The report is based primarily off of what they’ve
accomplished in 2013, but it is chock full of some great
information and insights into the behemoth that
Samsung has become. The report encompases all of the
goodies a stakeholder would be interested in,
including the company’s growth, people and projects.
Business Performance
I doubt I have to tell you that Samsung did very well
for themselves in 2013 . Not only did their smartphone
business boom, as we reported to you time and again
with the launch of each successful flagship device, but
their overall business experienced decent growth as
well. Samsung reports ten different business divisions
that cover products from washing machines and digital
X-rays to SSD and LED production.
In the end, Samsung’s overall business cleaned up
with KRW 228.7 trillion (Korean Won) in revenue, or
about US$215 billion. That produced an operating
profit of KRW 36.8 trillion (about US$34 billion.) If that
does not resonate with you, perhaps you’ll appreciate
the fact that this was more than double their operating
profits from 2011.
Looking
specifically at
Samsung’s
mobile
division , there
was a 54
percent growth
over 2012,
bringing them
to an overall
27.2% global market share for all mobile phones, and
32.3% global market share in the smartphone segment.
More recently, it was reported that Samsung is not
doing as amazing as they’d originally forecasted for
2014, but we’ll talk about that this time next year.
What does Samsung do with all that money?
Let us overlook all of the taxes and operational fees
and licenses that Samsung doles out on a yearly basis,
from there, Samsung invests a large portion of their
money into R&D, training/staffing and the
environment.
R&D(Research and Development)
In an effort to continuously bring creative and
innovative products to market, Samsung invested 6.5%
of their 2013 sales into R&D. This KRW 14.8 trillion
makes for a three year total of KRW 37 trillion into
R&D, which we can thank for innovations like the
curved display on the new Galaxy Note Edge .
Training and staffing
As Samsung continues to grow as a company, it has
been taking efforts to help its people grow as well. I do
not only speak of quantity, which measured just over
97,000 new employees around the globe in 2013, for a
total of 286,284 employees, but of the fact that
Samsung has invested heavily into these employees.
In 2013, Samsung put much of their workforce through
various training programs for various competencies, at
a cost of nearly KRW 124 billion.
The approach to new hires has seen to acquiring
better talent as well. Specifically, in 2011, about 40
percent of Samsung’s new hires had previous
experience in the industry, that number rose slightly
in 2012 to 42 percent, but jumped to 49 percent of new
hires in 2013.
In addition, Samsung has been taking an active
approach to women in the workforce. Up a percentage
point and a half over 2012, nearly 4 percent of
Samsung’s executive staff is now women, this adds to
the overall 40 percent, or just over 94,000 women
employed by Samsung around the globe.
Samsung has also shown commitment to the
communities they live in, investing KRW 536.3 billion
into their Corporate Social Responsibilities programs.
Including work in the education and medical sectors,
the employees stepped up as well, with a reported
average of 11.5 hours per employee of volunteer work
in 2013.
The Environment
Keeping mother earth clean and happy is major
undertaking for a large corporation, especially one so
focused on manufacturing. On the surface, Samsung is
very proud of their efforts. Not only have they
streamlined their own operations to be more energy
efficient, use less water and send more to recycling
instead of the trash, but they’ve modified their
products to be more eco-friendly as well.
You may have
noticed that the
packaging for
your Samsung
Galaxy S4,
specifically, was
made of 100%
recycled
materials. This
is but one
example of the
near 1.2 million bio-plastic or recycled parts that
Samsung uses to build and package their products.
When you get home and start using your new
Samsung devices, be happy knowing that the same
innovation that makes your new device lighter and
perform better is the result of the use of fewer
environmentally destructive parts and with better
efficiency and power consumption, which again has a
positive impact on our planet.
The rest
Samsung doesn’t stop there, they have an interesting
whistleblower program, in which they cultivate a
culture of accountability for all of their staff. Over 1500
anonymous complaints have been filed against
Samsung employees for unethical conduct in the last
three years. These reports were submitted by
consumers and nearly 40 percent by other staff
members. Corruption Prevention Training has been
taken by 294,835 employees, building a culture of trust
and transparency.
Samsung also launched in 2013 what they call the
Mutual Growth Academy, which provides training to
the employees of their parts suppliers. The premise is
simple, if they can build better parts, Samsung can
build better products.
