An Analysis Of Samsung Galaxy Smart Phone Innovation Process

Read the appropriate journals and research material around new product development and consult your text book to develop your framework. Using the appropriate/corresponding theory,and where possible, use examples to illustrate or illuminate your content:

• Choose an organisation where you can readily assess and apply the theories and concepts we have discussed in class to the real world strategies, outcomes, and applications.
• Examine and evaluate the product development and product management approach(es) used by your chosen organisation.
• Show an understanding of interplay between Product/Brand and other mix elements in product development.

Body of Report: Issues/questions/topics/perspectives to consider and evaluate in this section may include:

• The Product Innovation Charter(PIC): situation assessment & opportunity identification.
• The goals of the organisation’s product innovation efforts & how these efforts fit the overall business strategy (strategic focus).
• The new products process: the path the new product takes from idea generation to the time of launch and beyond.
• The new product portfolio: developing the right products with respect to its existing product portfolio (strategic fit).
• On reflection; your appraisal of the degree of success of this product and issues for the future (micro and macro)?
• Any other associated or pertinent factors that need to be considered.

Continuous improvement and innovation form the basis for the survival of any business organization. Most organizations rely on the innovation teams to come up with new products that reflect the changing dimension of the market and at the same time compete with what other organization are offering. Innovation is a new idea or application of better solutions that meet the new requirements of the organization (Edison, Ali, & Torkar 2014, p. 1394). The product development process is the journey that a product goes through from conception to the market. This entails a series of stages that new products go through beginning from ideation and concept generation and ends with the introduction of the product to the market.

Samsung is a global leader in the electronics sector and recently entered the mobile phones words. Today Samsung is known with the Samsung Galaxy line of smart phones that it continues unleashing in the market every time. Shaughnessy (2013, pp. 4) suggests that Samsung is one of the innovative companies in the smartphone world due to its TRIZ approach that is used to develop the direction for new innovation. The company’s recent innovation is the Galaxy line of smartphones which is continuing to hit the market. This report analyses the Samsung Galaxy Smart Phone innovation process by developing a PIC for the organization, identifying the goals of the innovation, new product process and portfolio and appraisal of the degree of success.

The PIC is a guide to the development of new products strategy based on the existing needs of the market. This entails identifying the purpose of the product and how its marketing elements fit into the general business strategy (Crawford 2008, 6). It contains the elements of market background, target market, goals and objectives, and special considerations.

Market background

The development of Samsung Galaxy was based on the changing nature of mobile phones. This was due to the innovations of Apple to switch from low-margin phones to smartphones (Madani 2014, p. 25). The company has an established information and mobile unit that was specifically designed for understanding the trends in the market.

Target market

The advancing changes in the nature of mobile phones are what led to the introduction of smartphones. As mobile phones started becoming the common medium of communication, there was the need to develop better forms that served more roles. The quick adoption of mobile phones means that consumers are willing to easily switch from lower technology to higher technology in such of information (Kim 2007, 10). This is defined by the company as ABC1 business people aged between twenty-five and forty-four years. The smartphone offers an alternative especially to the generation X and Y group who were experiencing the revolution of technology.

Goals and objectives

The main objective as to compete with the number one mobile manufacturer Apple by developing products that are similar to what it is producing. This is seen in the quick move to smartphones that followed Apple’s launch of new products. Developing a competing smartphone was supposed to generate market share for the company.

Strategic Focus of the Innovation to Samsung

Special considerations

The need to develop patents so that innovations made by the company can be secured. This is because Apple has lost some of its innovations to other companies like Samsung because of failing to patent the innovations early.

Samsung is a market leader in the mass market segment where its products are used more than other competitors in the market. According to Jung (2014, p. 5), Samsung entered the mobile phone market in 1988 and was forced to develop aggressive strategies to penetrate the market and at the same time stay relevant to the product line. The company’s strategic management revolves around creativity, partnership, and talent. This strategy is applied in all the divisions by diversifying itself through waiting for the market to be established and then penetrates aggressively.

The Samsung Galaxy line of smartphones was designed to offer a competitive advantage to the company by offering clients a Samsung experience interface that used the Android system developed by Google. This product was developed with the aim of penetrating and establishing command of the market and strategic advantage. Today what the company does is to improve customer experience by innovating new features on the smartphone and giving it a new name (Madani 2014, p. 23). The Galaxy brand has been successful in boosting market share for the company since every new Galaxy line released improves the company’s market share as it competes with Apple (Samsung 2018, pp. 3). Since it entered the smartphone world, Samsung threw away lower-margin features since the market was heading towards smartphones. Today, the phones are strategically designed to aggressively compete in the market.

