Samsungs Success due to Its Quality Products, Marketing, Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility - Case Study Example

Sustainability: A case study of Samsung Introduction Sustainability is a continued process of providing products and services to a wide range of stakeholders in a manner that ensure reduced negative social and environmental impact while maximizing profits (Graham and Bertels 2008, P 10).It is imperative to note that for any firm or company providing goods and service, it must have an in-depth knowledge about the products and services it provides and the process of providing its products and services and most importantly continuous provision in a sustainable way in order to make good returns. International companies have major impacts on the directors, shareholders and the surrounding communities and they operations such as their ownership, objectives, corporate responsibility are of greater concern to business community (Clarke and Dela Rama 2008, P.1). To achieve sustainability in a world full of uncertainties and competitions, these service delivery firms are bogged by the issues of economic viability, social and environmental soundness which call for sustainably meeting customers’ unmet needs while exploring new opportunities that increasing the firm’s competitive advantage. In the quest for an in-depth knowledge of how service deliver firms are maintaining their service provision in a competitive global market, we analyzed sustainability in practice by using Samsung electronics as a case study through reviewing the available literature. Samsung Electronics is a global brand from Korea. Since it is inception has been among the global market competitors in provision of electronic gadgets as well as communication services. This paper will critically analyze how this company is maintaining its service delivery while sustainably maintaining its position in the global market competition through its sustainability strategy with various aspects such as social aspect, marketing, quality provision, environmental impact among others. Sustainable Corporate Report According to Crowther and Gler (2008 P.10), sustainable corporate report refers the relationships that exist between global corporations, governments and the people. This concept looks into the possible impact of the business outcomes to the environment as well as how it may influence or impact the social part of life. It strengthens the standards governing the responsibility of companies to ensure that damage to the environment is minimized while producing quality products that are not only user friendly but also little negative influence to human social life. Ratings regarding CSR include, Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJI), Financial Times Stock Exchange for Good Index (FTSE4Good Index), Accountability Rating, The Global 100, Oekam Research Rating and Sustainable Investment Research International (SiRi) Rating. These ratings help to ensure that the corporate do not fall astray to issues relating to social and environmental responsibility required of them. Like any other service provider that would do anything to attract its clients, Samsung joined the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct introduced in 2004 earlier in 2007 during its initiation to address issues of social and environmental standards regarding CSR in the industry, (Wilde and de Haan 2008, Lee and Kim 2009). Sustainability analysis Business is a game that requires competitors to outsmart a potential one another in a way that will increase its own likability by the customers as well as suppliers. For instance, Samsung electronics Company introduced strict environmental regulations under its standards in a package(S-partnership) that ensured that at the international level there is an environmentally safe procurement from business to business (Lee and Kim 2009). This company of course was putting down its major competitor, Sony electronics which had a blow when the European market banned its electronic game product ( PS1) due to the content of cadmium in it (Lee and Kim 2009). Environmental sustainability is a Key issue in multinational companies as they are regulated by worldwide environmental organizations. Samsung had to posit anything that touches the environment since environmental impact is a key aspect that any company that aims at developing and strengthening its corporate sustainable responsibility (CSR) must focus on. According to Lee and Kim (2009), in the business and environment literature, environmental management is defined as the management of corporate interaction, with and its impact with and upon the environment, thus for it to survive in the market it has to strengthen its focus on the environment to avoid heavy penalties by environmental organization or ban on its products. ). Any successful international corporate should involve all its stake holders such as employees, directors, shareholders and customers in its commitment to corporate social responsibility (Clarke and Dela Rama 2008, P.31) and in fact a analysis illustrate that about 80% of the companies mangers are ready to invest in long term environmental sustainability (Benn at el 2007, P. 156) Marketing Strategy In order to be sustainable in producing quality products as well as provide high quality service, Samsung brand recruits and secures the world’s best designers to improve its internal human capital (de Mozota