MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS OF SAMSUNG’S DEFEAT–COMMENTING ON KIKI SHI’S BLOG POST

In Kiki Shi’s blog “How Will Samsung Explosion Affect Itself”, she mentioned effects from three aspects: profits, brand reputation and market share. After reading her blog, I’d like to share my thoughts on management.

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As a international brand from a small country, Samsung is always regarded as the best example of enforcing globalization. The Galaxy7 defeat of Samsung made me think about the supply chain management model, and controlling the risks from globalization.

As well all know, vertical production line consist one dominant factor of Samsung’s success. Chips, storage, screen and battery are all manufactured by Samsung mobile phone itself. Vertical production mode largely helped Samsung adopt the rapidly changing condition in the consumer electronics industry, as a result Samsung can always launch new products one step ahead comparing to its competitors. However, the risks are also magnified as the explosion happened. Just think, if Samsung gives authorization of battery production to a leading supplier, is it possible that the supplier will more focus on the quality of battery produced instead of giving in to meet the time limit of launching a new product.

In addition, it is my personal view that Samsung’s core of the selling points are basically the design of phones and marketing rather than quality. In this saturated mobile phone market, the time to market decides the fortune of the product. Since Samsung is always taking its competitors(Apple) as the ruler, the products’ culture is apparently seeking for quick wins. Such products’ culture breaks the standard for its manufacture and it is also revealed that Samsung chooses the market instead of quality in this competition.

One other dominant competitor of Samsung—Huawei, did not gloat and saw the potential risk of globalization from Samsung’s explosion. The CEO of Huawei also said that Samsung’s defeat is not an opportunity but a warning. In this day and age, such emergency like explosion of Samsung may lead to chain reaction and combined effects. Such event gives higher standard of dealing with issues. Also, aiming to produce a standardized and global product, companies need to aggregating resources on certain products, which decrease the cost and lead to higher efficiency.

To conclude, I believe it is only the stepping up efforts in quality that would help Samsung to gain its dominant position in the market. (384 words)

 

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2016/09/04/samsung-note7-battery/#320f64e21eb2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Electronics

http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/sustainability/suppliers/

Nokia Is Getting Its Leading Position Again-Commenting On Eleanor Pan’s Blog

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In Eleanor’s blog “Nokia can no longer win its consumers back”, she thinks that Nokia has lost its market. Firstly, as Nokia has faded away for years, smart phones have already become the dominant part in this saturated phone market. Since Nokia persist applying Sybian system and Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS, which enjoys fee consumer preference, she explains Nokia may completely lost its market if it does not innovate a more competitive mobile phone system. In addition, the fact that recent high-speed development of mobile phone industry already makes this market saturated for consumers with different background. For these two reasons, Eleanor states that Nokia can no longer gets its leading position in this market.

From my perspective of view, there are opportunities for Nokia to repeat the success. First of all, Nokia has built a strong brand image in its heyday, however people are also aware of the fact that Nokia has become yesterday’s story and it does not belong to current market. As a result, brand innovation can bring opportunities to Nokia. Since Nokia has lost part of its technical staff as it joined Microsoft, innovation can be a big challenge yet it is both important and urgent. Hence authorizing teams that specialize at technical innovation to design new product that matches consumer needs should be effective. Using design from other teams and produce in accordance with Nokia’s production requirement, this strategy guarantees that Nokia is producing mobile phones that both matches consumer needs and is produced with stringent requirements. As Samsung is facing the quality issue recent days, Nokia’s coming back will enjoy high popularity due to its brand image—high quality.

We may say Apple and Android seized the opportunity in smart phone industry and wearable device industry for Fitbit and Jawbone. As it may take a long term for Nokia to return the dominant position in mobile industry, Nokia should be seeking other potential industry and switch its production focus. This year, Nokia announced that they will be focusing on the innovation of 5G internet. In this 2G,3G and 4G generation, communication network basically includes text, video, image and video. The arrival of 5G technology allows the internet coverage expand to all kinds of devices and heighten the application efficiency of network.

One other wise strategy that Nokia adopt is that it has a clear division consumer segment, the price of first products it launches as it returns is around 600CAD. Such price range is quite competitive and largely decreases competitors. Nowadays, it is the price performance that consumers desire in which Nokia does well. (Word Count:432)

download

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2465691/nokia-to-make-smartphone-comeback-with-duo-of-android-70-nougat-handsets

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/11699702/nokia-is-coming-back-to-phones-and-tablets

 

How is China doing without Google?

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The latest data reveals that, in the global search engine market in September 2016, Google-Global still takes up the largest percentage, which is 73.02% followed by 9.26 percent of Bing and 8.74% of Baidu.

Nevertheless, China has officially blocked all Google products like Google search, Gmail, Google Maps and more for as long as more than 2 years since 2014 May, which is the longest worst ever. Being the top one search engine in the world, the share of Google-China were  only 30% before it is officially blocked in China.

                                         img-google-play-china

As is stated by the news, China has moved on without Google. The main reason behind this is the localization of Chinese local site. Recent years, Baidu maps, 163mail and other substitute applications have been germinated and is designed to better match Chinese netizens’ needs and enjoy more popularity. The competitors of Google-China, gain lots of opportunities from Google’s withdrawal. Given growing Internet users in China, the market share of Baidu proves the potential and influence in China’s fast-growing digital market. It is fair to say that China is doing well without Google so far.

But from my point of view, both Google and China have been affected since Google is officially banned in China. According to industry estimates, China has suffered roughly 50 thousand of unemployment as Google gets out of China market, which includes advertising agency and personnel responsible for search engine optimization for websites. In addition, approximately 200 thousands individual website lose their channels of Internet promotion as Google is blocked in China.

