Rebirth of the Official Business Route

　　Samsung also encountered serious difficulties during the 1997 financial crisis, but it has achieved considerable development due to timely and effective measures. I think there are some things that can be used as a reference for Aida's future development.

　　 Samsung Crisis Survival Book: Keeping Cash Flow

"I have always wanted to forget the days ten years ago. The financial crisis that began in 1997 is one of the saddest things I have experienced in Samsung's 30 years." November 3, China Merchants Building, Samsung, China Headquarters, the 55-year-old President of Samsung Group in Greater China, Park Gen-hee, looked a little sad when he recalled the past. “At that time, we made very strong structural adjustments. I participated in the entire process from the previous plan to the end of the crisis. One of the three people left the company. This is a very painful memory."

　　 In 1997, South Korea during the Asian financial crisis, many consortia struggled to survive. At that time, Samsung was on the verge of life and death. At its worst, its long-term debt reached US$18 billion, almost three times the company's net assets. This South Korean company was on the verge of bankruptcy.

　　 At a critical moment, Samsung embarked on a painful journey of self-salvation. Through layoffs, cost reductions, divestiture of non-performing claims and low-profit businesses, he has been reborn from Nirvana and has grown to become a model for companies around the world.

　　 However, history always goes round and round. Ten years later, the world economy is once again in a precarious economic crisis. The difference is that Samsung at this time has long been well versed in the law of survival in a crisis.

　　 On October 24, Samsung’s third-quarter financial report revealed that its net profit fell 44% year-on-year to US$1.15 billion. But Samsung executives said they have reason to be optimistic about the company's future. This first stems from Samsung's huge "war fund". Samsung's current cash reserves are as high as 7.6 billion U.S. dollars, so that it has enough funds to support research and development, marketing and factories. For its shy competitors, this can only be an unparalleled luxury.

　　 Park Keun Hee told reporters that Samsung, which had regained its feet from the 1997 financial crisis, has become accustomed to arming all employees of the company with crisis awareness. "First of all, we must ensure cash flow, and at the same time ensure competitiveness. We must challenge the limit to reduce costs."

　　 In fact, in the recent world economic crisis, Samsung’s performance was beyond the reach of its rivals. For example, as the world's second largest semiconductor manufacturer, Samsung is the only company among memory chip manufacturers that has not lost money. In addition, as the world’s second-largest mobile phone manufacturer behind Nokia, Samsung is also the only mobile phone manufacturer whose shipments have increased in the first three quarters to the end of September, and its market share in China has also increased from 11. % Increased to 19%.

　　Addition and subtraction in crisis

　　 Let us revisit how Samsung made crisis changes.

　　 At the end of July 1998, at the Shilla Hotel, more than 20 top leaders of Samsung Electronics held a far-reaching "Life and Death Conference" for the final structural adjustment reform. The 10-hour meeting was full of tension and tragic atmosphere. On the spot, everyone decided that if the reform is not successful, everyone will resign. The company urgently formed an action team to come up with a structural adjustment plan within two weeks. The meeting made a cruel decision. Within 5 months, Samsung Electronics’ management layoffs 30% and non-management layoffs 35%.

　　 Park Keun Hee told reporters that at that time, the company first carried out structural adjustments in terms of manpower reduction. In South Korea, 25,000 employees were laid off, that is, a 40% reduction in personnel.

　　 At the same time, in terms of expenditure, it saved 1 billion US dollars a year and reduced inventory pressure by 4 billion US dollars. Sold for approximately US$800 million and divested 120 product projects. "All the company's operations are based on this cash flow basis. In this way, we have reduced our debt ratio from 3% in 1997 to 85% in 1998. This is our first phase. The content of structural adjustment." Park Gen-hee said.

　　According to his memory, in order to reduce expenses, Samsung saved every detail. For example, to reduce the number of company drivers, it is estimated that the management will drive by themselves; to avoid large-scale meetings and dinners, the professional staff only take the economy class by plane. "At that time, there were no drinks in Samsung's conference room, and the factory no longer issued free uniforms. You had to pay for these."

