I will add a video clip to the reply as it has been uploaded on

Not long ago, I looked at the crisis of Samsung Electronics under the title of "Samsung Electronics' Lost Decade" in KBS's current affairs planning window. I will add a video clip to the reply as it has been uploaded on YouTube. It is a shocking analysis that Samsung Electronics saw annual growth of over 17 percent over the past 15 years from 1998 to 2013, and rather regressed over the past 10 years from 2013 to 2023.

I worked for Samsung Electronics for nine years from January 1999 to December 2007. It coincides with the period of tremendous growth. I joined the company as a new employee at the time, so I didn't know and didn't want to know how the whole company was going in the big direction at the time. It's already been more than 15 years since I graduated from Samsung Electronics. It was my first job and Samsung Electronics' impact on the Korean economy was so great that I wanted to think about how it is different from then and how it has grown reversely over the past 10 years.

When I was working at Samsung Electronics, the CEO was Vice Chairman Yoon Jong-yong. He is also well-known as the father of actor Yoon Tae-young. He was the CEO from 1997 to 2008, which exactly coincides with the period when Samsung Electronics was growing tremendously. At the beginning of the year, I was able to see what kind of direction he was leading the company in his New Year's address, and the keywords that I remember the most at that time were "getting the right value" and "differentiating."

Receiving the right price was a keyword that frequently appeared in the CEO's message, and differentiation was a topic that often appeared in development team meetings as well as in the CEO's message. Simply put, it was about making it well and selling it at a high price, but in order to do so, we increased the brand value and restructured low-profit products and business departments. At the same time, I focused more and more on memory and smartphones, and I developed them into very profitable businesses. In the past, if you went to a Samsung Electronics agency, you could get a catalog of all the products produced by Samsung Electronics, and there were all sorts of things, from TVs, radios, hair dryers, etc. Among them, the things that did not make money were organized as much as possible and selected and focused on strategies.

At the same time, I often remember thinking that it was a little unusual to keep each major business unit of the company as a single company without dividing or spinning it off. Each Samsung Electronics division, such as the memory division, the smartphone division, and the TV division, was so large that each one could be viewed as an individual company, and each of them was operating independently. When I was working at Samsung Electronics, I didn't understand why I had to put these large organizations under one company when it was difficult to collaborate between business units and there was nothing special to collaborate with. This was the time when the conventional wisdom was that small and fast organizations were better.

Anyway, if you think about it as a result, Samsung Electronics during this period made great achievements as it went through tremendous changes. And I remember that Samsung Electronics in this period was definitely different and tried to do it differently. So I often recall that if you want something different in your life, you have to be different from others and do it differently. This mindset was learned from an organization called Samsung Electronics during that period.

And now, 15 years later... I still have a lot of friends at Samsung Electronics, so I meet them often. When I asked what's the topic these days, they usually talk about cost reduction. It's important to reduce costs and increase price competitiveness. Of course, it's the subjective opinion of my friends that only applies to the business department to which they belong, but it's already been a long time since cost reduction has become a hot topic.

If so, the reverse growth of Samsung Electronics over the past decade seems natural in a way. Now that it has become a well-known global company, and has achieved tremendous performance in memory and smartphones worldwide, I think it's okay to make an effort to differentiate it even more and make it more expensive, but I'm a little curious that cost reduction, such as using cheaper parts, is a topic of conversation.

Samsung Electronics was at its peak growth period when it was serving as a fast follower. Now, we have to become a market leader. Of course, it's very difficult, but I believe that it has to be and that it will be possible. Or at least I wish I could do something right away, if the climate where employees consider cost reduction as a golden rule