Co.Design

Why Samsung Design Stinks

Blame Steve Jobs Syndrome.

Kevin Lee calls it "Steve Jobs Syndrome." As the former head of product strategy and user experience design at Samsung Design America, Lee watched as the $100 billion Korean tech giant wrote check after check to countless Western design firms to develop future products for the Korean company. The designers would dig in their heels, refusing to budge on their grand idea or see how it might fit into Samsung’s vast production line. And Samsung management would either discard the idea entirely, or water it down so much that the product became another meaningless SKU in the hundreds of products Samsung sells today.

"I’ve seen amazing concepts and prototypes. It was like, ‘Wow, if only we had that in the market, the rest of the market would go bankrupt,’" Lee says. But during his 18-month tenure with the company, Samsung failed to launch the next big thing. It wasn’t a lack of good ideas, or Samsung’s stinginess in hiring good designers, he argues. It was a combination of problems—cultural, managerial, and structural—that prevented concepts from making it to market as real Samsung products. Most of all, though, he blames the Western designer’s mentality—the Silicon Valley archetype of stubborn genius that today’s innovators hold so dear. He blames Steve Jobs Syndrome.

The Culture Is The Product

To understand the perils of Steve Jobs Syndrome, it helps to understand the culture from which Samsung emerged, and the business model in which it's grounded.

"In a sweeping sort of way, the Korean culture in itself is hierarchical, Confucius-based, and group-minded rather than individualistic," explains Ivey Business School professor Lynn Imai. The culture feeds into a consensus-driven work environment, which is apparent inside Samsung headquarters. Managers report to managers, who report to more managers.

New designs have to make their way through this structure, and managers have to be able to justify their profitability. Samsung's revenue model relies on the high volume and low margins of countless SKUs that are more or less variations on the same product, whether it's a smartphone or a vacuum cleaner. Samsung doesn’t sell just one point-and-shoot camera. They have a dozen at various price points carefully calculated by the cost of their raw components and features, each more or less asking its customer, "Am I the right camera for you? No? Then try my little brother."

"That Apple kind of innovation, entrepreneurial culture goes against all of that," Imai says. Silicon Valley is a land of unflinching heroes with big design ideas: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg. Jobs famously threw a fit when he returned to Apple in 1997. As Walter Isaacson wrote in his biography of Steve Jobs:

After a few weeks of product review sessions, he’d finally had enough. "Stop!" he shouted. "This is crazy." He grabbed a Magic Marker, padded in his bare feet to a whiteboard, and drew a two-by-two grid. "Here’s what we need," he declared. Atop the two columns, he wrote "Consumer" and "Pro." He labeled the two rows "Desktop" and "Portable." Their job, he told his team members, was to focus on four great products, one for each quadrant. All other products should be canceled. There was a stunned silence.

To this day, Apple’s product line has grown a bit more bloated again, but it’s still the modern Western benchmark of how you build a company: Have the hubris to make a handful of exquisitely designed products that offer not just enticing features but holistic experiences. And everyone will want them.

It’s the mentality that allows Apple to more or less match Samsung’s revenue, despite selling far fewer products (Samsung never replied to our queries about just how many unique SKUs they produce worldwide). In Q4 of 2014, both companies had roughly $45 billion in revenue. But Apple had almost double the profit ($7.5 billion), thanks largely to the high margins and minimal overhead of its svelte and sought-after product line.

The Cowboy Way

The Apple method is not exclusive to Apple. It has worked very well for hardware sold by Silicon Valley peers like Jawbone, Tesla, Fitbit, Nest, and Amazon. The Silicon Valley-based industrial designers behind many of those hit products have worked for Samsung, too. But it isn't always a snug fit. "There’s a cultural insensitivity [among the Silicon Valley design firms]," Lee says. "Respect for each other is completely absent. And to me, that’s the ingredient that will make anyone successful. There’s not a single person in the world who knows everything. With awesome designers, the same stance I always see is that they’re such egotistical SOBs."

One common misstep Lee encountered was that Valley companies would design products with impossible specs—like wearables that required battery technology that didn't exist. Design studios would get caught up in a vision for the next TV or smartphone, but forget that it's Samsung that has the most cutting-edge information about the limitations and capabilities of these technologies. (Heck, Samsung screens end up in Apple’s iPhones.) Designers hired by Samsung often have access to the company's advanced research and development, but they’ll still dream up experiences that are impossible for Samsung to create.

The frustration is a two-way street. Design firms I spoke to complained that working with Samsung, and some other big companies modeled on similar collectivist ideals and mega product lines, was daunting and lacked any real opportunity for collaboration.

Gadi Amit, founder of NewDealDesign, has worked with Samsung and other Korean companies for 20 years. And he’s stopped answering their product briefs. The atmosphere he described was anything but inviting. "Binary," he calls it, with a "palpable presence of authority in the room."

