can also enjoy a reduce WTS. Exhibit 1, infra, is a benefit stick displaying a competitive advantage for Samsung by showing a higher consumer WTP and lower distributor WTS vis-à-vis its competition. Samsung has lower costs than its competitors due, partly, to it is ability to control production costs.

Samsung’s use of a primary design to build up customized goods, collocation technique to save 12% on structure costs, and technological advantage in production yield, find the money for Samsung a significant cost advantage over its competitors. Additionally , labor costs in Korea offer The samsung company a cost advantage over many competitors (e. g. USA, EG, and Germany companies, where labor costs happen to be higher). Although Chinese rivals already reap the benefits of reduced labor costs, The samsung company appears very well positioned to other opponents, Samsung’s site in Korea also provides an inherent cost advantage in salary over its competitors (e. g., Micron (USA) and Infineon (EU/German)).

This advantage is not appropriate in the case of Oriental competitors who also benefit from substantially reduced labor costs, although Samsung remains well located to be competitive on total costs. Although Samsung’s labor costs contribute to the company’s benefit by maintaining a decreased WTS, the cabability to cultivate an enterprise environment, which fosters creativity and production, is a unique attribute of Samsung korea. compared to other industry players. Promotions and incentives will be based upon overall performance rather than seniority. Through it is Global Technique Group, the corporation actively recruits foreign expertise to solve essential business concerns and cultivate future frontrunners. to prepare the firm’s foreseeable future leaders for important positions.

Using these incentives and structures, Samsung has a business culture that drives large productivity, is definitely valued by customer, and which produces a high WTP. Duplicating this kind of culture is nearly impossible, arduous since competitors are unable to decide which of Samsung’s strategies it would ought to copy to match Samsung’s achievement. Samsung seems to have efficiently increased their very own WTP without significantly elevating costs, a horrible concept intended for competitors to replicate, In addition , competitors looking to copy Samsung’s culture might do so with the risk of trading off for an increase in suggestions costs.

During your time on st. kitts are often trade-offs between WTP and WTS whereby elevating WTP might imply a better cost and lowering costs may indicate a lower WTP, Samsung appears to have successfully increased WTP without drastically increasing price. Exhibit a couple of, infra, illustrates the risk of increased competition coming from Chinese opponents (illustrated through changes to theusing value adhere analysis). Different external risks to competitive advantage are discussed herein. Fierce competition associated with the new market traders from China results in both a decrease in customers’ WTP and correspondingly, Samsung’s price.

While Samsung does need to be mindful with the threat of Chinese competition in the DRAM market, it is important to note that the near-term risk is limited to legacy products. Frontier products, like Display, are high growth options and are more difficult for Chinese language companies to replicate. The Chinese companies do not possess the know-how necessary to produce frontier products efficiently and effectively, creating a larger barrier to entry in frontier items.

Simplifying Samsung’s choice, it could possibly choose to be competitive on price with these new marketplace entrants pertaining to legacy goods or concentrate on frontier items where that continues to consume a competitive benefits. There are several added threats to Samsung’s competitive advantage, both external and internal, really worth mentioning: [add nanotechnology as possible long term substitute] Is Flash considered an alternative?

Probably not an immediate substitute to DRAM, but can they contend in the semiconductor industry with out Flash?[add government as another external power – anti-trust lawsuits][add complements as another external push – cheap PCs may possibly increase or decrease the benefit of memory][add selling price competition as another external push – cost wars could lead to decrease in competitive advantage]Response to the Cina Threat and Our Actions PlanChinese businesses are attempting to enter the legacy product market by providing low prices to capture market share. As outlined in the Wexecutive brief summary, we believe the organization should take three approaches to combat this threat, including seriously leveraging the existing DRAM industry and charges to focus development on high-value legacy and frontier products.: (i) cut rates on legacy products, (ii) invest in leading edge memory products and (iii) think about a cooptation technique with a competitor.

Samsung ought to reduce their prices in its legacy DRAM items in order to guard its business from Chinese competitors. Korean is a marketplace leader in terms of cost control and productivity, which enables it to obtain high working margins. Chinese competitors, alternatively, lack budget-friendly production capacities, resulting in more expensive structures and significantly lower margins, or in the case of SMIC, negative margins, (note that SMIC contains a negative working margin).