　　 Yes, all of this has only one purpose, which is to preserve cash flow. At the same time, in this cash defense battle, Samsung began to recover.

　　 It is worth noting that Samsung’s method of self-rescue with a broken arm did not ignore the “addition”. During the Asian financial crisis, many chip manufacturers began to reduce investment and shorten the front line. At that time, Samsung’s vice chairman Yin Zhonglong made the opposite decision. In the fall of 1997, when all its rivals were shrinking the front, Samsung increased its investment in chip factories. The reason was simple: entering during the low ebb of the industry can get higher returns when the industry picks up in the future. Now it seems that this is undoubtedly the most correct decision.

　　 Samsung, which successfully used addition and subtraction in the economic crisis, finally achieved Nirvana, and now Samsung must start a new defense.

　　New Defense War

　　Park Keun Hee admitted that this is a rapidly changing digital age. We will constantly remind us of the crises we have faced in the company. Different crises will occur every month. We continue to arm all members of the company with crisis awareness. "

　　 In 2005, Park Gen-hee returned to China as the president of Samsung Group Greater China. Among the former presidents of Samsung China, none of them had a term of more than three years. In his inauguration as President of China, Park Geun-hee publicly proposed for the first time "to build a second Samsung in China."

　　 In his blueprint, "Samsung China's positioning is not just a simple factory or market, but Samsung's business base." This includes the introduction of the financial and service industries under the Samsung Group into China, and all the products produced by Samsung in China — the entire chain from planning, research and development, production to sales, are all completed in China.

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　　 By the end of 2007, good news of Samsung’s performance improvement came frequently: Samsung’s mobile phone business surpassed Motorola and climbed to the runner-up position of the global mobile phone manufacturer. At the same time, Samsung TV has also ranked first in global sales for 9 consecutive quarters. Statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics' sales accounted for the first time in the global TV market to exceed 20%.

　　 However, Samsung is facing challenges from many aspects.

At the beginning of the rise of digital products, Samsung’s core means to surpass its rivals was to introduce new technologies and new products to the market faster than its rivals - it launched the earliest MP3 mobile phone, the world’s thinnest mobile phone, and the highest pixel camera. Cell phone and the first WiMAX cell phone. But with the popularity of digital products, this advantage is not obvious anymore. In terms of mobile phones, Samsung's design, which has always been known for its innovation, must face new competitors. Apple launched the iPhone and Google's G mobile phone. The bigger trouble comes from Samsung's semiconductor department. Samsung’s cash cow is in the process of declining the entire industry, and Samsung is inevitably involved in a price war.

　　 However, fortunately, Samsung certainly has enough cash to withstand the economic winter, and has the ability to gain a larger market share when the market rebounds. "When the company encounters difficulties, it cannot completely suppress such parts as technology research and development, marketing activities, or product design, even if other places are reduced, these departments must increase investment." Park Genxi told reporters.

　　 Samsung Electronics is booming to become Sony’s biggest competitor

　　 When Howard Stringer (who will soon become CEO of Sony) joined Sony in 1997, the then Korean TV manufacturer Samsung Electronics was in the midst of the Asian financial crisis.

However, in the next less than 10 years, the market value of Samsung Electronics was almost twice that of Sony. There is no doubt that Samsung Electronics is now Sony’s biggest competitor. But not only that, Apple Computer has also monopolized with its iPod. The entire portable digital music player market. In addition, Silicon Valley companies have surpassed Sony in portable digital products such as pda and digital video recorders. Even in the field of digital cameras, Sony also faces strong challenges from Kodak and Canon.

American IT analyst George Grid believes that Samsung is now completely different from Sony. The current Sony is full of management and bureaucracy, while Samsung still maintains a simple style. Among its 88,000 employees, one quarter For R&D personnel.

In the past three years, Sony’s electronics business unit has almost dragged down the entire company. Due to the huge losses in this department, Sony’s profit as of this month in 2004 was only 1 billion U.S. dollars, which is a proportion of its 69 billion U.S. dollars in revenue. Only 1.5%. In contrast, Samsung Electronics' performance is quite dazzling. As of December 2004, Samsung Electronics had sales of 56 billion U.S. dollars, but its profit reached 10 billion U.S. dollars. High profits made Samsung It can invest billions of dollars in research and development, and it has reached 15 marks in advanced laboratories around the world.