Professor Imai has a more nuanced take. "In the U.S., there’s an assumption that the client becomes educated from the person providing the consulting or service, there’s a value added something the person is providing to the client, and the relationship is, ‘I can teach you the best way to do something,'" she explains. "In Korea, if your client is a high-powered company or government, the relationship is totally switched. It’s harder to get things done just because the person providing the service is sort of at the whim over what the client wants. It’s as if the client has more power."

In this environment, the Valley’s beloved design agency model—a model based very much upon the idea that a designer knows the best way to build something—is destined to fail.

"What I found to be frustrating was, I felt like I was giving crown jewels to people who wouldn't [produce them]. That’s my frustration, the fact we didn’t ship anything, even though it was gorgeous, tangible work," Amit says. Ultimately, his firm could match Samsung’s paychecks by working with more receptive companies in the Valley, without going through the wringer of Samsung’s management.

Steve Jobs Syndrome doesn't work until it does. When argodesign founder Mark Rolston was chief creative officer at Frog, he developed a somewhat successful strategy for dealing with bureaucratic companies.

"It’s embarrassing to say...but we called it the Cowboy Method," he says. "We never said that out loud, but in reality, we’d pull a cowboy. We realized, these Korean or Japanese organizations had hired an American company to produce a design because they specifically wanted that Western attitude in the design. But when we pitched them in the headquarters, we’d be polite, go and bow, be understanding of their need for consensus. And that’s where we were failing."

Rolston said playing nice and being culturally sensitive didn't work at getting a concept produced. "So we just threw care to the wind and said, ‘This is the best idea, take it or leave it. You’re paying for what we have to say. Do it, or find some other way to get it done without us.’"

"It was risky. The first time we did it—we handed Sharp a project plan, and they said ‘Could we get this or that as well?’—we realized that sort of thing would be compromising quality for quantity. We say no. And we’re sitting there in that moment. They’re all quiet, talking amongst themselves in Japanese. And you think they’re going to say, ‘Go home.’ But then they say, ‘Okay.’"

Despite being the exact sort of Steve Jobs Syndrome Lee complains about, Rolston and Frog succeeded a few times using this technique. However, he admits that it was an inherently polarizing approach, and in many cases, would probably get his firm fired from an Asian account. "But at least an idea wouldn’t die a thousand pricks," Rolston says. "That to me was the relief."

Something Has To Give

Recently, Samsung released a television by the sought-after designer Yves Béhar and his firm, Fuseproject. Looking at the model, a relatively standard TV placed on a block, I wonder, was that really the best idea that one of the greatest industrial designers of our era would have pitched to Samsung? Or was it his death by a thousand pricks? (Béhar declined to speak for this story.)

Lee recognizes Samsung’s organizational shortcomings. Its managerial structure has made the company risk-averse. And its tightly integrated, low-margin assembly line approach to design frames any one-off, paradigm-questioning product a Béhar, Amit, or Rolston might produce as an outlying risk. Samsung’s collectivist corporate structure won’t gamble $10 million to bring a bold, unproven product to market—especially one that hinges on some holistic Apple-like experience—when the status quo grind of iterating old products and just tossing some new advertisable features into a sea of SKUs has a more predictable return. And that phenomenon is undoubtedly holding the company back.

But Lee doesn’t see Samsung changing its corporate strategy any time soon, even with its new global head of design, Lee Don-tae (who hails from the same studio as Apple design god Jonathan Ive). So he thinks it’s up to some of those independent design studios—the ones that are cashing Samsung checks whether or not their concepts make it to market—to take their lumps in the interest of moving the dialogue forward.

"No one’s going to fire me for saying it: You are part of the problem, suckers," Lee, who is now head of design at Visa, says. "I’m not saying you need to love kimchi or anything Korean, but try to figure out, not just ‘How can I not back down on an idea?’ but ‘How can I work around this and find an alternative?’ If you’re a designer, that’s your job, to be creative in boundaries or limitations."

Samsung declined to be interviewed for this piece.

Add New Comment

82 Comments

  • George Erhard

    Funny that a third company didn't even get a mention. They're easily the audiophile version of Apple, and are known for elegant and beautiful designs that carry a hefty price tag.

    I refer, of course, to Bang & Olufsen.

    I think the issue here is, which companies are in the business of mass-market consumer goods, and which are aiming for more exclusive, high-end customers? because the high-end niche is willing to pay for the same function in a more 'interesting' (or even elegant) package or form factor.

    If you're selling to mass market, you have to move a LOT of product. You have to source materials, labor, and distribution. You not only have to come up with a good design, but sell it, relatively cheap, many many times over, to recoup your design costs.

    Go high-end... and while the dollar amount of your sales may be higher, the number of units sold is much lower. Customers may even be willing to buy prototypes (ahem exclusives) which directly fund your R&D.

  • While it's true that Korean and Japanese culture have a hierarchical social structure, here's where this writer makes a logical fallacy to attribute design issues to culture.

    If the culture is indeed responsible for the design results, then we should be observing this issue in all of Samsung's products, from smartphones to TVs to appliances and more.

    But the interesting fact is that if you look outside of Samsung's smartphone portfolio, all of their other products are actually beautiful, elegant, and luxurious. Their TVs and laptops are obviously beautiful. Heck, even their SSD's look like a da Vinci masterpiece.

