CS_Samsung_Electronics.pdf

D o N o t C o p y o r P o s t Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Permissions@ or 617-783-7860. 9-705-508 R E V : J U L Y 2 9 , 2 0 0 6 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This case was prepared by Professor Jordan I. Siegel and Professor James Jinho Chang, Yonsei University. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright ? 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. J O R D A N I . S I E G E L J A M E S J I N H O C H A N G Samsung Electronics Introduction Kun Hee Lee, chairman of the Samsung Group, contemplated his company’s strategy while sitting in the basement office of his home. His office had a one hundred-inch screen on the wall, and in front of the screen there was a short desk, just one foot in height. Lee spent much of his day in this room, studying the strategies of his competitors and overseeing multibillion-dollar investment decisions. Beside his desk were hundreds of DVDs and videos, many examining his competitors’ histories and strategies. Every new product made by Samsung and its competitors sat along the walls. Trained as an engineer, Lee eagerly picked apart every product, examining its design and quality of manufacturing.1 As he sat next to his low desk and sipped a cup of Korean green tea, Lee wondered whether his legion of Samsung empl