Samsung Conglomerate Essay Sample

Samsung is a company we associate with technology such as smartphones, television sets, cameras, household appliances like microwaves, washing machines among others. With this in mind, we tend to forget about the history of the company or rather ignore the strides the company has made since it was founded. Very few of us actually know anything about the group of companies. We are biased in that we assume it was founded as a technologically based company like Apple or Sony.

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Samsung conglomerate started as a shipping company in North Korea in 1938. It was founded by Lee Byung-Chull. The main focus of the company was trade export. They sold dried fish, vegetables, and fruits in the eastern coasts. They also started a sugar processing mill later in the starting stages. Lee Byung-Chul was a very business oriented individual who wanted Samsung to be recognized and be the most successful organization in Korea. He was not afraid to risk investments into areas that were not related to trade export such as the production of technology. This capability to venture into many areas is what has led to the growth and domination of Samsung as a company in the Korean market (Samsung, 2016).

Since its founding, Samsung has had various factors contributing to its success. The ability to risk investing in new areas such as technology which was not part of the original goals. having favor with the president in the 1960s. This meant that imports were highly regulated by the government enabling the opportunity to produce any goods required in the country. Also, they received financial backing from the government to enable them to finance many of their ventures. They were able to access cheap labor from neighboring countries at a time when they had little knowledge about electronics (Samsung, 2016).

Loyal and hardworking personnel is also a factor. The workers at Samsung are loyal and are willing to work for longer hours without weekends or work leaves till they retire. These factors combined with the philosophy of the founder Lee Byung-Chul led to the domination of Samsung companies in the Korean market (Bondanenko, 2015).

The organizational structure of the group of companies is not that complicated. It is headed by three CEOs appointed by the board of directors. It also has vice-CEOs and other managers each heading different departments in the company.

Under the CEOs is the consumer electronics department. This department has several businesses under it. Visual display business aimed at producing television sets and large displays such as gas plasma screens fitted on buildings. Digital appliance business aimed at producing home appliances such as microwaves, fridges, and washing machines. The aspect of having this appliance has contributed to Samsung being a global producer of eco-friendly home appliances (Jung, 2015).

Offering printing solutions to the ever growing demand for printers especially A4 printing technology. Samsung has offered a wide range of laser printing technology and has dominated the market share in this business. Health and medical equipment business offer Samsung a great opportunity to improve the need for advanced medical technology. This it does by producing equipment ranging from magnetic resonance imaging scan machines, computer tomography scan machines among other equipment (Bola, 2014).

The IT and mobile communication department is the largest share of Samsungs departments. This is because of the great advancements in the communications sector in the recent years. This department has businesses ranging from mobile communication charged with the production of both mobile devices and smartphone technology. Networking business basically in charge of providing network services to consumers. The digital imaging business produces cameras and other technologies used in the mass media.

Another key department in the organization is the device solutions department. This has a business that leads in the production of memory devices, silicon LSI chips and LED business. This department has led to Samsung being a key competitor in the production of chips around the world even to the extent of out passing the success of Intel company (Barcona, 2014).

Finally, the organization has a corporate management department. This is in charge of handling businesses like the insurance and the investment venture business. This is mainly used to safeguard the assets of the shareholders and invest into other areas of interest that may form potential income generating opportunities.

The general administration of the organization is based on authoritarian leaderships, given the culture of the Koreans. Such leadership has seen Samsung prosper. But with the current changing global demands and trends in the market, such leadership meant that more workers were being promoted to executive positions and had fewer vacations. As a result, the performance tends to be affected now that Chinese companies are offering stiff competition in the technology sector (Barcona, 2014).

Talks of Samsung restructuring its organization have been in the news recently. With talks of merging some of its diverse companies. Also, the reduction in executive promotions and increasing time for workers to have vacations. As such, Samsung intends to operate like a startup company rather than a conglomerate that has rigid policies.

Since Samsung is an international company, its activities tend to spread outside the borders of South Korea. Though some of its activities still remain within the borders of its native country. The booming business in technology has seen Samsung set up processing plants around the globe, with some multi-billion plants in the US, England, and India just to mention a few (Madheswaran, 2013).

