Impact of Global Marketing Strategy on the Success of Samsung Electronics

Abstract

Global marketing strategy has played a vital role in the success of every company that is recognized worldwide. For a company to gain competitive advantage over rival companies in the global market, a good global marketing strategy must be set in place. When the right marketing strategy is applied, the company enjoys a lot of benefits and this also helps the company to improve in delivery of its products and services. The purpose of this research is to study the impact of global marketing strategy on Samsung Electronics and how it helped the company to be what it is today. The different paradigms of research questions will be discussed, and this research will make use of the positivist paradigm. The econometric and statistical analysis will be used to analyse the data collected from the comparison of Samsung Electronics’ global marketing strategy and other technology industries.

Introduction

Research background

International trading had long started before Christ and over the years, its importance has greatly increased at a steady rate. These days, global markets have been on the talks and it is very important that awareness of global marketing must be made, else companies stand a risk of losing their customers in domestic areas to their competitors with better products and cheaper rates (Knöpfle, 2016).

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The statistics of international trade does not replicate a considerable portion of marketing operations carried out internationally. The total volume of international marketing exceeds greatly the volume of the world trade totally. Many industrial and business activities are included in the scope of global marketing. The airline company giant, Boeing, which is one of the biggest manufacturers of commercial airlines, sells its aircraft across the globe, thereby taking part in global marketing. Also, the automobile manufacturing company, Ford Motor Company, has manufacturing plants in many countries and participates in the global marketing, even though most, if not all, of the company’s output, is sold in the country where it is manufactured. Additionally, Wal-Mart, one of the largest retail chains, participates in global marketing by searching for new products in other countries and sell them in the United States (Gillespie and Hennessey, 2016).

A few years ago, Samsung was not as popular as it is now. It was a huge struggle for the company to keep up with the smartphone market, but as years passed, the company has progressed greatly their main competitor is Apple Inc. Samsung being where they are today as the leading technology industry is because of the marketing strategy they introduced. The company’s strategy for marketing is one of the greatest and most effective strategies ever created because it helped a company driven by cost to become an authority manufacturer by changing its structure. With the technological advancements all around the world, customers have an unending change in taste for technology and this has driven companies to follow the pace and produce gadgets that have evolved and are progressive to satisfy their customers. In order to get on top of the market, Samsung had to change its strategy and that was the company’s key to its evolution, and this is the focus of this report (White, 2019).

Limitations

A possible limitation to this research may be the inability to access detailed Samsung’s company strategy and what makes them have the upper hand in the global market compared to other technology companies and rival companies like Apple Inc. Notwithstanding, information gotten from the company’s website and other related article or journals will be used to complement the data.

Managerial implications

This report will be useful for Samsung’s strategy analysts to help review the progress they are making with the strategy of the company and possibly adapt to changes of the global market strategies other companies make use of to keep Samsung in the lead. It can also be used as a support document to assess the impact of the company’s strategy on its customers and target market.

Research Ethics

The quantitative method of analysis will be used in this research and though it is less intrusive as that of qualitative method, a lot of consideration must still be put into any ethical issues. Concerns of personal confidentiality and impairment do not apply here as human subjects are not used in this research. Nevertheless, avoidance of any ethical issues on reporting and analyzing data must be strictly carried out. The UK Data Protection Act of 1998 is used to ensure that all data are used properly and lawfully.

Literature Review

Global marketing strategy (GMS) is a strategy incorporated by companies and industries that involves different countries from numerous regions of the world and this strategy is aimed at managing the efforts of a company’s market in the countries involved (Johansson, 2010). For the strategy to be very effective, all the useful features of a business must be incorporated, and these include operation, financing, research, and development. A well-defined objective must be carried along with the strategy, reasons that the aim that is meant to be achieved will not be actualized without it (DELANEY, 2018).

Any company that carries out global marketing needs to be prepared to have numerous profiles to operate effectively in the regions of the world they trade in because different opportunities and products are involved in global marketing identifying a single customer profile is impossible (Marketing-schools.org, 2012). When the right methods are applied, global marketing has a lot of benefits; the company’s product and services can be improved effectively because the more growth the company has, the more the company learns and the faster the company learns, the more effective and efficient the company can become with the production of services and products it offers. Secondly, the company can build a powerful competitive advantage because if the company has a go at competing in the global market and other competitors do not have the capacity to, the company becomes a powerful force to contend with in that industry. Thirdly, the company’s brand, product, and services gain publicity and customers can keep track of the company’s progress using the internet. Lastly, the company’s saving is increased, and cost reduced by focusing on other different markets to achieve economies of scale and variety by the company’s standardized process (Martin, 2016).

Samsung's biggest competitor, Apple, remains as Samsung's strongest contender in the technology industry because of its revenue it generates from its products it presents and these products have been groundbreaking and revolutionary. Apple’s market strategy is targeted at three groups; the lovers of music who are taken over by Apple iPods and iTunes; teenagers and professionals who are taken over by Apple iPhones, Tablets, MacBook and other gadgets that can be used by anyone with no respect to age group; the crowd who can use other Apple products and services like the Apple TV, iWatch, iBook, Apple Pay etc. (Bhasin, 2019). Where Samsung has proven to be different from Apple and gained advantage is always their eagerness to be everything to everyone and their commitment to design decisions. Samsung has proven on several occasions, that their customers and tech press’s satisfaction are most important, so they derive happiness in reverse designing of their products. This portrays the company as being a good listener and puts its customers first, but occasionally, there has been the slightest feel of worry when Samsung doesn’t go with the latest tech trend that other companies change to and holds on to a particular feature for long, but they have proven to always have a great come back whenever the make a change (McGregor, 2018).

About 2 years ago, Huawei had eyes on the top of the smartphone market where Apple and Samsung sat. It was a vicious battle for the top and between them, Apple and Samsung had about one-third of the total global smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2017 (34.7%) as compares to that of Huawei with 9.8%. In 2018, Apple’s share price dropped to 11.9%, Samsung dropped to 19.3% while that of Huawei went up to 13.3% (Vizard, 2018). According to Huawei’s UK marketing boss, Justin Costello, technology without marketing is an “uphill babble” as the company seeks to be a bigger product brand than Samsung and Apple in the UK. Huawei is mainly focusing on technology and innovation to build its brand. Justin emphasized that the company has invested a lot into marketing, with the team structure, right bandwidth and capabilities as their main marketing functions as areas of exploitation from a technical perspective (Hammett, 2019).

Conclusion

Global marketing strategy plays a very vital role in the success of a company that seeks to be internationally recognized. Understanding the market trends and making customer satisfaction a priority is part of the elements that give a company its competitive advantage and international recognition. With the right global marketing strategy applied properly, companies like Samsung Electronics who had very low international recognition just about a decade ago can get international publicity, improving the company’s brand and forcing the company to deliver better products and services.

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