The Path to Product Excellence: Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Enhancing Commun...
About Samsung India
1. SAMSUNG INDIA-An Introduction
Samsung India Electronics Private Limited (SIEL) is the Indian subsidiary of the US $55.2
billion Samsung Electronics Corporation (SEC) headquartered in Seoul, Korea. It is the hub of
Samsung’s South West Asia Regional Operations, and looks after its business in Nepal,
Bangladesh, Maldives & Bhutan besides India. SIEL commenced operations in India in
December, 1995. Initially, a player only in the Colour Televisions segment, it later diversified
into colour monitors (1999) and refrigerators (2003). Today, it is recognized as one of the
fastest growing brands in the sphere of digital technology, and enjoys a sales turnover of over $
US 1 billion in a just a decade of operations in India.
Samsung in India has a presence in the following areas of business:
Consumer Electronics (CE)/Audio Visual (AV) Business
Home Appliances (HA) Business
Information Technology (IT) Business
Its operations are broadly divided into the following key sub-functions:
Sales & Marketing
Manufacturing
Software Centre Operations
THE SALES & MARKETING FUNCTION
Headquartered in New Delhi, Samsung India has a network of 19 branches and 16 Area Sales
Offices (ASOs) located all over the country, and the number is expected to grow, as the
organization continues to expand its horizons.
The Sales & Marketing function at Samsung is primarily divided into two categories:
Sales & Marketing (IT)
Sales & Marketing (AV/HA)
Apart from sales to households through its robust distribution channel, SIEL also has a huge
clientele in the Institutional Sales space. Therefore, there is a separate department devoted
completely to this function. It is the VMB (Vertical Market Business) department that is
responsible for making sales to institutions such as airports, hotels, banks, movie theatres, etc.
Another function of the sales & marketing function at SIEL is public relations, also known as
corporate communications. Here, the scope of activities includes maintaining liaison with the
media, organizing corporate social responsibility initiatives, website management, corporate
literature, etc.
THE MANUFACTURING FUNCTION
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2. SIEL has its manufacturing facility at Noida, U.P. This is the state-of-the-art, high-tech facility
for manufacturing Color Televisions, Color Monitors, and Washing Machines & Refrigerators.
This manufacturing unit consists of sophisticated facilities with latest Auto Insertion Machines,
Auto PCB Tester, High Efficiency Module Conveyor, and all modern machines geared up for
High Speed, High Volume & Very High Quality Production.
We firmly believe that continuous innovation is the key to making path-breaking improvements
in our products & processes and achieve productivity goals beyond imagination. Samsung uses
many tools for innovation such as “Reduced 7 Type of Wastage & SixSigma”. Our
commitment to grow through continuous innovation has helped us improve our productivity by
200% in the last 5 years.
Samsung India is also instrumental in carrying out Hardware Research & Development at its
Noida R&D Centre. The focus of the R&D Centre is to customize both Consumer Electronics
and Home Appliances’ products to better meet the needs of the Indian customer. From color
televisions designed for higher sound output, to washing machines with special “Sari Wash
Course”, DNIe vision series of Flat CTVs especially designed for the Indian market to
Samsung mobiles with regional languages menus, the Samsung R&D Centre in India is helping
the company to continuously innovate and introduce products customized for the Indian
market.
THE SOFTWARE R&D CENTRE
SIEL Software R&D Center was set up in September 2002 as a Software R & D Centre in
Noida, U.P. SIEL Software Centre is involved in the business of developing embedded and
desktop software for Samsung Electronics Corporation in a variety of areas related to Analog
and Digital TV, Monitors and other Multimedia technologies.
SIEL Software Center has successfully completed more than two hundred projects in
collaboration with Samsung Headquarters Visual Display and Digital Media divisions ( Korea).