Its shipping and manufacturing businesses are also global. With the shipping company dealing in the exportation of goods around the world. The manufacturing business in wool and sugar processing though not widely recognized, still are carried out within and outside the borders of Korea. The construction company of Samsung is a booming success with its successful projects like building the Burj Khalifa towers in the United Arab Emirates, Petronas towers in Malaysia and the Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

Some of its businesses such as insurance are still carried out within the country. The investment venture is also least known to many because it mainly operates with Korean borders although its effects are seen globally through the investments Samsung makes (Madheswaran, 2013).

Since Samsung is a conglomerate, it has various companies under it. It focused on various aspects ranging from technology, transport, manufacturing, chemical, construction, media and other areas of interest. This interest in diverse areas is what contributed to the success story of Samsung group. The founder Lee Byung-Chul believed that Samsung had to be great and it had to live forever even after his passing away. However, in the 1990s, the company prioritized ts areas of interest to construction, electronics, and chemicals. The other areas of interest were considered minor.

As a result, Samsung has three major companies based on the priorities, Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&T, and Cheil Industries. These three companies meet the needed objectives of the Samsung group. However, there are other companies that are owned by the Samsung group. These include Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung SDS, Samsung Life Insurance, and Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance (Madheswaran, 2013).

However, during its initial stages after the war in Korea, Samsung had wider areas of interest such as media. This was however regulated by the government to control the dominance of the group in the country. Also, this was done to control their growing influence over state affairs at the time.

Most of the customers of Samsung are people interested in purchasing their electronic products. These range from the ever growing supply of mobile phones and smartphones that cater to the basic needs of the consumers. Also, individuals interested in purchasing home appliances such as fridges, microwaves, television sets among other. The number of customers purchasing Samsung electronics is growing with each and every passing day.

Apart from electronics, Samsung also offers services like construction to the customers. Their reputation as a construction company is due to the various mega million projects they are involved in like the construction of the Burj Khalifa towers in UAE and Petronas towers in Malaysia among others (Madheswaran, 2013).

Pharmaceutical clients and chemical consumers also form a major art of the clientele of Samsung. Other customers are interested in the chips Samsung produces as well as their manufactured products. This wide range of customers makes Samsung have a good reputation among its competitors.

Some of the products offered by Samsung include electronics which form the largest share of their revenue consumption and inflow, services such as insurance, construction expertise among others. Other products include chemicals, manufactured goods, and investment. These products offered by the conglomerate enables it to have a large share of the Korean market as well as the global market (Jung, 2015).

Despite their success from a simple shipping company, Samsung faces stiff competition from other renowned companies like Japans Sony and LG. These companies produce a wide range of electronics just like Samsung and are also a consumers preference. Other competitors are Apple, Google, Amazon, Intel, and Microsoft. Furthermore, the development of Chinese electronic companies offers a major threat to the dominance of Samsung group in the market (Madheswaran, 2013).

Due to its widespread investment in different areas, the Samsung group requires a constant supply of resources in order to support their production of electronics and success of the construction company. As a result, they have policies that ensure the raw materials they are supplied with or purchase are of quality. They also have to ensure that the resources they use do not have any legal repercussions to them (Singh, 2013).

Samsung group has an ethics charter to ensure fairness and openness in their dealing when sourcing for resources. This ensures that both the company and the suppliers benefit in the long run. This ethics charter also caters for legal procedures during the purchase of resources. This purchasing charter implemented by Samsung aims at protecting both the supplier and Samsung from any legal implications (Barcona, 2014).

Furthermore, Samsung has a suppliers code of conduct that outlines the code of all suppliers. This code helps to ensure that the working environment is suitable for both the company and the group. Together with this supplier code of conduct, there is a guideline to the code of conduct. This helps to explain the various details of how they, suppliers, will adhere to the suppliers code of conduct. It also helps to ensure that ethical values are maintained within the working environment (Singh, 2013).

Samsungs founder Lee Byung-Chul had a policy that a company is its people and the people are the company. As such, the need to ensure that the employees and customers are treated fairly and equally while maintaining high levels of productivity and efficiency is a key aspect to Samsungs success. The company has in lace various strategies to ensure that they get the best out of their workforce and the workforce benefits with equal stature (Lee, 2016).

Implementing the global code of conduct is a great advantage to Samsung. As this outlines the behavior and ethical standards that have to be maintained by all the employees. This also describes how every individual should perform their duties without interrupting the functioning of the companys activities. This code of conduct...