# 7 Entry / 20500297 (for 8th week)

vs.

Samsung and SONY are two companies I'm mostly interested in. I've actually been preparing for internship in Samsung for this summer vacation and all of my computer devices are SONY's. I was reading newspaper last weekend and found an article about these two companies. This article introduces a book, 'Samsung vs. Sony' written by 장세진, analyzing the reasons why Sony has collapsed while Samsung has been growing.

Until 2000, Sony's market value was quadruple of Samsung's. However, from this moment, Sony started to go down while Samsung got on the fast track. Finally, in 2006, Samsung's market value was almost 100 trillion dollars, but Sony's was half of it. What made Sony fail? And what made Samsung rise? The author of this book suggested that it's because of leadership and management system. For 10 years, in digital world, Sony pursued synergy effect between hardward and contents by using network while Samsung focused on key components for competitive advantage. But most importantly, "organizational process and leadership of CEO were essential influence" the author said. Samsung has its own speed of production and power of execution. Executive ability of Samsung is one of aspects I admire and that's one of reasons why I want to work in Samsung at least for few years after graduation. No matter what happened to Saumsung these days, I admire charisma of the president of Samsung, 이건희. He's a person of action and does have management skills and it's so obvious that Samsung is helping Korean economy to grow. I believe that his management style was so influential that it brought a lot of changes and improvement in Korea.

　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　

In this book, the author points out that Samsung's growth in these days resembles the one of Sony 10 years ago. The period of prosperity of Sony was over when it tried to change its management system and resulted in lack of strategy. When it comes to change, there is always a risk and Sony eventually failed with that change. It can happen to Samsung as well. Maintaining its previous management style and getting used to more complex management environment might be difficult and might result in more strict regulations which will make employees lack of loyalty. I guess what we call 'Samsung man' or 'Samsung woman' feels proud of their company because of its reputation and huge influence to Korea but no one knows how long it will last. As a company's life cycle we learned in class, there is always a time of declining. Samsung should have some strategies to be prepared for its future changes.

I recommend you to read this book if you want to know what you need to do as a CEO of a certain company in order to face 'change.' I haven't started reading yet, (I will for sure!) but I think it will be very helpful in understanding global leadership and dilemma of top companies and how companies overcome. :)

　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　

Reference: 한국경제) 삼성 '소니의 실수' 답습하지 않으려면- by 고두현기자

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