SIEL Software Center engineers continuously strive to improve the performance and introduce
innovative features to make the end products more efficient and user friendly. We design and
implement some of the critical components for products such as next generation CRT and
Projection TVs, Plasma and LCD TVs, DLP TVs, Digital TV Set Top Boxes, DVD Players,
MP3/Video players, PDAs, 2D/3D Graphics Engines, Camcorders, Multimedia applications
etc., and believe in following optimized and stringent quality processes to build these world
leading products. SIEL Software Center plans to be certified at SPICE Level 3 by 2005 and
CMMI Level 4 by 2006.
Samsung Electronics brings a very enriching entertainment experience to the consumers
worldwide through its cutting edge technologies. We aim to revolutionize the way and break
the barriers to ride on the frontiers of technology to provide superior quality products to
Samsung's customers. Our Engineers continuously strive to improve the performance and
introduce innovative features to make these products very user friendly. We follow optimized
and stringent quality processes to build these world leading products
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3. For SIEL Software Center to continue to remain a strategic and key R&D Center of Samsung
Electronics, it is important that every employee of SIEL Software Center contributes his/her
fullest potential and capabilities. SIEL Software Center is always looking for dynamic
individuals who are driven by ambition, youth, vibrancy and challenge.
Management information system
Management information Systems (MIS), sometimes referred to as Information
Management and Systems, are the discipline covering the application of people, technologies,
and procedures — collectively called information system — to solving business problems.
Management Information Systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they
are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the
organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information
management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g.
Decision Support Systems, Expert systems, and Executive information systems
Samsung India moves operations to the Net
Realising the potential of the Internet, consumer goods
major Samsung India Electronics Limited (SIEL), has
not limited its activities to the mere creation of a
website, but has instead used it a business facilitator.
Shipra Arora profiles the initiatives of the company in
this space and finds out how it is using the medium for
brand building as well as customer retention
At a time when most companies in India are still
Chopra says the company now uses the Net extensively for
sceptical about using the Net, and those that have, have
communication with vendors and service centres
limited it to the creation of a website which merely
serves as an disseminator of information, Samsung India Electronics Limited (SIEL), the
consumer electronics major, has been one of the trendsetters in this space. Within a mere three
years since commencement of operations in 1995, the company established its presence on the
Web and has gone from strength to strength to establish itself as an e-enterprise. Rajesh
Chopra, deputy general manager-information systems, SIEL, points out that the growth of the
Internet in the company took place in two distinct phases, namely e-enabling and e-enhancing.
Elaborating on the company’s e-business strategy, Chopra points out that it spans across three
areas Business to Business (B2B), Business to Customer (B2C) and Information Channel (PR).
Both B2B and B2C form the core of its innovative e-marketing activities apart from tie-ups for
brand promotion. The applications on the B2B front include ‘GLONET’ for its vendors,
‘SERVICENET’ for authorised service centres and EDI for custom and bank.
www.samsungemart.com, the e-commerce site for its customers forms the B2C part of SIEL’s
e-marketing program. The significant applications under this include Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) and database marketing. The company’s e-business strategy comes a full
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4. circle with the third angle providing an ‘Information Channel’ through its website
www.samsungindia.com with applications such as Digital World and Call Login.
Business to Business (B2B)
Global Logistics Network Systems (GLONET)
Vendors: With sourcing for production being
done from both domestic and international
markets, SIEL realised the need for
streamlining its processes with its vendors to
lead to more efficient and transparent
functioning. Hence, in 2000, Samsung launched
its B2B initiative. This involved linking the key
vendors, which form the bulk of Samsung’s
sourcing (26 domestic and 30 international) through Samsung’s GLONET. This marked the
company’s first initiative on the B2B front.
Chopra adds that GLONET is being used to effectively purchase Samsung India’s requirements
from its International Procurement Offices as well as vendors in India. As soon as the purchase
order is raised, it is transmitted to the vendor real-time as the system is Web-based. The EDI
Application extends from order placement and sharing of the production plan (4 weeks fixed
and 12 weeks rolling production plan) to invoicing. Account reconciliation with these vendors
is also done online. “The implementation of GLONET has shortened the business cycle since it
has helped us optimise the logistics processes including Just In Time Delivery (JIT System)
and replenishment,” he explains.
