Business-level and corporate strategies are employed by commercial organizations so as to be competitive in the market business-level strategies involve the making cost for the clients and realizing the competitive benefit in the market (Saebi & Foss, 2015). On the other hand, the corporate-level strategy involves strategies that affect the entire company and gives the information on the strategic path of the company. In this paper, Samsung’s business-level and corporate-level strategies are described and analyzed. The paper also gives brief backgrounds of the company and the strategies that are important to the long-term success of the company. The paper also provides a comparison of the company’s competitor (Huawei) and recognizes the effect of business strategy in slow-cycle and fast cycle market.
Samsung Company
Samsung Company is a multinational organizational business in Korean of the Samsung group (Marchenko, 2017) . The corporation has diverse industries including; food processing, electronics, financial services and even home appliances. The company was created in 1969. Samsung has its offices in more than 80 states all over the world and its headquarters located in South Korea (Marchenko, 2017). The company designs develop, manufacture and market a variety of electronics which include; TV sets, mobile phones, computers, cameras and LCD panels. Samsung is the largest producer of televisions, LCD panels, and smartphones which in turn has made it become competitive in the worldwide electronics industry.
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Business-Level Strategies
Business level involves enhancing a specific product of a company to be competitive in the market. These strategies facilitate consumer’s value and competitive benefits in the international market (Saebi et al., 2015) . In business, there are two types of business-level strategies including; differentiation and cost leadership. Cost leadership involves producing products at a lower price than other competitors. This is facilitated by reducing the cost of production and operation. In the cost leadership, a company may aim a place in the market. On the other hand, differentiation involves creating a value for the consumers through giving unique product features. These features may not relate to the product itself only, but also the product delivery to consumers. An aim of a place in the market can also be done with the differentiation strategy. There are companies that combine the two strategies while others chose to use one.
Samsung’s business-level strategy can be described as cost leadership. Samsung has implemented a low-cost strategy which has enabled the company to have products for the lower-earning consumers. This strategy has facilitated the competitiveness of Samsung in the smartphone market (Grayson & Hodges, 2017) . Currently, Samsung phones can be in every country all over the world. Samsung aims for a larger population which in turn makes the company enjoy the economies of scale. Thru reduction of cost by the company has been facilitated by following a vertical integration. The company manufactures most of its products with the help of its subsidiaries. The company also achieves cost leadership through better manufacturing practices and better sourcing of raw materials.
Samsung’s differentiation strategy is also evident. Through funding research and development, the company has been able to produce unique products to the market. For example, the Samsung smartphones come with the better camera lens, better storage, and better functionality. Samsung Company integrates both strategies to enable the firm produce unique products at a low cost.
Huawei Company
Huawei Technologies Company is an international networking and a telecommunication equipment company located in China and its headquarters are in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Huawei is a large smartphone manufacturer in the world and it has about 170 offices in other countries all over the world. Ren Zhengfei, who was an ex-military officer, created the company in 1987. It was originally formed as a private company. Its main aim was to offer access and operations services to many initiatives in China and countries. The corporation has employed about 140,000 people worldwide. About 46% of the works are placed in research and development sector. The research and development sector has spread to other many states such as Sweden, Pakistan, UK Turkey, Ireland, Canada, and Russia. The products and services of the corporation are distributed into about 140 states around the world.
Huawei is the second competitor of Samsung in the international smartphone market after Apple Company ( Fengchao& Yiqun, 2015) . Huawei’s development shows how Chinese companies are transforming from their outdated strategy of manufacturing cheaper commodities to have a place in the market. Huawei revealed itself as a serious competitor in the smartphone market. Huawei has been seen to overtake the Samsung Company in the global market. This suggests that Huawei understands how to be competitive in the smartphone market. Huawei strategy has shifted to focus on the consumer service experience and not just a mobile commodity.
Both of the business-level strategies have a significant importance in the marketplace. Differentiation is important in attaining better computer outcome such as customer satisfaction, while cost leadership helps a company attain a place in the market and protect itself from its competitor (Grayson et al., 2017) . In the case of Samsung, the use of both strategies is important to the long-term success. In developing countries in Asia and Africa, then there is a growth in the smartphone market and a low-cost strategy can be effective. In the future, the markets may experience more smartphone penetration giving an opportunity to the low-cost companies. It is also important for a company not to produce only low-cost products, but also different products. With different in Samsung has been competitive in the marketplace. Differentiation also eliminates the challenge of imitation, which affect a company negatively in the market.
