Design
In the early 1990s, the firm began emphasizing the importance of design in its products. Located in the company's high-rise headquarters in Gangnam (south of Seoul) the corporate design center includes more than 900 full-time designers. In the beginning, there were only two designers in the whole company, whose number rose to 510 in 2005.
The company overhauls its design over a two-year cycle. For the first year, it scrutinizes all the design trends of the world, followed by product strategies. It then maps out new design plans during the second year.
Its effort to improve design paid off: since 2006, it has won as many as 210 awards from internationally prestigious design institutions. For example, it received the iF (International Forum) and IDEA design awards. Samsung was the winner in eight categories in the 2009 IDEA awards, the company that received the most awards.
There is compelling reason for the company's rise as a design powerhouse. Korea had for so long been considered a backwater for design excellence, especially compared to the Japanese counterparts famous for churning out eye-catching gadgets. The company established as many as seven design centers in the world's major cities including Milan and London, as well as in Seoul. The professional designers working in these centers constantly monitor latest design trends in their cities while scanning cultural and lifestyle changes.
In the 2010 iF Material Awards, the company won the Gold Award for five of its products including the external hard disk drive. The iF Material Awards are given by the International Forum Design GmbH of Hannover, one of the world's-most- prestigious design awards for design materials and process technologies. In 2010, the German company selected a total of 42 products in the areas of home appliance, furniture, and industrial design. Samsung won the awards in five categories including external hard disk, full-touch screen phone, "side-by-side" refrigerator, compact digital camera, and laser printer toner.
Read more about this topic: Samsung Electronics
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Joe ... you remember I said you wouldn’t be cheated?... Nobody is really. Eventually all things work out. There’s a design in everything.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)