Part-1 Background and operation
The study is focused towards the essential understanding of the operational and functional aspects of Samsung Company. The various operational aspects of the company is effectively analyzed concerning their greater significant towards the productivity of the organization. The functional aspects that are necessary for the long term productive performance of organizations are the main focus.
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to find out the various aspects related to the performance as an organization of Samsung. The analysis, evaluation and subsequent understanding of the organizational process of the company can help to generate implications that can help towards the development of newer ventures and the corporate industry in general. The mobile phone division of Samsung is considered for the study.
Size
Samsung is a multinational company specializing in electronic products headquartered in Korea. The organization has total assets worth 266.8 billion US Dollars as of 2017. The electronics subsidiary of the company contributes about 70% of the revenue of the company (The Official Samsung Galaxy Site 2018). The company operates is 80 countries and has more than 308 thousand global employees. The market value of the electronics division of the company is more than 325 billion US dollar for the present year.
Competitors
Concerning the electronics department of the company, the major competitors are the top smartphone manufacturing companies. The biggest competing companies are Apple, Huawei and Xiaomi. Like Samsung these companies also manufacture a range of electronic products.
Target customers
The target customers is formed by a wide consumer range. However, the average target customers are between the ages of 20 to 50. The company focuses on reaching the target customers through the addition of new features and upgrades on each of their new products.
Recent Performance
The company has been much successful in the recent years due to the successful launch of the galaxy smartphones and the subsequent success of the galaxy series of smartphones. The current annual revenue of the company is more than 211 Billion US Dollars (Migdadi 2016).
Inputs, transformation process and operations
The inputs that are used by Samsung are the raw materials used to make the phones and the other products. There are large number of people that work in these factories and provide their significant efforts. Samsung also uses efficient machinery to make the products. These range within a sophisticated range of elements that are combined to make the finished electronic products. The transformation process take place across various factories across the globe. Most of the factories are located in Vietnam, China, Brazil, India and other similar countries. With 2 manufacturing plants Vietnam produces about 50% of the mobile phones of Samsung (Migdadi 2016). The machineries utilized are usually designed in order to produce a large number of different electronic products. The various parts are made and transferred to specific departments where they are assembled to make the finished products. The outputs are the finished goods that reach the customers. Vietnam alone produces 240 million units of Samsung phones. Considering the mobile phones Samsung produces around 120 million phones each year (The Official Samsung Galaxy Site 2018).
Part -2 Transformation process and evaluation of operation
Analysis of operations management
The organization in terms of the four Vs of operations management are:-
Volume- The volume of operations of Samsung is low. They undertake operations for the effective production of a large number of smartphones. Hence, the volume of production of the company is significantly large (Hitt, Xu and Carnes 2016). The company has dominated the market for a long time due to their operational low volume. The company has recently sold more than 73 million phones worldwide. The operational features of the company have been greatly systematized for providing maximum productivity.
Variety- the Company offers a variety of products for the customers. The organization has to hence take part in great variety of operations to cater to the demand of their large variety of offered products. The company has to cater to the requirements of a large number of customers. They have a large number of smartphones that have various levels of specifications. This is the reason behind the company taking part in a large number of operational functions.
Variation- The change in demand of the products of company happen quite often. The Samsung galaxy series phones are very much in demand and new versions are released to keep up with the market competition in course of few months (Bozarth and Handfield 2018). There are various factors that affect the demand of the Samsung products. The chief being competition, user preference and storage requirement.
Visibility- With regards to visibility Samsung has mixed visibility. This means that the customer interactions are in regards to the sale of the product as well as the post sales servicing of the smartphones and other devices. It is important to note that the company experiences medium level of customer interactions, given the value of productivity and effective performance. The company provides their customers with a Samsung account through which grievances and be reported and data can be stored.
Evaluation of performance objectives
There are the five operation performance objectives that the company has to manage in accordance with the significance they hold for the company.
Quality- quality maintenance is an important factor for Samsung. The company has to focus its operations towards managing quality at low cost. The major factor is the large variety of products that it produces. It maintains production quality by considering feedback and past issues. Quality of Samsung is quite highly valued by the customers and the smartphones and electronic gadgets are popular.
Speed- Speed is a significant factor that affects Samsung. Speed is effectively managed for most of the electronic goods produced. However, at times it becomes low for some of the manufactured products. In all the company usually delivers products fast in the market.