Korean should influence its cost advantage and reduce rates to this kind of a level in which it becomes very costly for your competitors and attempts entry into the market. Although Samsung would be giving up revenue margin inside the legacy marketplace by lowering unit pricesWhile this surrender higher income, some of the ensuing loss in gross profit dollarsmargin could be offset simply by increased quantities in quantity sold as a result of lower prices. Samsung korea could also likewise make up the perimeter loss by focusing more on high-margin, high-growth frontier products (e. g., Display, 1 Gb+ chips) to offset the aforementioned price lowering. Samsung should certainly reduce its prices on legacy items without sacrificing quality and dependability.

Once Korean has efficiently fended off its competition, it can look to raises rates on all those products again. It is important to note that quality and reliability should never be sacrificed if this practice can be adopted. Once Samsung offers successfully controlled its market share, the company could consider increasing prices. With Chinese businesses entering the legacy product market and creating a “pricing war, ” Samsung should certainly shift associated with its target to the frontier product market, an area by which Chinese competitors lack the resources and ingenuity to remain competitive. By centering on new products, Samsung korea could develop new market segments and users for its recollection products.

This could increase the benefit of Samsung’s products by using a direct network effect. In addition , Samsung can seek to make indirect network effects having a new frontier products. For example , Samsung can only offer frontier products to buyers that exclusively buy (or exceed a significant buy threshold) heritage products coming from Samsung.

FinallyLastly, in order to preserve a strong marketplace leadership position and battle the Chinese language threat, Samsung korea should consider seeking a cooptition strategy simply by forming an alliance with a competitor. An alliance with or acquisition of a key competitor(s) would provide two important objectives: (i) strengthen Samsung’s market position in areas where they will continue to lead and compete; and (2) refuse Chinese competitors an entrée into the industry. Infineon Systems AG is definitely an attractive goal for Samsung for a number of factors.

First, Infineon has exhibited a determination to R&D surpassed in the industry only simply by Samsung’s dedication to R&D. Although there is several risk of de-centralization, their twenty-five global R&D locations could propel the competitive application strategy which was successfully utilized at Korean in the past. Second, Infineon’s products complement Samsung’s growth goods, specifically frontier and niche chipsets. With frontier items, Infineon’s features have allowed them to become the only company besides Samsung korea capable of producing 512 Mbit chips by a positive functioning margin.

Even more, Infineon signifies the only genuine competition to Samsung inside the specialty chip-set market. Third, Infineon’s production capabilities may enhance Samsung’s current development processes. While Infineon utilizes a 0. 14 micron design secret, Infineon is the owner of the zero. 11 micron process technology which Samsung korea uses as the main style rule. In addition , 33% of Infineon’s current production volume level is invested in higher performance, 12-inch wafers.

The ability to influence these creation resources will allow Samsung to enhance its competitive advantage by further cutting down its costs while at the same time elevating their production output inside the DRAM market. Finally, Infineon represents one of the largest dangers to Samsung korea in the frontier and niche chip market. Infineon’s current plans incorporate a commitment to get over $1.

5 billion dollars in Asian markets. Given all their history of licensing manufacturing technology and joint ventures in the Asian marketplace, it is not dubious that Infineon could permit its frontier designs and production techniques to its Chinese opponents. If Samsung chose to never form a great alliance with Infineon, it may consider partnering with a Oriental firm to selectively use outsourcing for the production of its legacy products simply by licensing the process technology.

Samsung can then make use of its recently uncommitted capital to invest even more heavily in “frontier” R&D, with the target of outstanding at the cutting edge of new technology and staying first-to-market with new products. During your time on st. kitts is a risk that the Chinese language producers will steal the intellectual property associated with creating the heritage products, the potential loss could possibly be limited in the event the legacy items are in fact a dying breed of dog. Samsung could also mitigate this risk simply by restricting the processing technology that is qualified.

For example , certification 0. 15µm technology would benefit most Chinese rivals, but may not compete with Samsung’s 0. 11µm efficiency. Possibly the greatest risk associated with switching production to China would be compromising item quality and reliability, therefore as a result of eroding the corporate tradition based, for least simply, on obtaining the entire staff housed under one roof top. It could be contended, however , the fact that source of Samsung’s strong corporate and business culture is because their expense in personnel and not the physical precise location of the employees.

Ongoing to incentivize people to always be innovative and work toward a common target could reduce any risk to the company’s culture. In spite of the source of Samsung’s culture, it must be clear that any give up in item quality and reliability can negatively affecting the entire The samsung company brand, which includes its frontier products. One strategy to reduce this effects, however , my spouse and i of this is usually to limit exposure through the licensing of technology, but to and retain Chinese branding in the product.

This strategy mitigates the both likelihood of comprising item quality and tarnishing the Samsung brand.