and Kim 2009, P.6). And since it’s a design-driven firm, whose core goal is to create new business and new markets thus improving design intelligence as well as creating remarkable designs that reinforce technological infrastructure with new mock-up and mold tools hence be able to lead global design trend that would be able to increase its competitive advantage. The company trains engineers and marketers on design issues to ensure that all of its members are well equipped with deign knowledge and process. Producing quality products is a key source competitive advantage as it focuses on improving the invisible assets such as brand image, technology, corporate culture, customer trust and the corporate management skills. According to Park at el (2012, P.4), the Samsung Company had the highest sales on LCD monitors (89%) that placed the company as the top share holder in the globe. This still can be attributed to the firm’s effort to amass its resources on human capital as discussed earlier thus it understand the seminal idea that human resource is of paramount importance to sustain itself as well as in retaining and attracting more customers. The company is striving in all aspects as shown by Wilde and de Haan (2008) being among the main mobile phones producers as well as an observer of the ILO regulations and standard regarding labor. This may be helping to increase its proactive innovativeness that the media very often highlights since motivated employees will amass their full efforts to produce deliverables of high quality. Due to its sustainability in executing its project Samsung won a bid to locate manufacturing plants in Ontario that earned the company a handsome $7 billion (Calvert and Marjorie 2011, P. 17). Samsung products The company boost of producing efficient, high quality as well as low cost garget that are used worldwide e.g. the NAND flash memory that is used in almost all gargets ranging from mobile, hand-held consumer electronics such as cell phone to iPods and digital camera still continues to put a stiff competition to its competitors while maintaining its position. The introduction of such high powered material continues to be a big challenge to the firm’s competitors as well as itself as to maintain it is quite challenging to maintain them as well as disposing these e-waste is poses greater dangers to the environment. The Samsung phones such as i7500 the first Android mobile phone that first put the firm among the best in global market is now outshine by the Samsung i19500 another Android that is of supremacy today. Among the Global 100 eight of them, Samsung being among them has social responsibility reports (Weber & Marley 2012). The company in 2009 a pico-projection and solar in mobile phones as well as being key in provision of gargets that have the universal WIFI and 4G NAND flash memory connections that have high speed and have been recognized worldwide to increase communication, (Wishart and Green n.y.). The solar powered phone utilizes clean energy which is a major aspect of sustainability (Benn at el 2007, P. 156). Samsung has also established sales and customer services offices in several continents to distribute its products and with qualified expert to service products from Samsung. Customer services Customers are the major determining factor in business growth and profitability. Most global companies with quality products depends on the sales from its existing customers who are already using their products and are willing to upgrade of purchase other products as well as new customers who are currently using products from other brands. It’s therefore imperative that a company implement a comprehensive customer services strategy to address all their customers’ genuine concerns. Samsung has several ways in which customers can use such as emails, their website, social site pages, customer services centers and telephone (Samsung, 2013). Conclusion Samsung is an international company that has had immense growth in terms of product innovations, range of products, customer base and geographical breath with its major competitors being other multinational electronic companies such as Nokia mobiles and electronics, Sony electronics, Motorola electronics among others as well as china based electronic companies. Its Growth and sustainability strategies have enabled the company to expand its market share by replacing Nokia in terms of mobile phone sales. The company has been successful due to its quality products, marketing strategy, management and corporate social responsibility. Having examined the sustainability of Samsung as a service provider, it is imperative to conclude that the competitive advantage that every service provider is focusing on should be reinforcing by the sustainable corporate responsibility report. This is because such a concept helps the firm to adhere to the codes of conduct governing the production as well as the social and environmental impact of the product or service delivered. References Benn, S, Dunphy, D and Griffiths, A 2007, ‘Enabling change for corporate sustainability: An integrated perspective. Australasian journal of environmental management Vol. 13 Calvert, J and Marjorie, GC 2011, ‘Climate change and the Canadian energy sector,’ Canadian centre for policy alternatives, pp.17 Clarke, T and Dela Rama, M 2008,’ Fundamentals of corporate governance’. SAGE publication. London. 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