Corporate Level Strategies
A Corporate-level strategy affects the whole company. This means that the strategy commands the company’s strategic direction in relations to the market it aims, its range of operations and strategic conglomerates (Saebi et al., 2015) . Corporate-level strategies include; horizontal integration, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, vertical integration and product diversification and restructuring. These strategies may reveal whether a company aims a local market or an international market.
Growth Strategy
These are corporate strategies that focus on achievement of growth in such as revenue and profits. A growth strategy can be facilitated by increasing procedures both internationally and locally (Saebi et al., 2015) . The growth strategy is focused on interior factors which could be attained through interior economies of scale. Apart from the internal growth strategies, a company can also grow externally through strategic alliances, acquisitions, and mergers.
Concentration strategy: This is strategy is used by companies to produce a product that has growth potential. The company use resources intensively on the products increase its competitiveness in the value chain. There are two types of concentration strategy;
Vertical growth strategy: a company take part in the valuing its products through supplying and distribution.
Horizontal growth strategy : Horizontal growth is attained by the expansion of operations to other physical and the variety of products or services existing in the market
Diversification Strategy
A company is diversified when it produces different products of different business operation of different and diverse marketplaces (Saebi et al., 2015) . There are two types of Diversification Strategy
Concentric Diversification: it is also known as related diversification. It encompasses the diversification of a firm into another related business. This strategy is mainly important to firms in leadership place so as to protect strategic fitting in a new business whereby the firm’s product information, industrial capability, and advertising skills are used effectively in diversifying in the new business.
Conglomerate Diversification: it is also known as unrelated diversification. It encompasses the diversification of a firm into a business unrelated to its existing business. This strategy is used by companies in flooded businesses perceived to be unattractive, and with the lack of skill, it could shift to associated products or services in other businesses.
Samsung Corporate-Level Strategy
The corporate-level strategy of Samsung Electronics is focused on the establishment of competitiveness, profit and the advancement of quality products (Marchenko, 2017). The worldwide electronics corporation has benefited from product inventions and expansion of its products variety in a systematic manner. Samsung has efficiently used this of these strategies, which in turn it has made the company maintain the international leadership in graphics display market sector, where it has a market portion of 28.3% for all flat-screened TV products.
The international electronics company has various weaknesses such as the lack of its own OS software, damaged product image because of product imitation issues and corruption scandals associated with low-profit margin (Marchenko, 2017) . Samsung is finding more difficulties to withstand its competitive benefit.
Huawei Corporate-Level Strategies
Huawei, on the other hand, has its own corporate strategies. Huawei competes with other, consumer electronics and network infrastructure corporations and telecom corporations in numerous products groupings ( Fengchao et al., 2015) . The competitors of Huawei in the consumer electronics industry are; Samsung , Hitachi, and LG .; It uses segmentation to aid in grouping the different characteristics of people. Huawei uses psychographic, geographic and demographic classification strategy for different businesses. The company uses diversified targeting strategy so as to survive different types of consumers’ value based and user advantage positioning approaches are used by the company depending on the products presented to the consumers.
Investing about ten percent of its revenue in research and development activities and using about 44% of its operative into this function has helped the firm be competitive in a number of different types of business ( Fengchao et al., 2015 ) . Constructing commercial driven information and communication technology infrastructure through working other companies have assisted the company to be competitive in the market ahead of its competitors. Some of the partnerships are with, Zain-Middle east telecom operator, NTTDocomo, and Proximus. Huawei has shaped its businesses through the following factors; growing purchasing power uniformity, Increasing work cost, changing the lifestyle of people , mechanization in the business, and digital awareness internationally. The global market is congested with an enormous number of firms which are taking each other’s marketplace portion. The company’s operative in these industries is limited and the main obstructions are the accessibility of resources and government rules.
References
Fengchao, L., & Yiqun, M. (2015). A comparative study of the evolving pattern of Huawei and Samsung, s R&D internationalization based on the USPTO database. Science Research Management , 36 (10), 11-18.
Frietsch, R., & Neuhäusler, P. (2018). Structures and Strategies of Chinese Companies in Key Enabling and Advanced Manufacturing Technologies. In Innovation in the Asia Pacific (pp. 225-244). Springer, Singapore.
Grayson, D., & Hodges, A. (2017). Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make corporate social responsibility work for your business . Routledge.
Marchenko, A. (2017). The corporate culture of Samsung: lessons to learn.
Saebi, T., & Foss, N. J. (2015). Business models for open innovation: Matching heterogeneous open innovation strategies with business model dimensions. European Management Journal , 33 (3), 201-213.
