RES351

Samsung is a name which we find in many electronics retail store whether in the departments of television, computer, cellular phones or accessories etc. In mobile industry alone, Samsung covers over one fourth of the world’s market, if the markets of Nokia and Apple are combined, only then they are able to exceed the coverage of Samsung. (Mahapatra, 2013). Unlike Apple and Nokia, Samsung offers many other technologies than just mobile devices as mentioned earlier. Samsung has been in the market for over seventy years and have innovated products and as they claim, they have always driven towards making this world an improved place through various businesses. (Samsung, 2015). In this business research, Team B will identify the key objectives of the business, questions that need to be researched, hypotheses, variables and ethical considerations and purpose of the research.

Samsung has many visions and objectives which they work diligently towards in many technological areas. As mentioned on their website, “This new vision reflects Samsung Electronics’ commitment to inspiring its communities by leveraging Samsung's three key strengths: “New Technology,” “Innovative Products,” and “Creative Solutions.”” (Samsung, 2015). Their vision is also that, “As part of this vision, Samsung has mapped out a specific plan of reaching $400 billion in revenue and becoming one of the world’s top five brands by 2020. To this end, Samsung has also established three strategic approaches in its management: “Creativity,” “Partnership,” and “Talent.”” (Samsung, 2015). Samsung users are fascinated by their technology and features that outclass their competitors in many areas and knowing this factor they are trying to make their customers’ experience better by offering something new and unique every time they update whether their cellular phones, tablets or laptops etc.

With all the technologies, advancements, unique features and the diligent efforts of Samsung, there are few flaws with their products which they will have to overcome in order to maintain their clientele; although they are leading the cellular industry, Apple is only second in line with considerably fewer products than Samsung. (Mack, 2014). Samsung’s recent Galaxy S6 series launch faced quite a few customer complains about their product. One of the examples as mentioned in the article has to with crashing of Applications. This normally occurs when a device is unable to operate multiple tasks at once. “Even though the Galaxy S6 comes with 3 GB of RAM, users are complaining about consistent crashing of apps, and the available RAM frequently drops to 200-300 MB. Samsung is expected to release a fix for it. Alternatively, to avoid this issue, users can kill unneeded processes on the device.” There are other issues mentioned by Samsung users but this one highlights why Samsung are getting frustrate with this new Galaxy S6 series. So, the questions that Team B must research are; is manufacturing issues with the recent S6 series causing Samsung users to lose their competitive advantage? Does Samsung competitors have a better business approach towards their products and customers? Will Samsung face further losses in future if the manufacturing deficiencies are not overcome?

The hypotheses, which is a “proposition formulated for empirical testing” (Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 58), that Team B is presenting is that Samsung is losing its competitive advantages of customers due to the manufacturing deficiencies in their recent Galaxy S6 series. There are certain variables on which Team B will research. “Variables are the properties being studied.” (Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 58). The dependent variable which is the variable that is affected by the manipulation of the independent variable (Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 55) would be the manufacturing deficiencies. Independent Variable which is the variable that is manipulated by the researcher (Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 58) is the number of loss of business to competitors. Some other variables that should also be taken into consideration is the different types of manufacturing deficiencies which will be discussed later.

Team must ensure that they follow the privacy laws and privacy rights of users to obtain any data on how users are using their phones in order to collect enough information. It is necessary to acquire permission from users before we decide to monitor their mobile usage and see what type of activity is causing these issues. In this case, Samsung Galaxy S6 series will be tested and compared to their previous models. Ethical considerations that must be considered are, protect the rights of the participant or subject, ensure the sponsor receives ethically conducted and reported research, follow ethical standards when designing research, protect the safety of the researcher and team and to ensure the research team follows the design (Cooper & Schindler, 2014).

The purpose behind this business research of Samsung’s product is to identify the deficiencies that are found in Galaxy S6 series which are causing frustration for their users and in some cases, losing their clientele to its competitors as mentioned earlier. Team B will also compare Galaxy S6 series to Samsung’s previously launched mobile series and also with their competitors such as Apple. This will demonstrate different approaches by both companies towards their products and their customers.

Once all the variables are researched, Team B will be able to present the causes and effects of the deficiencies. Samsung, as mentioned before, is one of the top leading brands in the modern technological world. However, when their competitors with fewer products are able to compete with Samsung and generate revenues and profit that are not too far behind, it requires a thorough business research. This will enable Samsung to draw out solutions to their phones’ deficiencies which will eventually help them regain the faith of their customers.

Samsung. (2015). Vision 2020. Retrieved from http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/corporateprofile/visionmission.html

Cooper, D. A., & Schindler, P. S. (2014). Business research methods (12th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.