The product development process in the company has been streamlined to four main stages of understanding the concept, ideating, concept development and concept finalization. The understanding stage focusses on understanding the existing trends through field research and data collection to get insights into the user’s perspective. The ideation stage entails generation and discussion of the ideas through to determine the idea that might provide innovative solutions (Simonin 2014, p. 11). The concept development stage is the refining of the ideas generated into a single defining concept that forms the innovation. This concept is then developed into a business case of the different business units in the organization. Lastly, the concept finalization stage is working on the innovation based on the requirements of the business unit (Samsung 2013, pp. 4). Once the product has been developed and customized based on the requirements of the business unit, it is tested for improvements and then launched.

Kim (2007, p. 9) argues that Samsung uses the layers of advantage strategy to develop its innovations through continuous expansion of competitive advantage. This is through reverse orders that allow adding layers of advantage to enter new markets. This is based on waiting for other leaders to penetrate the market and then taking advantage of the market exploitation. By narrowing its technology gap that gives room for strategic expansion, the company achieves its strategic needs of expansion easily. For example, the company started by manufacturing lower-margin phones but was anticipating the industry to grow by waiting for Apple to invent the smartphones (Jung & Do-Chong 2016, p. 7). Later, they switched from lower-end mobile phones to smartphones that led to the innovation of the Samsung Galaxy line. Today, the company is slowly adding layers of advantage to every Galaxy line that they launch as they wait for any new changes in the market. This strategy is an advantage for the company since it leads to the development of new products that have since increased its market share. Further, management changed the human resource structure to ensure that it reflects its strategic needs. This well-crafted strategy is the reason behind the growth of the company in the electronics sector.

The success of the Samsung Galaxy series is based on both macro and micro advantages that the company has developed. Since its revolution of the human resource system and the adjusting of the structure, Samsung has developed internal competencies that have given it a strategic advantage. From top management to lower level employees, the company has a spirit of global expansion which seeks to improve its business competitiveness (Kim 2007, p. 4). This has been achieved through developing of innovative approaches that guide the way the company operates. On the other hand, the macro environment has not been challenging for the company since it has managed to overcome competition from other manufacturers. Through the reverse engineering strategy, the company has been able to penetrate the electronics line while at the same time expanding its business domain to the recent venture in mobile phones. Therefore, Samsung remains one of the companies to watch since its global expansion strategy seems to be working well.

Despite the achievements that the company has achieved in the area of innovation and patents, the case of Apple is an indicator that other manufacturers could take the same approach and steal their patents. Therefore, the company needs to strengthen its innovative strategies to target young talents and entrepreneurs that will create a better advantage for the company’s future.

Conclusion

Therefore, Samsung has established itself as one of the leading electronics manufacturers that is able to overcome all the challenges in the sector. However, management has to focus more on penetrating its own markets rather than waiting for others to explore the market and then penetrating aggressively.

References

Crawford, M, 2008. Defining the Charter for Product Innovation. Sloan management review, 22(1), pp. 3-12.

Edison, H, Ali, N & Torkar, R, 2014. Towards innovation measurement in the software industry. Journal of Systems and Software, 86(5), pp. 1390-1407.

Jung, S C, 2014. The Analysis of Strategic Management of Samsung Electronics Company through the Generic Value Chain Model. nternational Journal of Software Engineering and Its Appl, 8(12), pp. 133-142.

Jung, U. & Do-Chong, B., 2016. Lessons from the history of Samsung’s SCM innovations: focus on the TQM perspective. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(7).

Kim, R, 2007. Samsung's Competitive Innovation and Strategic Intent for Global Expansion.. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 5(3).

Madani, F, 2014. Samsung's Innovation Strategy in Smart Phones Market. SSRN Electronic Journal, 10(3) p. 20-31.

Samsung, 2013. Samsung’s Product Innovation Team: How Ideas Becomes Streamlined. [Online]
Available at: https://news.samsung.com/global/samsungs-product-innovation-team-how-ideas-becomes-streamlined

Samsung, 2018. Phones that defy barriers; Samsung Galaxy. [Online] available at https://www.samsung.com/uk/smartphones/

Shaughnessy, H, 2013. What Makes Samsung Such An Innovative Company?. Forbes, 7 March.

Simonin, D, 2014. International Strategy: The Strategy of Samsung Group. Working Paper, 11(4).