Flexibility- Flexibility is very important for the company. The electronics subdivision of the company has to live up to the changing technological factors of the market and consumer demand. The smartphone production is one of the most flexible operations of the company.
Dependability- This is a factor that the company is striving towards achieving. The dependability of the company has been fluctuating over the years especially with regard to its smartphone. The company has recently focuses towards better delivery. This has helped the company to significantly improve and increase customer satisfaction. Samsung provides great importance to the provision of products to customers at the right time.
Analysis of operations management
Cost- The cost of the products are reasonably lower than many of the competitors. The product variety is large, hence, the volume tends to be low to certain extent (Migdadi 2016). The company does not treat this as a huge factor. This is mainly because there is significant demand for both the higher priced and lower priced products of the company.
Customers
The flow of customers is significant for the company. The electronic devices of the company are sold through both the Samsung stores and also the various multi-product oriented stores. The company usually relies on the dedicated Samsung stores for catering to the customer demand. A large part of the smartphone sales for the company currently happens online. The online customer base of Samsung has increased substantially.
Materials
The materials for the production of Samsung phones flow smoothly. The company uses materials for the production of electronic gadgets. The materials are gathered from the area of operations to lower resource utilization cost (Bromiley and Rau 2016). Most of the devices are manufactured in factories located in China. Materials are resourced from the manufacturing country. They are then assembled at select locations before reaching the destination markets.
Information
The country uses very sophisticated information systems to gather essential data. Currently the APS or the advanced planning system is being used. Moreover, the customer feedback mechanism is utilized to understand the requirements of the customer base. The company uses an effective performance evaluation system called the streamlined evaluation system for internal information flow.
The main objectives of the process design of Samsung are to cater to the changing needs of customers. The Samsung electronics subsidiary division is concerned with providing customers with innovative user friendly products that live up to the competitive levels of the market. The major objective is to provide customers with quality products at reasonable prices. Moreover, the company focuses towards making products that will have a certain standard of quality. This is important as Samsung wants even the low priced products to be efficient as per the required quality. The company is significantly inclined towards increasing its market base in the countries where it enjoys greater customer reach. The operations also focus on designing the process that will be effective towards maintaining its world demand. The recent activities of the operations of the company have been directed towards producing products that directly counter the specializations of the competitors. The production of high end smartphones have been done in a way to directly compete with the iphone (Migdadi 2016). The operations are also focused towards increasing the volume of products at specific markets.
One of the significant issues that have been identified with the operations of Samsung is its relative ineffectiveness while producing smartphones to challenge the emergence of the new mobiles. The middle range smartphones being produced by companies such as Xiaomi are dominating the market. Moreover, the non-phone devices manufactured by the company are not being able to live up to the expectation of the customer base. Hence, product specialization of the company with regards to smartphones are affecting the market demand of its other electronic products (Anand and Gray 2017). Customer feedback and control mechanisms can be greatly used to improve the operations of the company. Customer feedback can be used in order to gain better knowledge about customer preferences since this is also a significant objective of the production process of the company (Migdadi 2016).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the production process of Samsung is relatively stable. However, the operations need to be greatly optimized for living up to the expectations of the future customers. The operations of the company need to be changed significantly towards realizing better opportunities in the future.
References
Anand, G. and Gray, J.V., 2017. Strategy and organization research in operations management. Journal of Operations Management, 53, pp.1-8.
Bozarth, C.C. and Handfield, R.B., 2018. OPERATIONS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT.
Bromiley, P. and Rau, D., 2016. Operations management and the resource based view: Another view. Journal of Operations Management, 41, pp.95-106.
Dror, S., 2017. Linking operation plans to business objectives using QFD. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, pp.1-16.
Hitt, M.A., Xu, K. and Carnes, C.M., 2016. Resource based theory in operations management research. Journal of Operations Management, 41, pp.77-94.
Migdadi, Y.K.A.A., 2016. Identifying the best practices in green operations strategy of leading mobile phone producers. International Journal of Business Excellence, 9(1), pp.92-112.
The Official Samsung Galaxy Site. (2018). Samsung Galaxy – The Official Samsung Galaxy Site. [online] Available at: https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/
Walker, H., Chicksand, D., Radnor, Z. and Watson, G., 2015. Theoretical perspectives in operations management: an analysis of the literature. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(8), pp.1182-1206.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
