Now, we hear frequently that this or that company wants to be a world or market leader by a certain date. But, how do you know which companies have a chance of achieving their aim, and which will quietly drop the claim in a few years?
Well, among my personal criteria I use to assess a company’s chances are:
1. Have the claims come from senior management or the marketing department?
2. Has a company identified resources, products and money to make the vision a reality?
At Samsung Techwin’s European Conference in Lisbon at the end of March we heard ambitious plans from Samsung for future growth which answered those two criteria.
From the senior representative present – Jake Kim, Managing Director of Samsung Techwin Europe – the ambition was clear: “I firmly believe we can be number one in Europe by 2010,” he said.
And as for the concrete resources, he ran through plans for increases in advertising and marketing budgets, as well as a new southern European office in 2008 and a Nordic office by 2009.
There will also be a greater push for materials and operating screens to be translated into more European languages and installers should expect to see roadshows and training throughout Europe.
Samsung clearly has substantial muscle behind it, with operations in 68 countries and overseas sales of over $150 billion in 2007.
Kim’s presentation also covered how Samsung has climbed the global consumer market from a brand value of $6.4 bn and a position of 42 in the 2001 Interbrand report to 21st position and a value of $16.8 bn in 2008.
Taking past performance and these factors together, if I was one of Samsung’s competitors, I’d be taking the challenge seriously!
At the heart of Samsung’s plan to grow its business is investment in products, with the introduction for the SV4 and W4 DSP Chip and a focus on super-noise reduction technology. Other areas of development in its CCTV range include higher specs, digital image stabilisation, lens shading correction and 37 times zooms. As for most manufacturers, IP is also a growth area with new network cameras planned for 2008 and 2009.
Ken Matsumoto, chief engineer at Samsung Techwin development group, also outlined a number of challenges – familiar to any user of security technology – Samsung’s engineers are focussing on. These included removing shadows, image contrast reductions and the continuing battle on noise reduction.
Listening to the presentations were a smattering of security journalists from around Europe as well as a number of Samsung’s strategic partners.
Luckily, Samsung helped us escape conference syndrome – where all you see of a foreign city you see is the hotel and conference hall – and as the formal part of the day ended, we piled into two buses to explore the surrounding area a little more.
It was my first time in Portugal and Lisbon proved to be a beautiful venue. First stop on our whistle-stop tour of the local area was the beautiful village of Sinatra – almost too picture-pretty in places. Then, it was onto Cabo da Roca – the most westerly point on Europe where the group photo was taken.
The evening was rounded off by dinner in Lisbon’s famous Ajuda Botanical Gardens, where we were entertained by traditional Portuguese dancing and a few glasses of the famous local ‘green’ wine – a fresh, acidic and slightly sparking wine.
And then it was back to the hotel to chew the cud, before a product demonstration in the morning and then the trip home.