The sharing of planning information and automation of business process with its vendors has
also helped the company reduce inventory levels and curtail wastage. The purchases from the
Singapore Spare Parts Centre too are done online. In this way, the GLONET system (an
extranet for SIEL) has evolved beyond being a simple application for business application
transaction with vendors and has become an advanced application supporting complete
business communication between the two parties. Chopra points out that even communication
in terms of material rejection etc are transmitted to vendors online.
SERVICENET Authorised Service Centres: The next B2B project on hand for SIEL’s IT
department was the automation of its authorised service centres (ASC). With more that 550
service centres, the need to connect them was something the company couldn’t afford to
ignore. Accordingly, in 2001, in an effort to e-enhance the organisation, Samsung India set up
its online B2B application for ASCs called Servicenet. With this, the entire service and Spares
Management of Samsung India was Web enabled. The system essentially translates into an
entire service network being linked through the Net for day to day working. Now, with the
implementation of Servicenet, the ASCs are linked with the Regional Parts Distributors and the
CS Head Office through the Internet. This in turn is linked to Samsung’s South East Asian
subsidiaries as it is integrated at the back-end with SAP R/3 of Samsung India and Samsung
Asia for LPA VISION spare parts Management and automatic planning of spare parts.
Samsung India started using SAP for service from September 1, 2001.
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5. The modules in this package include ASC/ASP
management, inventory management, calls
management, defect ratio and early warning signals
and technical approval system for field defects.
According to Chopra, at any point of time, when the
authorised service centre logs onto ServiceNet, it can
get accurate information on spares availability, order or
follow up on its order for spares, track warranty claim
status and in case of problems, gain access to Samsung
Chopra with the IT team at SEIL personnel directly. Service manuals and technical
bulletins training material, service related manuals and other communication material are all
available online, which the service centre can access at the click of a button. “In this way,
service centres are better placed to respond to customers since Servicenet links ASC with
Samsung’s four regional parts distributors and 15 Gold ASCs,” explains Chopra.
With Samsung India integrating its spares management operations with this system, it can now
draw spares not just from the Singapore depot but from any of the other subsidiaries depending
on its need. Based on the spares stocking and consumption levels at the National Spares
Warehouse, which in turn is linked to the ASCs through Servicenet, the MegaSys system
automatically generates weekly orders to the Singaporeregional depot for spares.
The key benefits of Service net include:
a. Transparency in the system since the ASC can check stock availability in the warehouse of
the parts distributor, and hence need not stock-up unless required.
b. Facility to place orders online with the spares made available within the next 24 hours
c. Shifting of the Spare Parts Ordering Cycle from a monthly to a weekly basis and consequent
reduction in spares inventory levels in quantity and amount at ASC by 50 and 35 percent
respectively, assisting in realising better return on investment and reduced cost.
d. Reduced obsolescence and manual errors.
e. Enhanced efficiency in servicing customers in terms of spares management.
f. Facilitating much faster and easier communication
e-banking: As part of its e-banking initiative, the company has automated most of its financial
processes and transactions online. Chopra says, “All applications related to employees salary
such as balance confirmation, reconciliation, accounts status, collection, withdrawal etc
covering the entire gamut of banking applications have been put online.” In fact, even account
reconciliation with vendors is done online. The online banking application also covers
applications related to customs in its purview of functioning. To ensure the smooth functioning
of this system, the company has even tied up with some key bankers.
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6. Information Channel
Though established with the objective of functioning merely as a website for the company, the
portal www.samsungindia.com now leverages the Net to help in brand building and Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), in addition to serving as a complete information channel for
SIEL. The site is linked to samsungemart, in order to facilitate online buying, online call
logging for customers to register their calls with the company, Samsung Digital world,
Samsung’s Customer Club and Samsung Infotainment. The whole idea of creating a new
integrated site is to give Samsung sites across different subsidiaries a synergy in terms of look
and feel and a common brand feel.
