Samsung How did Samsung emerge from a copycat brand to a product leader?

CEO Lee Kunhee, who is also the chairman of Samsung, made up his mind in 1993 that his company would set out on a goal to basically beat out Sony for the title of the biggest consumer products company in the world. Sony, a Japanese firm, had been on top of the list of consumer products for a long time, and frankly there has always been competition between Korea and Japan (Japan occupied Korea during many years of the 20th century). So is was not hard to figure out why the CEO would want to create "…sleek, bold, and beautiful products" that would appeal to high-end users, according to the article in Chapter 9. In order to achieve his goal, Lee hired a group of talented young designer and gave them the challenge to create products that had to pass what the author calls the "wow" test.

Along with the new design strategy, Lee decided to avoid selling its products in budget and discount-type stores (like Wal-Mart...

It took about twenty years but Lee's Samsung Company has definitely topped Sony and is "…now by far the largest consumer electronics company in the world" -- and it produces televisions, cell phones, DVD players, digital cameras and camcorders, laser printers and other home appliances.
Is Samsung's product development process customer centered? Team based? Systematic?

Actually all three of those strategies are being played out by Samsung to one degree or another. Samsung made a point of creating products that not only were high-tech and performed better than other products, but the company built into the designs artistic styling. Clearly that was a deliberate choice that Lee made to appeal to the customer. No one could mistake a Samsung product for another "cheap" product because the looks are very different than the cheap brands. Hence, observers know that Samsung was going after certain customers -- and not necessarily those who shop at Wall-Mart.…