Moving up the food chain

Normally I do not read too much into press releases on industry hires but I found this one interesting on many levels. Intel, a tremendous brand in its own right, hired a marketing executive from Samsung, a Korean company. Most people assume that the US’ competitive advantage over the rest of the world lies in design, innovation, and branding. We can outsource manufacturing and development to countries like China, Korea, and India to create great products at lower prices. However, what we need to understand is that these countries are not just content in producing widgets. They, too, have aspirations in moving up the product food chain to develop their own brands, design their own products, and manufacture them. So for me it was quite ironic to see one of the world’s best brands, Intel, hire the marketing exec from Samsung, where just five years ago it had no brand and was just seen as a low cost producer. What a tremendous job Samsung has done in just a short period of time. As you can see from Samsung’s numbers, it has done an excellent job moving up the food chain, innovating, and creating a brand. This culminated in Intel hiring a Samsung executive. This is just the beginning. In the WSJ today, there was a great front page article (sub required) on Chinese telecom equipment companies penetrating worldwide markets. Once again, this is another example that the very advantages that the US has in innovation, design, and brand may be threatened in the long term, especially if we do not pay attention.