As Lee Kun-hee, Chairman of Samsung, mentioned several times before, "Samsung needs to become younger to compete in the 21st century." Samsung is now all set to be younger. How so First off, the prince of Samsung was promoted to the position of president, in addition to the Strategic Planning Office making a come back. Lastly, replacing a massive amount of heads of subsidiaries are ways for pushing the company to a newly younger direction. According to the firm, the company's promotion was about putting innovative new people who can realize Samsung's vision and create new drivers of growth. This exceptional reorganization is the chairman's intention to respond to the Information Technology market in a hurry as he leads the company to a software strong organization.
Son promoted to president
Lee Jae-yong, 42, son of Samsung Group's Chairman Lee was officially promoted to president on December 3, 2010. It is a sign of Samsung's efforts to further progress in the succession plan which is considered to be part of Chairman Lee's vision of creating a younger Samsung leading the conglomerate by the next generation. Lee Jae-yong will continue to assume the chief operating officer (COO) position at Samsung Electronics. His current job as COO makes him responsible for the overall business of Samsung Electronics. However, the range of his role will expand across the group not limited to only Samsung Electronics. Rather, he will focus on strengthening strategic relationships with major customers in the world on behalf of Samsung Group.
With this, Lee Boo-jin, 40 year old sister of Lee Jae-yong, was named president and CEO of Hotel Shilla, and president of Samsung Everland Inc. from the current position, senior vice president of Hotel Shilla and Everland.
Also notable is the fact that Choi Gee-sung, president and chief executive officer of Samsung Electronics was promoted to vice chairman. Hereby, the two-top systems led by Mr. Choi and Lee will be leading the new Samsung in addition to Mr. Choi continuing his role as CEO.
Mr. Choi joined Samsung in 1977 since then; he is known as a marketing expert. He increased Samsung's global market share by 5.1% from 2006 to 2008 to 16.7%, making it the world's second-largest handset maker. He is also credited with successfully becoming the world's No. 1 TV brand in 2006. Based on his career, he is ranked as a well fitter for ensuring the dominance of semiconductor and strengthening new business.
Samsung's new plan for the future
Samsung has launched the "Future Strategy Department" for preparing the next 60 years of Samsung. Kim Soon-taek, Samsung Electronics vice chairman, was appointed to take the lead. This is basically the re-establishment of the Strategic Planning Office (SPO) which handled the group's diversity operations. The Strategic Planning Office, in-house control tower, will be in charge of managing group-wide affairs and plays a central role for 'Samsung 100 years' focusing on searching for new growth engines. Also, preparing and management succession to Lee Jae-yong will be one of the important missions of the office. With Kim Soon-taek as the center, the office is composed of 6 teams from public relations to finance, economic diagnostics, and personnel management. To live down the scandal which took place back in the day, the office is now trying to make management more transparent. In April 2008, the office had to close due to its corruption scandal that led to the resignation of Chairman Lee.
New business development and innovation
Samsung C&T is ready for change on a new level. Lee Hak-soo, who headed the strategic planning office, was named an advisor for Samsung C&T. As Chairman Lee and advisor Lee ordered aggressive management to Jung Yeon-Joo who is president and CEO of Samsung C&T, Samsung C&T will be working as an advancement guard with Samsung Electronics for spreading Samsung throughout the world.
Samsung C&T's overseas orders for the first half of 2010 was 4.763 trillion won, more than double the 2009 figure. According to an official from the company, the future strategy of Samsung C&T is to make inroads into India, Latin America and Africa. Samsung C&T plans to achieve 34.4 percent average annual revenue growth.
Samsung will also concentrate on the semiconductor and components business. Jun Dong-Soo, vice president of memory marketing of Samsung Electronics was promoted to president. As Mr. Jun is recognized as the master of the memory business, the memory business is expected to expand the gap between competitors by concentrating on manufacturing products.
Everyone knows that a wind of change is blowing through Samsung, the nation's biggest business conglomerate. There are high expectations for the New Samsung. By reflecting on these expectations, the group's shares rose from 2 % to 4%. Samsung Electronics rose 4.1%, Samsung C&T 4.6%, Hotel Shilla 3.4%, Cheil Industries 2.2%. On this particular day, shares of Samsung Electronics and Cheil Industries reached an all-time high of 894,000 won from 114,000 won respectively. It seems like the transition is going smoothly at the moment, displaying much attention towards the new Samsung.
