Samsung Group CEO Li Jianxi: Management Genius Of Athletes

"Heroes of all ages, heroes find no place for Sun Zhongmou.

Dancing and singing songs, the wind is always blown away by the rain.

At the end of 2002, the latest ranking of Fortune 500 was announced.

Due to the strong performance in China and the global market, Samsung's group rose sharply, ranking the top 20 in the global IT industry, and Samsung Electronics ranked 105th.

The active performance of the Samsung Group is closely related to the leader of its leading company, CEO Li Jianxi, a leader of the family.

The son of the silver spoon: Li Jianxi faced the financial crisis. The West called the generation of the family of the wealthy family as "the generation with silver spoon". It described its dignity and superiority, the superiority of the father and his brother, and the large amount of economic resources that made him closer to commercial success.

In fact, many family businesses in Asia are engaged in the IT industry or are involved in the diversification of the IT industry. Li Jiacheng and Huang group, Cheung Kong, Singapore's Li Guangyao family and Singapore Telecom are all precedents in this area in Hongkong.

The two families, together with the Samsung Lee family in South Korea, have three family name Li families in three regions and called "Asia Pacific three li".

Born in January 9, 1942, Li Jianxi, his father, Li Bing, founder of the Samsung Group, had been disciplined by the family and received a good formal education.

In 1965, he received a degree in economics from Waseda University in Japan. He went to the United States for further studies and obtained an MBA degree from George Washington University.

The Korean economy, known as "one of the four Asian dragons", reached its peak in 80s, and many private enterprises grew and flourishing. However, many family businesses were not fully aware of the issue of leaders and were more indulgent in their education.

Family successors neglect their studies and are keen on sports cars, tourism and high consumption.

Unlike Li Jianxi, he was very fond of sports in his youth.

He is good at many sports events, including wrestling, judo, equestrian, golf and table tennis.

After graduating from University, he worked as a member of the Amateur Wrestling Association and a member of the International Olympic Committee in addition to the management of SamSung company. He also saw Li Jianxi's active figure even in the 2002 Organizing Committee of Japan and South Korea world cup.

The success of the Samsung Group today is attributable to the efforts of the two generation of the Li family.

Li Bing, who made the world from scratch, was praised as "the God of entrepreneurship" by his Korean counterparts. He was an industrial representative of the economic revival of South Korea.

The Samsung club was originally a small rice noodle mill in Korea, mainly engaged in the export business of fish, vegetables and fruits.

In 50s, the company entered the manufacturing industry, such as sugar and wool weaving. In 60s and 70s, the Group diversified and expanded its business scope to petrochemical, shipbuilding, aviation, finance, electronics, communications and other fields, and developed 24 subsidiaries or holding enterprises. The business involved daily consumer products, electronic products, life insurance, newspaper publishing and other fields.

Before the outbreak of the economic crisis in 1998, the annual income exceeded 100 billion dollars.

The business of Li Bing and Li Bing has made the Samsung Corp a prototype of the world's top companies.

In November 1987, Li Bing died and Li Jianxi took over as the new CEO of the group.

In 1988, when Samsung established its 50 year celebration, he announced the group's "two pioneering work" and set the direction of Samsung's development as a world-class super enterprise in twenty-first Century.

Li Jianxi suggested that we should radically change the bad habit of "the pursuit of quantity rather than quality".

In the face of the risk of the Asia Pacific market, Li Jianxi faced bold and complicated corporate business system. He was bold enough to carry out reorganization and reform. He retained only the most important and profitable core projects, such as consumer electronics, finance, trade and services, and gave up in marginal, deficit or non core sectors.

The number of subsidiaries of SamSung group declined from 59 in 1997 to 45. The total number of loans decreased by 46% in two years, and the debt ratio dropped from 366% in 1997 to 166% in 1999.

In 2000, the total value of Samsung Corp listed shares reached US $59 billion 800 million, almost equivalent to the total value of all listed shares of Hyundai, LG group and SK company.

Samsung brand is third in Asia, forty-second in the world, and 6 billion 400 million dollars in brand value.

The group has 3 companies selected by Fortune magazine as the top 500 in the world in 2001. They are ninety-second Samsung Electronics, 105th Samsung products and 222nd Samsung life.

The Asian financial turmoil that led to the collapse of the modern financial group and Daewoo Group in the Far East has been dragged down by the self rescue of enterprises under the leadership of Li Jianxi, but the position in the Fortune 500 has improved.

Europe and the United States commented that Samsung is a rare "respectable" high-tech group in the Asia Pacific region following Japan's SONY.

Li Jianxi is better than Li Bing. He is superior to Li Bing. He is like many CEO's training process. Li Jianxi's growth is not smooth sailing. He also made many mistakes in enterprise management and reform.

In the late 90s, Samsung Group was trapped in the "big business big manufacturing" wrong thinking.

Obviously, the domestic auto industry is overabundant, but Li Jianxi still invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the auto business. The Samsung motor company built up debt quickly and was forced to sell it to Renault Motor Company in 2000.

Li Jianxi was once criticized by investors as a "failure manager". Korean public opinion believed that the establishment of Samsung automobile company was not only a blind decision but also a failure of bureaucracy management system.

Some of the more extreme observers in South Korea have accused Li Jianxi of "nothing" in a few years since he succeeded his father as president in the second half of 1987.

Li Jianxi took the responsibility bravely.

He donated 2 billion won's personal property at once, taking almost all responsibility for the failure to invest in the automotive field.

After the announcement of Samsung's announcement, investors were shocked. The employees who had to wait for layoffs had tears in their eyes, and fortune magazine praised Li Jianxi as "CEO responsible for the wrong investment decisions".