　　 Samsung Electronics’ investment last year reached 7 billion U.S. dollars, ranking first among global IT companies. This year, Samsung Electronics’ investment will reach 10 billion U.S. dollars.

In addition, Sony also has a huge capacity to produce memory chips and display panels. Samsung’s investment will further reduce the cost of its products such as flat-screen TVs, DVD players and mobile phones. Low cost, stylish design and advanced technology for consumer electronics manufacturers It is especially important.

After the Asian financial crisis, the surviving TV manufacturer Samsung Electronics began to follow Sony and upgraded its product line to high-end products. After investing US$3 billion in advertising and publicity expenses within a year, Samsung’s brand has been successful. The brand value is as high as 12.6 billion US dollars, which is enough to compete with the Sony brand. However, the Sony brand still has a great appeal in the U.S. market.

　　 Samsung Electronics is even more invincible in the field of flat panel displays.Even the proud Sony company had to bow its head. Last year, it joined Samsung Electronics' project to build a giant factory in South Korea.

　　 In December last year, Sony and Samsung Electronics reached a patent. Before 2008, the two companies could share nearly 20,000 patents.

In the field of mobile phones, Samsung’s folding design, clear display and powerful features make the company full of confidence in its sales in 2005. Samsung expects its global mobile phone sales to reach 100 million units this year, an increase of 16% over last year. It will enable Samsung Electronics to compete with Motorola, the second-largest mobile phone manufacturer, which sold 104.1 million mobile phones last year.

　　 Although mobile phones are Samsung's largest business, Sony has not entered this field. As more powerful camera phones are launched, Sony's digital camera business will be weakened.

　　 Last Wednesday, Samsung Electronics launched the world's first 7-megapixel camera phone in South Korea. At present, most digital cameras have 3 to 4 million pixels.

　　Semiconductor radios. Wa**man and color TV made Sony a consumer electronics giant, and these products have also changed people's lives. And now Samsung Electronics is undoubtedly the Sony company 10 years ago, full of enterprising and innovative consciousness.

　　 Posted by: Shenjianxin User Type: Normal 2008-12-1718:41:36 Reply

　　 Information Industry and China's Economic Development

　　 (Lin Yifu)

As a Chinese intellectual, especially from Peking University, we are all thinking about the fate of China. China has a prosperous period in the Han and Tang dynasties, as well as a decline and backwardness in modern times. This change is especially evident after the industrial revolution and the rise of the Western world. The fall of the Eastern world and the modern history of China are humiliating. The people of Peking University have made many attempts. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, our economy has gradually developed and made good progress. Reform and opening up have brought great economic progress, with GDP growth of 9.6%, but we still have a problem. In 1999, the per capita income was less than US$800, which was less than 1/40 of Japan and 1/34 of that of the United States. As a Peking University, We must see our achievements and don't forget the gaps. This is our historical mission.