Samsung Digital World (SDW): SDW is one of the key applications supported by
samsungindia.com. According to Chopra, SDW acts as a tool for facilitating SIEL’s CRM
activities. Samsung India has made a Samsung Customer Club online called ‘Samsung Digital
World’, which represents an initiative to build and enhance a long-term personalised
relationship with Samsung Customers and reinforce brand loyalty amongst Samsung Product
Owners. “We view Samsung Digital World as a forum for our exclusive customers to interact
with and build a relationship with the company,” Chopra points out.
To improve the robustness of the applications, Samsung has built cross links between the
different properties on the website. For instance, customers buying through Samsungemart can
gain automatic access to Samsung Digital World. Says Chopra, “Since we have integrated the
system at the back-end with SAP, we can even authenticate the serial no of the product bought
by the customer.” Customers who have registered themselves for Samsung Digital World
offline too can check their point status by logging on to the Samsung website. The success of
the initiative can be gauged from the fact that in the first six months of its launch itself SDW
got over 50,000 Samsung customers as its members.
Online call logging: SIEL introduced its online call logging facility with a view to better serve
its customers. The application is linked with Servicenet at the back-end to transfer all their
complaints, service requirements such as product demonstrations etc to the service centres. At
the customer end, Samsung customers can log on to the samsungindia website
www.samsung.co/india for registering their calls and are given a unique call reference number
for tracking their call. For the ASC which gets the call, it translates into accurate customer call
data, thus making it easier for ASCs to process customer calls leading to customer satisfaction.
According to Chopra, the application also provides for escalation of calls to the next level if
they are not met with satisfactorily within a specific time period.
Infotainment: Samsung Infotainment was created as a special entertainment centre on the
Samsung website in August 2001. Developed with the idea of creating a Fun Zone on the
Samsung website, this section has a mix of games and contests built around the Samsung
Brand. Says Chopra, “The whole idea behind Infotainment is to create a zone where the
Samsung Customer or a visitor on the website gets a chance to interact with the brand and also
learn something new about Samsung products, the advertising and even how the technology
works.” Features include information on the company and its products, working of
technologies, articles, contests designed around products, weekly Quiz and e-Greeting cards.
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7. According to Chopra, the idea is to build the brand value and image through this channel
leading to both offline sales and online sales through samsungemart.com.
Business to consumer(B2C)
Samsungemart.com: SIEL launched its B2C e-commerce application in the year 2000 through
its B2C mall, samsungemart.com. Currently, all products of the company are available through
this channel. According to Chopra, a very minuscule portion of company’s revenues comes
from this channel, with most of the sales being gifting orders. However, the revenues are
enough to sustain the expenses for maintaining the application. “Even though the B2C space
has not picked up well, an entry into this space was imminent to prepare ourselves for the
future surge in B2C sales. It is very important to establish and stabilise our B2C presence by
the time this market picks up,” he adds. However, the company is not just waiting passively for
the market to dictate terms. It is in fact aggressively working towards increasing its online B2C
revenues to contribute about 1-2 percent of its total revenues in the time to come. For this, the
IT team is working on features such as introducing more transaction security in the site to
overcome the biggest hurdle to B2C in India.
Further, the application also helps the company in online marketing activities through its
massive customer database. This is being used for promotional activities and direct mailer
marketing. The information in the database is also used for understanding customer behaviour
to build up effective CRM activities.
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are the nervous system of an organization,
tracking and coordinating vital operational support. They move products, place orders, assist in
decision-making, track projects, and support numerous industry-specific needs. Implemented
primarily in the 1980s and 1990s, most organizations have their ERP environments firmly in-
place and under.
Ever since its inception in1938, Samsung has continually refined its Mission statement to
respond to changes both in the world, and in itself. Whether it was “Economic Contribution to
the Nation”, “Priority to Human Resources”, or “Pursuit of Rationalism”, each slogan had the
quality of representing the most significant moments in Samsung’s history. Each of them
represented a different stage of Samsung’s growth from a domestic industrial leader to a global
electronics powerhouse.
