Samsung in "creative crisis", claim insiders

In the wake of last month's damaging US patent ruling, Samsung's top-down command structure and decision-making process have been blamed for stifling creativity at the South Korean firm.

What's been good for getting things done quickly, such as making bold decisions on big investments in chips and display screens, may not now suit a company that needs to shift from being a 'fast follower' to an innovator.

Within Samsung, where some designers feel overlooked and undermined, there are calls for a change of tack.

In his 1997 book, Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee wrote that a successful company needs a "heightened sense of crisis", so that it is able to respond to change.

It's a credo that has driven Samsung to become the world's biggest technology firm by revenue, and it now sells more televisions, smartphones and memory chips than anyone else.

The 'constant crisis' has worked well, helping Samsung overtake Japanese technology brands Sony, Sharp and Panasonic in chips, TVs and displays, end Nokia's decade-long supremacy in handsets and overtake Apple in smartphones.

Influential figures come across the iPhone, and they point out that Samsung is dozing off.

But that has come with a big reputational hit - that Samsung makes knock-off products.

"It's a crisis of design," JK Shin, head of Samsung's mobile division told staff in February 2010 as Samsung worked on its first Galaxy phone in a panicky response to the iPhone's smash-hit debut, according to an internal memo filed to a US court as part of Apple's lawsuit.

"Influential figures outside the company come across the iPhone, and they point out that 'Samsung is dozing off.'

"All this time, we've been paying all our attention to Nokia, and concentrated our efforts on things like 'folder', 'bar', 'slide,' yet when our UX (user experience) is compared to the unexpected competitor Apple's iPhone, the difference is truly that of Heaven and Earth."