Virtual reality glasses for the blind, an anti-overeating belt, an ephemeral tattoo printer, a robot capable of finding and recharging electric cars, a collar with a 360-degree camera for multiple services, a screen that looks relaxed. The collection of good ideas cooked up by Samsung Electronics employees and friends grows every year to accumulate half a thousand startup projects in recent years.
With the help of the company’s innovation labs, the team fosters internal and external entrepreneurship through C-Lab Inside and C-Lab Outside. These centers also share the same square meter from which the galaxy is formedThe group’s proud headquarters, a 150-hectare state-of-the-art campus, also known as Samsung Digital City is located in Suwon, half an hour’s drive from the center of Seoul.
The location is home to 30,000 employees of the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, all of whom are determined that their innovation engines will never stop. Research and development are sacred words, the responsible explained this newspaper “Contribute to the collective of humanity by creating better products and services through people and technology“. In this effort they refer to the group’s five innovation engines: “People, Excellence, Change, Integrity and Community Prosperity”.
The South Korean multinational also has three other corporate concepts closely linked to its 85-year history: Great, eternal and strong. In fact, Samsung means “three stars” in Korean, and that’s what the company wore in its logo until 1992, when it changed its “passion red” to the current “hope blue.”
Walking through the Samsung headquarters is the closest thing to walking through the city of the future, where innovation and sustainability coexist with design and practicality. Hyper-connection is breathed into the environment which is considered as a mirror of economic, social and business development of a country twinned by high-tech and super-broadband.
Samsung means “three stars” in Korean, the same stars it wore on its logo until 1992.
But annual revenue was 210,500 million euros, 12.5% of the country’s GDP, and it made a profit of 41,000 million euros in its last fiscal year, double the combined profits of the six biggest Spanish banks.
Mobiles, connected devices, televisions, home appliances and wearables. But apart from consumer electronics, the Asian multinational also manufactures microprocessors that power much of the world, with up to 80 subsidiaries in the group including financial services, biotechnology, real estate, energy, shipowners, tourism, pharmacy, hotels and leisure. , food delivery, defense and fashion, among other sectors of one of the few global conglomerates able to rub shoulders with American big tech. The giant company has 266,000 employees, 39 R&D centers, seven artificial intelligence centers, several design centers, as well as 15 regional headquarters and 32 manufacturing plants.. 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, cloud, automotive industry, healthcare, wearables and robotics are the main lines of development of Samsung Electronics. In all of the above, the creativity and talent of C-Labs has been added, along with 391 internal business projects, with more than 1,600 engineers working on these projects.
The selection process for startups receiving funding and support from Samsung consists of several stages to ensure the success of each project. Everything starts with a good idea, first shared by Mosaic, an online platform that fosters collaborative culture and creativity among employees. Immediately afterwards, the event is submitted First assessment and inspection of all workers. After this initial screening, prospective entrepreneurs must send a presentation in front of a hundred experts, including ten senior company executives. If employers give the green light, the new entrepreneur can dedicate himself to the implementation of his project for a year with full funding and training, office space, participation in exhibitions and a guaranteed income. The businessman decides to return to his previous profession. After those twelve months, The company will decide whether it can incorporate the project into a new business line or, conversely, continue its evolution in a spin-off model with Samsung participation.
