Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, a high-end product introduced by South Korean tech giant Samsung has been discovered burning issues. After recalling 2.5 million phones and giving out replacement Note 7 phones to consumers undergoing the above-mentioned issues and having complaints, it was followed by reports that the replacement ones still were catching fire though Samsung insisted that all replaced devices were safe. It was explained by an official that “the replacement phones might have a defect that was different from the problem with the original Galaxy Note 7s”. Eventually, Samsung made its decision to permanently cease production of Galaxy Note 7s for the reason of, in their words, putting consumer safety as top priority.
In terms of operational management, problems exist in the beginning of the operational process, which is “inputs”, due to the information of “exploding batteries” given by the text. As the first step was already wrong, a right procedure of making and delivering of Note 7 phones still resulted in products with serious safety problems. As a popular product of a giant phone company, it is supposed to able to compete with other similar types of phone products with low cost or product uniqueness; however, since it had safety issue in the first place, it was automatically kicked out of the competition field. Considering from McGrath’s “Transient Strategy”, after it was successfully launched, the product failed at the step of “ramp up”. The exploding issue pushed it away from even loyal Samsung users because safety problems are always taken seriously by consumers, after all, it was indeed threating and harming their lives so that Samsung was not able to move forward to exploiting and reconfiguring at all. In the smart phone market, the threat of substitutes is high because it is fairly easy to find a substitute, such as Apple or Huawei; the switching cost is moderately low despite the probability of long-term contracts or customer loyalty. Generally speaking, there is high rivalry and competition in this market, and the problem addressed undoubtedly leads the product to a failure and puts the firm in a dangerous situation that a large loss of faith in Samsung products resulted.
Successful access to safe and advanced technology is the stepping-stone to success of electronic products; indeed, safety issue is initially the most significant factor for all companies to consider.
Shunan Jiang’s blog also provides opinions about overheating batteries issue. I agree that the quality issue will decrease Samsung’s customer loyalty and lower the brand image and that the company’s indiscreet attitude will impact their future cooperation with partners, and investments achieved as well.
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embedded link of classmate’s blog:
Samsung has announced to stop selling Galaxy Note 7 worldwide
reference list:
News, BBC. “Samsung Permanently Stops Galaxy Note 7 Production.” BBC News. N.p., 11 Oct. 2016. Web. 11 Oct. 2016. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37618618>