First sip: The Samsung man’s path to success by Sung Yoon

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Like a good beverage, a good book holds promise from the first sip. This extract is used with the permission of NB Publishers.


About the author

Sung Yoon is the former CEO and President of Samsung Africa, with executive experience across three continents. He has a proven track record of turning around difficult business situations and significantly growing both new and existing business categories. He lives in South Korea but still travels to South Africa for business.


Title: The Samsung man’s path to success: Turning crisis into breakthrough
Author: Sung Yoon

Publisher: Kwela
ISBN: 9780795710780

Buy this book at Graffiti.

As Samsung Africa’s former President and CEO, Sung Yoon was a first-hand witness to the company’s remarkable journey to becoming a global world-leading brand. Despite countless challenges, he turned Samsung’s Africa business into a success within four years. In a career spanning more than three decades, he contributed in numerous capacities, heading up sales not only in Africa but in three different overseas assignments.

In The Samsung man’s path to success, Yoon offers keen insights that shed light on the challenges of making business decisions and taking calculated risks. He explores how to take a top brand forward and into new territories – both in terms of product, sales and marketing and in terms of new markets – and how Samsung successfully fosters a healthy, robust and infinitely creative culture.


First Sip

“Talent First”

It took about ten years from when I first joined Samsung Electronics as an entry-level employee to become a manager. As a manager, I took on various roles, including being in the new business team of our division. My responsibilities changed as much as my team affiliation, and I could rarely keep the same business card for long. But I remember this as a special period that allowed me to experience and learn different aspects of the business on the job.

As part of my work on exports, for example, I travelled frequently to Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia, among others. Sometimes I would meet a buyer, introduce a new product, provide a sales consultation and receive an order, all on the same day. On days like that, I felt exuberant. This feeling lasted the whole way home on the plane, and it was something I knew I wouldn’t give up for anything. Even as an entry-level associate, I enjoyed what I did. I was experiencing what it meant to love what you do. And with the support and guidance of incredible colleagues, I was able to get solid training in the basics of global sales.

I would say that one of the keys to Samsung’s success as a leading global company was its core value of “Talent First”. The month-long orientation training I participated in as a new hire was the best training programme I’ve ever experienced. There’s probably no better example of what Samsung means by Talent First. One of my friends told me that the new hire training was where he really became proud to be a part of the Samsung family. He joked later that he left training feeling that even his blood ran “Samsung blue”.

There were other learning and development opportunities available at Samsung as well. For example, staff who were identified as having potential were sent overseas for training to become leaders with global sensibilities who were able to drive change. This was what was known as the Regional Specialist Programme, and it assigned promising staff to a specific country for one year to learn the local culture and language. The two-year Global MBA Programme also contributed to the development of Samsung as a global company by cultivating leaders with global management competence. I had the opportunity to study in the United States as part of this programme. I was able to focus on my studies without being burdened by work for two years, and I developed confidence in my English. I participated in various clubs at school as well as exchange programmes that gave me exposure to the local culture and way of life. All of this learning became invaluable to me later in my expat assignments to various parts of the world.

When Samsung’s LCD business began to grow in earnest, GS Choi, then CEO of the global display business, ordered the creation of the company’s first product management or PM team. Product managers on the team were put in charge of the initial product planning for LCD monitors as well as development, purchasing, manufacturing, sales, servicing and overall P/L. This essentially meant broad management of the overall product process. Rather than focusing on one task, product managers had to be able to look at the big picture and work together, collaborating and communicating and resolving silos between different departments. When I was a product manager, I was able to do a variety of different work that enabled me not only to see the “tree” of the individual product but also to understand the fundamentals of the “forest” of the business as a whole.

In 1998, also at the direction of GS Choi, Samsung began working on the creation of a new global supply chain management (SCM) system. Based on demand forecasting, this system would enable one streamlined process for purchasing, production and delivery to ensure proper fulfilment of orders. Moreover, the end-to-end process would be visible at a glance. I participated for one year in the development of the SCM system as a power user, and by the end of that time I knew the system inside and out. I would learn later on during my expat assignments that Samsung’s extremely efficient SCM system was exactly what made us attractive to our retail partners. It helped reduce their inventory but at the same time ensured on-time delivery, which helped to drive up sales. In fact, this system was a key weapon in helping Samsung challenge Sony and Apple and become a leading global company.

Also read:

The Samsung man’s path to success: an interview with Sung Yoon

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