　　 The recurrence of the information industry provides new opportunities for development. In the 20th century, the British and American economies led the way. Since the 1980s, this economic advantage has not disappeared for Japan’s development. At that time, Japan relied on traditional industries such as electronics, shipbuilding, and steel. At that time, many people believed that the American era was over. , The Japanese era came, and after the 1990s, although Japan also adopted many fiscal, monetary and export policies to change the economic recession, this trend has become increasingly obvious. On the contrary, the US economy has once again shown strong momentum. Comparing this decline for a long time, we will understand that the basis is the emergence of the information industry and the promotion effect it produces on the economy. He also put forward the concept of information revolution and knowledge economy. This performance is all-round. It can be seen from the doubling of the stock price. The Dow Jones Index in 1993 was about 4,000 points, and from 1994 to this year, it rose from 4,000 points to 11,000 points. , And the technology stock Nasdaq surpassed 2000 points in 1998 and surpassed 2000 points at the beginning of this year. Another stock that is famous for selling computers has grown from a listed stock of 1.5 dollars to a maximum of 73 dollars. Asia’s Hong Kong and Japan have also set off such a wave. Li Zekai’s Pacific Century Group defeated Singapore Telecom’s competition to acquire Hong Kong Telecom. In May 1999, Li Zekai bought a humble company and officially appeared in Asia Pacific Century. On the day of its listing, Yingke Digital doubled more than 20 times, reaching more than 5 Hong Kong dollars, up to 25 Hong Kong dollars, and total assets of 250 billion Hong Kong dollars. In just ten months, it became the third largest company in Hong Kong. Li Zekai’s personal worth exceeded 150 billion. The first 100 billion of his father Li Ka-shing took 30 years. The wave of the information industry has enabled the economies of East Asian countries to recover after the financial crisis. During the financial crisis, Hong Kong’s stock index hovered between 11,000 and 2,000. Driven by technology stocks, it rose to 18,000 points, exceeding the historical high1. At 7,000 points, the economies of Japan and South Korea have also rebounded.

Before the Industrial Revolution, China was leading in science and technology and culture for more than a thousand years. In the era of information industry, many people saw that China was not so far behind others, at most 10 or 20 years. The myths in the United States, Hong Kong, Japan has it, and China will have it. On average, it mobilizes the whole country to surpass the information industry and use this trend to achieve powerful goals.

In response to such optimism, I have always adhered to my point of view: the development of a country must be based on the country’s comparative advantages. Production has three elements, capital, labor, and natural resources. Generally speaking, the comparative advantage of developed countries lies in capital, and The comparative advantage of developing China, especially East Asia, lies in natural resources: In the information industry, does the principle that China should focus on developing labor-intensive industries still apply? I think so.

The traditional concept believes that the value of a company is obtained through profit, but now there is such a company that has been losing money, but its value has soared. For example, the value of dot.** company is more than 30 billion. It is easy to form a misunderstanding of the information industry, which is also raised relative to traditional industries.

In fact, it can be solved with a little analysis. The technology of the information industry is mainly the processing, storage, and exchange of information. The traditional industry is completely developed by the convenience of information technology. Mr. Jiang Jianzhong’s company has more than 20,000 people and is a company. Women's fashion companies should be considered labor-intensive. The process is roughly as follows: concept design, color and shape design, sample clothes, try-on, mass production. This cycle, about 10 months, is shortened to three months after the current use of information technology. Any industry can do this. If we look closely at the history of technological development, we can see that every technological development will drive new industries. , The invention of the airplane drove the air transportation industry, and the invention of the train drove the railway transportation industry. Similarly, the development of information technology has also led to the development of the information industry, as well as the development of the Internet and e-commerce. We should actively accept this. Just as we cannot reject trains and airplanes just because we have traditional sedan chairs, we should not reject the information industry either. Although sedan chairs may be more suitable for labor-intensive industries, we should consider one of them. The cost principle is that the cost of railway transportation in a large area is low, but it is not the case in a small area. Therefore, it is suitable for shoulders and people. E-commerce improves the transaction speed and exchange area, increases the choice, and reduces the choice and transaction cost. , The development of e-commerce is also difficult. First, the legal and financial environment, followed by venture capital. Another point is that the entry cost is very low, but the value generation is scale economy, so when entering, there are many competitors. In the end, only a handful remained.

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The provision of information technology includes hardware technology and software technology. Hardware technology mainly refers to computers and networks. There are three links: development and research, production of core chips, and assembly of various components. Development and research are concentrated in developed countries, and chip production is equivalent. Some are in developed countries, and there are also some middle and upper developed countries, such as Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. The assembly of parts is concentrated in countries where labor is cheap. From this distribution, we can see a comparative advantage. Developed countries have comparative advantages in funding, and the funding requirements for research and development are particularly large. Taking 1998 as an example, IBM invested US$5.6 billion, Japanese yen US$4.53 billion, Nokia US$4.52 billion, NEC US$3.4 billion, and Motorola US$3.1 billion. After the technology is developed, a production line roughly costs more than one billion U.S. dollars.