According to the reform plan of SamSung group, Li Jianxi, chairman of the group, will sell his personal assets worth 80 million US dollars and use this fund to set up a fund to improve the cash flow of the group.

At the same time, he also donated 90% of his personal income to the group to improve employee welfare and financial difficulties.

Li Jianxi, 64 years old, has brought forth a whole generation of Korean electronic products advocating quality concept.

Once the quality problem of group products was met, consumers were collectively complained. He ignored the old age and led the management to smash the inferior products with a hammer on the spot. He shouted "everything except wife and child."

The slogan of innovation has won the respect of colleagues.

After the implementation of strategic reform, Samsung quickly expanded in the field of consumer electronics, which accounted for 37% of the company's total revenue.

In the mobile phone market, Samsung's market share increased rapidly from 6.2% to 9.6% now. The sales revenue of mobile phones in North America even surpassed that of NOKIA, which is the largest in the US. Brand appeal is regarded as the same as SONY.

Mobile phone business now accounts for 35% of Samsung's total revenue.

Samsung is also the largest memory chip and flat screen display manufacturer in the world. The world's third largest digital TV producers, one of the world's third largest DVD player manufacturers and one of the mobile phone manufacturers, including the memory chip, display, video recorder, picture tube, floppy drive and other 17 kinds of electronic products, OEM market share is the world's first.

Far East Economic Review thinks Samsung is more innovative than SONY and Canon.

Since Li Jianxi's successor to the company's president in 1987 to 12 years in 1999, the total sales volume, asset size and exports increased by 7.3, 5.6 and 2.8 times respectively.

But this is not Li Jianxi's greatest achievement.

His more far-reaching impact on Samsung is to promote fundamental changes, constantly increase the world's best products, consolidate Samsung Corp's dominance in the Asia Pacific region, and change the corporate culture to adapt to the requirements of globalization and the digital age.

The best place for Li Jianxi is to employ people.

He was very open-minded and used to support many family managers.

The "common people" have made contributions to the prosperity of the whole group.

In order to enhance the pparency of the group, Li Jianxi appointed some expatriates as directors of the group.

He vigorously promoted the young reserve cadres as the leading positions, and made the talents of SamSung group prosperous.

For example, vice president of Samsung Electronics and CEO Yin Zhonglong, Samsung Electronics's digital multimedia network department president and CEO Chen Daji, equipment solutions network department, President and CEO Li Runyu, communication network department president and CEO Li Jitai, digital home appliances network department president and CEO Han long outside, are all his promotion of love.

Li Hengdao, head of Samsung Group China, has also been strongly supported by Li Jianxi.

In terms of status, Li Hengdao ranked third in the SamSung group. He used to be president of Samsung Motors and vice president of Samsung. He worked in Samsung for 29 years, and was highly valued by Li Jianxi.

In an interview with South Korean media, Mr Li Jianxi talked about his many years of running businesses, and he had a very deep understanding of the chaebol system of Korean enterprises.

"A lot of people do not like Korean enterprises, but I think Korean high-tech enterprise has its own characteristics, especially the highly centralized chaebol system, which enables enterprises to attract high-quality talents with their scale and cultivate high potential employees."

The training of Samsung's top management personnel is presided over by the chairman's office and centralized. CEO's personal questioning system can cultivate a brilliant entrepreneurial spirit, ambition and dedication spirit among a group of top-notch talents.

With abundant reserve talents, Li Jianxi thought his father Li Bing would not appear again after the death of Samsung.

In the past, "the generation of talented people in Jiangshan has gone out of the country for many hundred years."

Now, there are more and more positive evaluations of Li Jianxi.

"Li Jianxi is not a playboy, not a rich young man. He is a wizard."

Speaking of chairman Li Jianxi, the Samsung Group enjoys high praise from both sides. Supporters believe that Li Jianxi's performance as top management is comparable to that of his father, and others say optimistically that "Xiao Li" should be better than "Lao Li".

There are also worries about the richest South Korean. In August 2002, the list of the top 100 rich people in South Korea came out in a row. The total assets of the 100 richest men in the list amounted to $19 billion 100 million.

Among them, Samsung Group Li Jianxi ranked first in terms of personal assets of about $1 billion 447 million.

It is learnt that if the property of the family members of the family of the Samsung Li family is included, the Li Jianxi family's share is estimated to be 3 trillion and 214 billion won, which is 216 billion yuan more than that of the second member Lotte President Xin Gehao family.

Among the most influential 50 people in Asia recently selected by Asia Weekly, Li Jianxi ranked 35.

But the "richest man" is hard to escape from the scandal.

It is reported that Li Jianxi was accused of using various funds in March 1988 and August 1992 to bribe the then Korean President Lu Tai Yu to win the government procurement contract and other preferential policies.

Li Jianxi, the only son of Li Zairong, was fined heavily for tax evasion in April 2001.

In addition, he was suspected of buying bonds at a low price from Samsung SDS, and selling high priced Internet shares to Samsung Affiliated Companies, which had to be investigated by the securities and Exchange Commission.

Li Zairong is widely regarded as the successor of the SamSung group.

In April 2001, he graduated from the Business School of Harvard University. He was appointed Vice President of Samsung Electronics.

In addition to having a 0.66% stake in Samsung Electronics, he holds many shares of Samsung Affiliated Companies.

Qualifications are higher than those of our fathers, but business skills still need to be honed.

"Who is the hero of the world, who is the enemy, the son is like Sun Zhongmou."

But not every business leader can be a leader.

For the three generations of Samsung, Li Jianxi, Li Zairong and his father and son, to train a head of a large IT enterprise is a continuous process of degenerating. It is not easy to cultivate a management genius.