Usually when companies suffer slower growth and declining profits, they slash costs and cut the labor force, but Samsung has another idea. In an effort to completely revamp the corporate culture, the company wants to act more like a startup.
According to Reuters, Samsung will eliminate the top-down approach and shift to an open dialogue between employees. Supposedly, the company’s executives will sign a pledge committing to the plan. Samsung will need to reduce the number of levels in its management team in order to achieve this.
“We aim to reform our internal culture, execute as quickly as a startup company and push towards open communication and continuously innovate,” the company said in a statement.
It remains to be seen if a company with over 300,000 employees worldwide can really pull this off, but it’s a drastic change in its thinking. It’s reminiscent of 1993 when then chairman of Samsung Group, Lee Kun-hee, told executives to “change everything but your wife and children.” That was a time in which Lee’s vision was to transform Samsung from a budget name into the major international force that it is today.
Samsung has many divisions, but it’s mobile division has been hit with slower growth due to lower priced handsets and over saturation in the smartphone market. Even Apple told investors to expect slower growth with the iPhone.
Analysts say this move could actually put Samsung at a disadvantage in that it might not be able to execute as fast as it has been. However, the company has been under pressure to get rid of its military-style working culture to promote more innovation.
And innovation is what smartphone manufacturers so desperately need. You can’t keep releasing phone after phone with slightly better specs and hope that consumers will be excited about them.