Both Taiwan and South Korea have relatively successful economies in industrial transformation. By comparing Taiwan-based Power and Samsung, we can also see the rationality of their comparative advantages. When they first developed, Taiwan-based Power’s positioning was to produce core chips, while Samsung was Research on dynamic memory chips, its technical level is higher than that of Taiji Electronics, but a set of statistical data from 1997 can know a deeper situation. In 1997, Taiji Electronics’ turnover was 1.5 billion US dollars, profit margin 45%, investment 20 Samsung’s revenue of 13 billion US dollars in 1997 has a profit margin of 15%, an investment of 5 billion US dollars and several hundreds of billions of US dollars invested in development and research. In comparison, Taiji Electric’s capital accumulation is more than Samsung’s, which also reflects In the two models, the former uses the comparative advantages of labor capital to gradually accumulate funds, thereby becoming competitive in international competition. Therefore, it has its own funds for industrial technology upgrades. In addition, in the financial crisis, Taiwan has suffered little damage. South Korea’s model It is a large company model. High technology upgrades, large scale, large capital needs, and high capital liabilities, so they suffered setbacks in the financial crisis.

As China’s development should be based on its own comparative advantages and the use of information technology to transform the competitiveness of traditional industries, this must be uncontroversial, but how should we position in the hardware industry? There is an impatient view that the gap is not big. The state can be mobilized to develop high-tech development and research, but the following comparison shows that this is very unrealistic. In 1998, large and medium-sized enterprises accounted for RMB 47.8 billion in investment in development and research and universities accounted for RMB 5.2 billion. The renminbi is only equivalent to two major U.S. companies. The 480 billion renminbi that the Chinese government has poured out can also compete with at most 20 major U.S. companies, but the probability of success is much smaller. Although the gap is only ten or twenty years, according to our The comparative advantage cannot cross this gap. In the choice of the hardware industry, we should still choose labor-intensive assembly links. Only by making money can we be invincible.

Will this cause us to fall behind forever? This question should be viewed dynamically. The industrial choice of developed countries is capital-intensive, which is their comparative advantage. Our choice should be to use comparative advantage and take advantage of the large share of production factors. In this way, we can re-improve the level of factor structure and gain new industrial advantages. For developed countries to conduct development and research, only 5% of the technologies can be patented and have commercial value. Only 10% to 20% of it. It is that they must develop, because they are the highest technology, and they must be developed and researched to update, and developing countries can introduce technology through the introduction of technology, UU看书www.uukanshu. As long as com is better than the existing domestic technology, it can increase productivity, and the introduction cost is lower than the development cost. China’s capital accumulation is 30-40%. The U.S. is 20%. Calculated on the basis of per capita income, the amount of capital owned by China is 1/35 of that of the U.S. In a few decades, China's capital possession can exceed that of the United States, and Japan's development is based on its own advantages and is achieved through the introduction of technology.

The provision of software technology is a human capital-intensive industry, mainly programming. As far as the new point is concerned, as long as the education level of developed countries is available, software can be designed as good as them. The main difference lies in whether the software can be designed. To adapt to the market, the solution to this gap should be for foreign software vendors to improve the product concept, and domestic designers can make it. The basic development of India, Chile, Ireland, and Israel is better. We can do the same.

　　 chilly heart~

　　In high-tech industries such as microelectronics, especially semiconductor chips, the capital investment required for research and development is amazing! The gap between our country and large foreign companies is really... I hope that Zhang Ke can take this opportunity to accumulate a sum of capital, increase investment, and take the lead in developing a series of new products, and then quickly occupy the market, obtain profit, and continue to invest-research and development-profit- ... the virtuous circle. Although the actual operation is far from simple to say, it is after all our common wish, or dream, and I hope it can be realized in the book...

　　 In addition to mp3 and mp4, I don’t know the specific market prospects and difficulty of entry for these products such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and flat-screen TVs. The most important thing is the core chip, but it is not so easy to develop a competitive product independently quickly! After all, there is no accumulation of technology. Perhaps only by acquisition.