Samsung's strategy to become No.1 in TVs

      As we all probably know, Samsung is now the No.1 company in television industry around the world. The TV market used to be led by Japanese companies, such as Sony, Panasonic, and Sharp. However, according to market researcher DisplaySearch, Samsung took over the first place in 2007 for shares of 13.6% in world's TV market.
      The article tells why and how Samsung could become the world’s leading company in TV market where the competition is very intense. There are few important factors about it; they are, working through Samsung’s unique supply chain management (SCM) system, learning by trial and error, growth of HDTV, and banking on minimalist design.
      The chief of Samsung’s SCM system sends out the week’s new instruction and plans for production and shipping based on the previous week's data on sales, manufacturing, supplies, and product development to 20 television and monitor factories in 11 countries. Through his system, Samsung was able to connect each manufacturer efficiently, and therefore, decrease inventory turnover. Since the electronic markets are very competitive and the prices drop quickly, it was essential for Samsung to decrease its inventory level, which is now 15 days compared to 21 days in 2004.

      As the demand for high quality TVs has increased, Samsung has standardized the part components for the most models in an effort to minimize the production time from 16 weeks to 4 weeks. By doing so, according to the article, Samsung was able to produce different kinds of models at the same time, which allowed them “…to occupy one section of the display shelf, making it easier to stop shoppers in front of them.” (BusinessWeek)
      Samsung has never underestimated the importance of their products’ design. The company has six design centers around the world as their efforts to find the leading trend in the market, not only for the value of their products, but also to add craftsmanship to them.
      As the article states ""the race to rule the industry is far from over," I also think the competition is just started. There would be even higher demand for the high quality TVs in the future, and other small and big companies will try as hard as possible to survive in the competitive market. As a consumer, knowing these kinds of company's effort to produce better and higher quality product is very interesting because that means we, the consumers, will have more valuable choices when we go shopping. After reading the article, I felt so proud that one of my country's company is doing so well in the world market and wished this would be a good role model for other companies, too.

Reference;
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2008/gb20080313_758981.htm

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