Samsung Electronics, the flagship company of the Samsung Group currently positioned as a
high technology leader, has the following as its Vision and Mission.
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8. There are two parts of being a quot;Digital-ε Companyquot;, and the first is clearly about being
quot;Digitalquot; producing not just digital products, but products that inspire digital integration across
our entire company. The second part of being a quot;εquot; is to use ε- Processes connecting R&D,
production, and marketing to customers, partners, and the market-disciplined approach is the
way we bring value to every part of our supply chain, including products data to and customer
relationship through Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
Samsung Electronics Global Mission & Vision would be achieved through nine action values:
Continuous Innovation
Creativity
Challenge
Strategic Focus
Speed
Simplicity
Empowerment
Crisis Awareness
Customer Focus
Sybase® technology:
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9. Samsung Securities—a company engaged in trading, brokerage and underwriting and
distribution of securities—needed to build a secure, customer-oriented information system.
Using Sybase® technology, Samsung created a data management solution that improves
productivity and customer satisfaction.
Key Benefits
Reduces transaction close time from four hours to 30 minutes
Accommodates a tenfold increase in transactions
Consolidates view of customer portfolios
Sybase Technology
Sybase Adaptive Server® Enterprise
Sybase Replication Server®
Sybase EAServer
Maintaining the Leadership Position
Samsung Securities, established in 1992, engages in trading, brokerage, trust business,
international securities business, underwriting and distribution of securities. It has 111 branch
offices with 2,549 employees. With the objective of implementing a competitive system as a
comprehensive investment bank, the company was the first in the Korean securities industry to
construct a client/server structure on a large-scale system.
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10. To eliminate inefficiency and inflexibility with contractor-based management of contract
sheets, and to implement a customer-oriented information system, Samsung Securities
undertook the contract sheet transfer project. The project’s aim was to improve customer
satisfaction and productivity by building a secure, customer-oriented information system.
Proven Technology
Using Sybase Adaptive Server® Enterprise (ASE) and Sybase Replication Server®, Samsung
Securities implemented a customer-oriented distribution system and increased the speed of
transaction processing. Sybase EAServer provides the application layer to supply Web-enabled
application access.
With numerous securities firms on Wall Street using Sybase solutions, Samsung Securities felt
that Sybase provided large-scale data management solutions with proven success. Sybase ASE
coupled with Sybase Replication Server was considered to provide fast response speeds.
Improved Speed, Productivity and Customer Service
With the help of Sybase technologies, Samsung Securities now experiences benefits in
numerous areas, such as the reduction of time for daily transactions closure from three to four
hours to 30 minutes. The new system enables customers to perform commodity transactions
with a single integrated card and engage in different online transactions at every branch. And
for the employees, the new system provides comprehensive account and commodity
information for each customer.
“We could not achieve the desired speed, despite the new server environment, so we had to
take a closer look,” said Junghoon Lee, manager of Samsung SDS’s technical support team for
Samsung Securities. “In the end, we had to perform SQL tuning for a very sensitive program,
which provided a 400 percent speed improvement.”
From the management-efficiency perspective, the Sybase solution provides enhanced
productivity, customer service and system competitiveness.
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
WHILE the introduction of value-added tax (VAT) in the country is still in the offing,
Samsung, like other corporates, is strategising about the changes it would have to make in its
supply chain management to take maximum advantage of the new tax regime.
In fact, the company estimates that if VAT is introduced in the country, it will be able to bring
down the number of warehouses from 25 to 20. quot;Efficiency will definitely increase with the
introduction of VAT,quot; says Mr Bong Sik Park, Director - Support Division, Samsung India
Electronics.
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11. Agrees Mr Park Sungchil, Senior Vice-President, Corporate SCM Group, Samsung Electronics
(Korea), quot;In a large country like India, there is a bigger opportunity to save money on the
supply chain management (SCM) sidequot;.
Mr Sungchil, who is heading the supply chain operations of Samsung globally, is in India to
conduct training on best practices in SCM utilised by Samsung across the world. quot;The
executives will be required to take an exam on the subject and pass it too,quot; he quips.