    So if we really want to be accurate, this is NOT about Samsung. On the contrary, this is really about Apple's immense marketing power.

    The real problem stems from how Apple managed to convince everyone from their grandmas to their pet goldfish to now believe they're "designers" who know what good design is, and that Apple's way is the only way.

    You don't see this phenomen

  • --- continued from above because of word limit ---

    You don't see this phenomenon in other industries Samsung is in, which is why you don't see this polarizing dialogue with their non-smartphone-related products.

    It's only at the intersection of Apple's and Samsung's product sectors, the mobile industry, where no matter how good a competitor is, it will be irrationally questioned in the public eye. That's what good marketing does for you.

  • jimjennick

    The culture-clash analysis may be valid. But my Galaxy S5 is superior to iPhone in virtually every respect except mystique/aura. Ironic, isn't it? Apple fanboys make a big showh out of worshipping at the altar of innovation. Yet they stubbornly refuse, out of slavish brand loyalty, to open their minds to the innovation going on outside their bubble.

  • Mmk sure, the Apple fans are there. Deal with it. Apple's stuff looks good, and works well, you must accept that at even if you like something else. And I see SO many more "anything-except-apple" fans gloating and wining about how their thing is so much better than the iPhone ever was and how Apple fans are such sheeple than I EVER hear Apple fans going on about Apple. So do us all a favor and dismount your high horse before you go on ranting about someone else's perceived superiority. Thanks.

  • Ironic that someone who clearly despises Apple would use their clearly impartial judgment to declare that their Samsung phone "is superior to IPhone in virtually every aspect."

    Glad to know you are the "EVERYUSER" and that your limitless knowledge of User Experience and Interface design makes you the wizard of all phone debates.

  • Interesting article: although I favour Apple rather than Samsung on all counts, its worth underlining the point made that both organisational approaches have resulted in making similar piles of cash on both sides. Samsung may have undesirable products and lack the design and design thinking and cowboy-ish-ness that produces the iPhones of the world, but they do still make a lot of cash.

  • 12hzzq+buy712bvjxpw

    Don't confuse revenue with profit. Samsung makes equal revenue but tiny margins compared to Apple.

  • People give Jony Ive & Steve Jobs far too much credit. All of Apple's & Ive's design since 1997 has copied the work of Braun designer Dieter Rams. You can look at Braun's portfolio from the mid 1950's to the late 1980's & the genesis of Ive's design cues. Many of us would call it stealing & copying.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/11/30/jony-ives-no-longer-so-secret-design-weapon/

    http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future

    http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/apple-design-doesnt-fall-far-from-brauns-tree-176668

    True original innovation is an original work with no attribution or genesis in other people's work. People's attention spans are short & they don't pay attention to history. If Apple is given a pass? Why doesn't anyone else get a pass?

  • Si Li

    I'm sure Rams would be as sour as you are if he was indeed riffed as you claim. But he isn't. And you don't have to take my word for it either: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter-Rams-Apple-has-achieved-something-I-never-did.html

    And this "original innovation" is just silly. No one designs in a vacuum. Not even Rams. Anyone who thinks Ive is originally innovative is just as silly. He isn't successful because he pulled great design out of his butt. He's successful because no one else is sourcing the same philosophy with the same rigor.

  • I was going to write a long answer, but I'm short of time, so I'll try to resume what I think: this is bullshit.

    Why? Because comparing a radio and an iPod (or a television and an iMac) is like comparing a bicycle and a space shuttle.

  • seedeevee

    Luca,

    You are pretentiously FOS.

    Industrial design is design. Radio/iPod/megaphone, tv/iMac/book is all the same stuff. Transporters of information and paper weights.

    Where you get your bias from is another matter.

  • seedeevee

    Luca,

    You are pretentiously FOS.

    Industrial design is design. Radio/iPod/megaphone, tv/iMac/book is all the same stuff. Transporters of information and paper weights.

    Where you get your bias from is another matter.

  • Johnny Slapstick

    "but they’ll still dream up experiences that are impossible for Samsung to create" This line sums up everything wrong with the commercial world today. In the past, if something didn't exist for what you want to build, you created it yourself. This is what made Tesla (the man), Edison, Ford and others so great. Nowadays, people rely on things that are already produced to help build their products rather than making everything themselves. This saves them money, and, in the end, hurts the consumers.

  • Chris Ferreira

    This is absurd. Not even Apple has the knowhow, experience, and capabilities to produce all of their components in house. This isn't 1850...you probably aren't going to be the best at both microprocessor design and display fabrication, it's just not the way it works. Apple has come closest, but still, it's often by buying smaller companies like, the liquidmetal and the sapphire glass companies, and folding them in (not only to supply the massive quantity they need but also to keep that tech out of competitors' hands), but they can't possibly design and build--let alone improve upon--all the components that go into their products in house. I mean, people often say that the iPhone has the best display and camera in the smartphone market; it's interesting that those components are both made by Samsung and Sony, respectively, no?