P& G Case Review

Odekunle Ayodele Aina

Samsung Electronics Company: Global Marketing Operations

The case is based on a Korean electronics company (SEC) that has decided to improve their brand value globally and be rated within the top 10 brands by the 2005.

The company’s strategy for growth has been yielding good dividend as indicated in their 1997-2002 revenue generation pattern (Exhibit 1)and this is itself is a strong indication of the potential that can be further explored.

The chairman Kun Hee Lee led a transformation using the Asian financial crisis as an impetus to transform the company into a profitable organization.

The company also pursued a combination of various bold strategies such as their Product breadth (technology diversification), Continued focus on manufacturing as a core competency, vertical Integration, digital product innovation and digital convergence, fewer levels of organizational bureaucracy which leads to faster decision making, a key ingredient in an era of digitalization, all these have helped SEC increase their market value and share continuously over the years.

The main concern of the company now is to go a notch further and ensure that SEC is listed in the top 10 brand by the year 2005 having been rated 25th in 2003 as against 34th in 2002 and voted the fastest growing brand for 2002.

To achieve this goal, an effective and efficient global marketing initiative and innovative branding effort has been identified as a key ingredient to be incorporated into the company’s marketing strategy. The Executive Vice president Eric Kim was saddled with the responsibility of leading the Global Marketing Initiative of building the Brand into a Global Brand.

Kim enthused that they SEC will be using a 2 step approach;

1. Creating a high level of awareness – which had already been achieved.

2. Becoming the truly preferred brand – this will be a whole different challenge

Kim felt to achieve 2 based on the feedback from...