Samsung is running several pilot projects globally to improve efficiency on the supply chain
side and make it more quot;speedyquot;. quot;In fact, while most companies are still working on a monthly
system, we switched to a weekly one several years ago and are now running a pilot in Korea to
reduce the cycle to a daily basis,quot; says Mr Sungchil.
IT INITIATIVES:
In Samsung India Limited knowledge and technology are key resources which have helped the
Company achieve higher levels of excellence and efficiency. Towards this overall goal of
technology-driven performance, Samsung is utilizing Information Technology in a big way.
This will help in integrating a vast distribution system spread all over India and across the
world. It will also cut down costs and increase profitability.
Samsung’s major IT Initiatives
Migration from Baan and Mfg ERP Systems to centralized SAP ERP system from 1st
April 2006 for all business units.
Implementation of a country wide new WAN Infrastructure for running centralized ERP
system.
Setting up of new Data Centre at KCO Head Office.
Extension of Reach System to distributors for capturing Secondary Sales Data.
Roll out of IT services to new plants and CFAs.
SmartTran Mainframe-to-Web Integration Tchnology
EnterpriseLink Technology Corporation, a leading provider web-to-host integration tools, has a
partnership agreement with Samsung Information & Telecommunications, a $500 million
division of Samsung Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, Samsung will market, sell,
service and support EnterpriseLink's SmartTran web-to-host integration software throughout
Korea.
A large percentage of Korean organizations run on mainframes. The SmartTran products from
EnterpriseLink allow Korean companies to quickly and easily add new functionality to
mainframe applications to extend their life. This new functionality can include access to
intranets, extranets and mobile computing. In many situations, the SmartTran approach offers a
lower-cost, rapid-delivery alternative to client/server solutions. The SmartTran technology is
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12. the first to offer Korean corporations a tool that quickly creates customized interfaces with the
power to change the interaction between a user and a legacy application, without programming.
quot;In the current Korean economic environment, increasing efficiency, reducing costs and
leveraging current investments are very important,quot; said James Cha of Samsung Information &
Telecommunications. quot;Korean companies and the government are interested in preserving and
extending the significant investments they have in mainframe systems and applications.
Enterprise Link's SmartTran offers a very cost-effective way to take advantage of legacy
systems.quot;
quot;SmartTran is the only mainframe-to-web tool that offers full control over mainframe
applications without programming. With SmartTran we can deliver a full range of intranet
and extranet applications that effectively leverage mainframe systems, applications and data.
What is more, with SmartTran, new web applications can be delivered in a much shorter time
than with other tools and approaches,quot; said B.H. Bae of the New Media Division of Samsung
Information & Telecommunications.quot;
Samsung is interested in tapping the significant opportunities in Korea for extranet business-to-
consumer applications in insurance and home banking, as well as supply chain automation
applications in manufacturing companies. Also of interest are a number of intranet
opportunities: for example, enabling overseas offices of Korean companies to communicate
effectively with headquarters systems. Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance is currently
developing an extranet application and Samsung Life Insurance is working on an
intranet/extranet application.
Conclusion
The MIS automates the Samsung’s daily tasks, as well as providing a fun element for the members to
use outside work hours. The project has covered all the software engineering phases, which are vital
for the successful development of most systems. Many techniques were used and adapted from a
number of methodologies e.g. a rapid application development (RAD). Again, a number of techniques
were applied in the data modeling stages that helped to visually represent the different processes and
data flows in the system. Once the system is installed it is
expected to provide the following features: Facilitate the communication between all members, make
data storage and manipulation more effective and easier information to customers.
Samsung India can now enable growth and scalability of the group’s business and culture, at a faster
rate and help enhance the daily work of the users. The benefit of placing the system on the network
was that the system could be more easily maintained. Updates and all modifications need to be done
only once and every copy of the database accessed by the users is automatically updated too. Also
placing the MIS on the department’s network gave the system more security as Novell’s security
features were applied to restrict the access only to the members.
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