全通翻譯/翻譯社

The Power of One: Samsung's Omniscient Chairman

How did Samsung go from being a run-of-the-mill manufacturer of cheap TVs to global dominance in a couple of decades? The answer is largely down to one man: Lee Kun-hee. The Samsung chairman has overseen1 sales growth of 5,775 percent since succeeding his father in 1987, representing US$141 billion in 2012. The company now contributes a staggering 17 percent of Korea's GDP. 

In what grandiosely became known as the Frankfurt Declaration of 1993, Lee began his dramatic transformation of the Korean company with a three-day long harangue to stunned employees. The speech, which took place in a German hotel room on consecutive nights, called on employees to ";change everything but your wife and children."; The company's new philosophy was then codified into a 200-page tome, which is now required reading for all employees. Its focus was on how to shift the company from low-end quantity to cutting-edge quality. 

The Frankfurt Declaration was the first of several ostentatious displays from the maverick chairman. Another infamous flourish was the incineration and bulldozing of 150,000 "inferior" cell phones in 1995. However, Lee was not all show and rhetoric. Samsung's move toward the big time was anchored in key decisions, some of which were originally pooh-poohed by industry analysts.

三星的萬能總裁

三星是怎麼在幾十年間，從一個平庸的廉價電視製造商到稱霸全球的呢？主要歸功於一個人──李健熙。自一九八七年從父親手中接棒後，這位三星董座讓公司銷售額成長了 5,775%，成就了二○一二年的 1,410 億美元。這家公司貢獻驚人的 17% 韓國國內生產毛額 。

被誇稱為一九九三法蘭克福宣言的演說中，李健熙花了三天對無不訝異萬分的員工說明公司的戲劇性轉變。這場演說在德國的飯店中連續進行數夜，號召員工「改變妻子和孩子以外的一切」。公司的新哲學接著被編纂為一本200 頁的刊物，現在成了員工必讀經典。這本書的重點在於如何把公司從低品質量產轉變成尖端品質。

法蘭克福宣言是這位反骨董事長諸多賣弄行徑的第一步。另一個聲名狼藉的大動作是在一九九五年焚燒並以推土機清除 15 萬支「次級」手機。不過，李健熙並不只會誇張賣弄，雖然諸多關鍵決策曾被產業分析師們輕蔑，但三星就是靠著它們功成名就。

資料來源：biz 互動英語電子報