10/8/2010
For more than 70 years Samsung Electronics has been at the forefront of innovation. The Korean major has grown to become one of the world’s leading electronics companies, specializing in digital appliances and media, semiconductors, memory and system integration. Having commenced its operation in India in 1995, Samsung India has already clocked revenues of US $1 billion in the country.
SHRM India caught up with Sanjay Bali, Vice-President, Corporate HR, Samsung India, to understand how HR has contributed to the company’s success in India.
Excerpts:

There is a popular notion that the Korean work culture is very different from the Indian work culture. How does one bridge this divide?

We have tried to seamlessly integrate the best of both the cultures – the Indian culture and the Samsung global culture at Samsung India. We have incorporated the best of Samsung processes and work culture into Samsung India while fully leveraging Indian talent and creativity. I think the flexible approach adopted by the Korean Management is one of the reasons that Samsung India has succeeded. The responsibility of running successful business operations has been left with the Indian managers. The Korean expats work as coordinators, using their experience and know-how of Samsung products/processes/HQ representatives to garner the best support for Samsung.
 

With Mr. Jung Soo Shin at the helm of affairs for the Indian market, what are the challenges that HR faces when it has to get somebody who is not an Indian to understand the peculiarities of the Indian market and culture?

Mr Shin has Indian heads of businesses and different functions who are advising him on relevant business issues. I think HR’s role becomes very critical when it comes to balancing the expectations of the Korean management and the Indian employees. Of course, HR also has to guide the Korean management on Indian sensitivities and ways of working, so that a smooth amalgamation can take place and the best/optimum results can be attained.

How is the people policy at Samsung different from any other Korean company, like LG for example?

While I would not like to comment on the LG policy, I can say that at Samsung we follow a people oriented policy. Our thrust is on career development and growing the people within the organization by giving them a clear growth path and a stimulating work environment. We try to give our people global exposure by sending them to different Samsung subsidiaries/global workshops etc., so that they can develop as professionals. We put a strong thrust on the training and development of our employees. In fact, we are also giving some Indian employees an opportunity to go and work in other subsidiaries as well as Samsung head quarters, so that they can become true global managers.
 

From a manpower perspective how has India contributed to Samsung’s position as a global electronics leader?

Samsung is a Company that prides itself on its innovative products and we have 44000 employees working in the R&D Function globally across 16 R&D centers. We have two R&D Centers in India , at Noida and Bangalore and around 3500 employees working in these R&D centers on global projects, including India. For example, the employees at the Samsung India Software Operations Unit in Bangalore are working with developers in India for Samsung ‘bada’, our proprietary mobile operating system. Our R&D employees at Noida are working on developing software for Samsung’s global requirements for digital media products – Flat Panel television sets, Digital Still Cameras etc. Beyond R&D, Samsung India today contributes around 2% of our Global Sales Turnover and looking at the aggressive growth path that we are confident of charting out, I am expecting this contribution to grow.

Can you tell us something about the way in which you engage your employees that help the company to deliver its stated vision of “Inspire the World, create the Future”?

I think the first step to achieving any vision is to make it a shared vision and we are engaging with our employees to communicate with them on what the company’s vision is and what are the goals to achieving the company vision. These Goals translate back to each division and they work towards achieving the relevant goals in their own Division.
 

Is there something unique about the overall leadership philosophy at Samsung that translates into an overall leadership position for the company in the various segments that it operates in?

The basic guiding principle that we follow is that we want to be in the top three slots in all the categories that we operate in. This is the clear objective that each Product Division operates with, globally as well as each subsidiary, as in the case of India. Here too, we are in the top 3 slot in all the categories that we are operating in like Flat panel televisions, mobile phones, colour monitors etc. On the basis of this overall approach, we work out the strategy required for achieving this objective.
 

Samsung has manufacturing presence in India (Chennai and Noida) and an R&D centre in Bangalore along with sales and marketing offices around the country. Can you outline the different HR issues and challenges in each of these divisions, yet highlighting the singular thread that binds the personnel as belonging to the Samsung family?

We have a fairly empowered regional structure where each of the regions mirrors the core functions of the head quarters. We have HR people in place in each of the regions even as we have regional product marketing and marketing-communication functions in place to support the sales and the commercial operations. From the HR Perspective, we need to hire and retain the best of talent in the regions and align them with the Company’s overall direction. Beyond that, we also want to promote the people movement between head Office and regions for the sales functions, so that there is better understanding between the functions. Of course, we also have forums where there is greater face to face interaction between head Office and the regions, apart from the day to day telephonic interactions.

The consumer electronics industry is a high pressure industry. Can you tell us something about the manner in which you help your employees rejuvenate and recharge themselves to face the constant challenges of the market?

We encourage employees to use the gym and other sports facilities at the factory location. At the corporate office location, we encourage different departments to have monthly outings, so that they can unwind together.

In India, Samsung was a relative late entrant to the market leader Nokia in the mobile phone space. Yet today it is Nokia’s number one opponent in the Indian market. How did this happen and what role did HR play to make this possible?

We doubled our mobile volumes last year and this year too we are looking at aggressive growths. Apart from our achievements in the sales and marketing areas, from the HR perspective, we improved the capability index within the telecom division. We worked with the business head to restructure the division for growth and at the beginning of last year we set up the branch operations for the Mobile division, which were not there prior to that. In fact, we have even set up a zonal sales structure for Mobiles. We set up a Distributor Engagement and Enhancement team as well as a training team for the In-shop demonstrators. At the Head Office level, we strengthened the Product management and marketing teams. I think, people make all the difference and the success of Samsung mobile is testimony to the same.

What is Samsung’s philosophy behind its CSR initiatives and could you outline some of the specific CSR initiatives taken by Samsung in India?

At Samsung, we believe in giving back to the community some of the profits we earn from it. Our CSR initiatives are carried out under the aegis of the ‘Samsung Hope Project’. With its theme of ‘Building new bridges of Hope’, the Samsung Hope Project supports projects in the areas of culture, education and social welfare. As part of the Hope Project, we have set up two e-learning centers - for underprivileged youth at Noida and Chennai along with the SMILE Foundation. The Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP) centre is a re-affirmation of the Company’s commitment to contributing to Indian society. STeP is primarily designed to offer job oriented skills to youth from the less privileged sections of the society living in urban slums and peripheral rural areas. Under the program, training is imparted to these youth in basic computers and retail sales management skills along with proficiency in spoken and written English. As a part of the Hope Project, Samsung recently organized the third “Samsung International Women’s Film Festival” in association with INKO centre, Chennai. The festival showcased 175 films from 53 countries and helped build bridges of culture across nations and languages. These e-learning centers promote computer literacy. At the beginning of the year, Samsung presented the “Tagore Literature Award” named after the legendary poet, Sri Rabindranath Tagore in association with the Sahitya Akademi. The Awards seek to recognize the best literary contributions by writers in 24 Indian languages over three years. This year the authors from Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Telugu and Bodo languages were felicitated at a presentation ceremony in the capital on January 25, 2010.