Also, as Google quit China, China’s investment environment is also largely influenced. As a well-known high-tech corporation like Google is squeezed out, foreign enterprises may discredit investment climate in China as well as market returns and end up with giving up further investment in China. As China is trying to transfer from conventional economy to “new economy” in the long run, lack of advanced international technology might slow down the process.

However, Google may benefit from it’s staying out of China market. As China’s political system requires, it’s impossible to access some information that is against Chinese government and remarks that is trying to discredit China if it is trying to gain Chinese market. But as Google’s slogan “Don’t be evil” reveals, Google is definitely not going against its principle for business returns. In other words, Google may sacrifice its current Chinese market, but it gains international reputation and larger international market share.

It is fair to say that China’s current internet industry doesn’t need Google so far, but the long run effect is definitely inevitable. (423words)

Citation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Ending_of_self-censorship

https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=0

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-06-07/google-doesn-t-need-china-any-more-than-china-needs-it

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2615782/internet/google-blocked-in-china-by-censors–unclear-how-long-it-will-last.html

 

Going Beyond Disneyland, Can Wanda make it?

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Recent years have witnessed a high-speed development in China theme park industry, as Disney entered China mainland this year, the competition in this industry is getting more and more fierce.

“Disney really shouldn’t have entered the mainland.” Wang Jianlin, the chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group said on China Central Television on Aug 26th. Soon the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger responded that doing business in China is tough, but the potential rewards remain compelling. I personally think that Disney and Wanda Group are basically counterparts as both company are involved in both movie industry as well as theme parks. But when considering the intellectual property value, we have to admit that Disney has the upper hand.

Let’s take Disney for example. As is shown from the industrial structure drawn by Walt Disney, Disney always insist that the development of TV, music, publications, theme parks and theatrical films should be coordinated. From my point of view, TV and movies should be at the core of service as it is the start of the chain. Moreover, media offers the information dissemination channels, derived goods build higher popularity and theme parks make Disney culture eternal classic. Also, recent open data shows that up to March 28th, Disney has reached a total revenue of 12.46 billion dollars in which tickets accounts for 30% and revenue from Disney shops occupies 25%. In comparison, theme parks are not the basic source of income for Wanda Group, the “2015 annual report of Wanda Group” reveals that commercial real estate, hotels and chain department stores were the top3 income source in 2015. Based on evidence given above, Disney is quite hard to compete with.

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However, recent development in China presents massive opportunities for Wanda Group. Chinese government has adopted legislation establishing more legal holiday and more high-speed line has been constructed. Both changes give people in China more accessibility for leisure, in which theme park construction plan if Wanda may benefit from in the long-run. In addition, in the first theme park constructed by Wanda Group in Nanchang, half of its 4.8 million sqm is constructed for rental and sale and revenue gained from it will be supplied to further culture development of the park.

It is projected that there is significant space for development for future theme park industry in China. Richard Huang, an analysist in entertainment industry from Nomura promoted that Chinese only spend 3 dollars on theme parks yet the figure for US is 58 dollars.

It is my personal view that China theme park industry will be facing shuffling within 10 years and Wanda Group will soon prevail as the focus on buiding IP value of its theme parks.

(446words exclude citation)

 

 

 

Work cited

“Disney vs. Wanda: How the Two Theme Parks Stack Up.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2016.

“Disney vs. Wanda: How the Two Theme Parks Stack Up.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2016.

“CEO Bob Iger Said Doing Business in China Is Tough. ” Disney CEO: China Is Tough but a ‘great Opportunity’.

“Days after Disney Opened Its First Theme Park in China, It Is Already Planning a Second.” Quartz. N.p., 2016. Web. 01 Oct. 2016.

“China’s Richest Man Opens Theme Park With Warning for Disney.” Time. Time, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2016.

“Wanda Unveils First Cultural Tourism City, Aiming to Become World’s Top Brand-Wanda Group.”. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2016.

“China Drives Asia’s Theme Park Growth. ” Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

 

 

Business Ethics

The aim of this blog would be showing my own understanding of business ethics as well as giving comment on the article “Your new iPhone will soon be trash”.

Business ethics should be considered to any or all-economic transactions between individuals or profit-making organizations. Also, Edward Freeman states that if any business aims to be successful, it has to create value to customers, suppliers, employees, financers and shareholders in the video.

It is stated in Jonathan’s article that Apple’s removing cable from earphones is a planned obsolescence, and wireless ear phone may not last as long as the headphone jack. In addition, Jonathan mentioned that the innovation of wireless earphone can be a painful reminder of the personal, economic, environmental and moral costs of never-ending updates, which is against the business ethics.

I personally don’t quite agree with Jonathan’s opinion. He stated that it may replace the headphone jack which have been used for decades but he didn’t notice it can be regarded as a new technology which can increase the competitiveness in the earphone market and gives other firms motivation.

However, the price of wireless earphone named is much higher than a basic ear pods which may not be affordable to certain consumer group. This may lead to an unpopularity among consumers due to the law of demand in the earphone market. Also, as is stated in Jonathan’s article, as earphones update more and more frequently, people no longer can get their products maintained or repaired, from this perspective, Apple’s new innovation may be against the business ethic as it destroyrd the ear pods market to some extent which can be considered as an immorality as their behavior changed the earphone market and lead to a negative consequence.

To conclude, business ethic should be considered from different perspectives and Apple’s innovation gives other firms motivation yet it may an evil to consumers who prefer the ear pods.

(318words)

Citation:
Article Title: Your new iPhone will soon be trash, and that’s the point
Website Title: The Globe and Mail
URL: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/a-tempest-in-a-headphone-jack/article31767127/
Website Title: YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/embed/bIRUaLcvPe8

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