What companies should learn from Samsung & Apple

Struggling in business doesn’t immediately equate to bad products. In fact, many believe that certain manufacturers are more innovative than the others, regardless of their standing. They might even have better products. But why do very few companies top the charts? What does the competition need to do to capture the crowd?

We really have to give it to Apple & Samsung when it comes to generating sales, capturing market & generating income – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the best technologies. Some companies have been struggling very hard to heighten their position in the competition. They include HTC, Nokia, BlackBerry & more.

Love it or hate it, it’s all eyes on Samsung & Apple. It’s not even Android vs iOS anymore – to most people at least. Fans from each side enjoy fighting with repetitive arguments. From an angle, it’s a bad thing, but if you look at it from a different perspective, these companies have to be doing something right to gain so much loyal fans — what is it that they are doing that other companies aren’t?

A Flagship Series of Products

This is one of the most important ones. People like having the best of the best – and the reason why people flock to Samsung or Apple is because they think it’s the best. They have distinct product lines that immediately strike as high-end: Samsung Galaxy S, iPhone, iPad. If you have observed, Samsung’s tablet line is quite on the low as well, all because they have so many selections and it’s hard to tell what is the one to buy (7.0, 7.7, 8.9, 10.1, Note 10.1).

Above all else, this kind of marketing hints that people enjoy succession – Samsung Galaxy S, S2, S3 & iPhone, 3G, 4, 5. At least with Nokia, they have several clues; they have ‘9s’ or ‘8s’ in their naming scheme (N95, N9, Lumia 920, N8, PureView 808, Lumia 820) whereas with companies like HTC, we have none of that. We had from them the Desire, the Desire HD, the Sensation, the One X and so on.

HTC should make use of their new-found naming scheme wisely and add true successors. Adding an X or letters like S/V could be a start for them, so let’s see if this goes well in the future with phones like the One X, the rumored HTC M7, the Windows Phone 8X and many more. LG may have gotten this clue already, as we are hearing of successors to the LG Optimus G – the Optimus G2.

Timely Product Introductions

Well, a lot of people enjoy having their new devices – but more often times than not, the company takes away this enjoyment from them by releasing a better device a few months later. Companies should take this seriously as the satisfaction of the customer is one of the most important aspects in business. A year is probably enough to release a successor for a certain product. This is one of the reasons why people are holding back on buying new devices – and it’s quite sad.

Take a look at the 4th generation iPad; in fact many people don’t even know that there is an iPad 4. These small details even went as far as many saying that Apple is losing its touch.

Fewer Devices

By this, we mean something deeper. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is a single product, but when it arrived on U.S. shores, the carriers adopted different form factors. It looks like it doesn’t affect us much, but when you think about it, that means more accessories to produce for many more devices. As a result, we saw very few cases for the S2 compared to the iPhone.

Samsung learned, and with the S3, they had a single device internationally – and look at what we have now. Cases & accessories for the Galaxy S3 is quite comparable now to Apple’s products. That just means more customer satisfaction.

Software Support

We totally understand if a company does not release a software update for a 2-year-old device – but for at least 1 year, we hope they do for the sake of the customer. If the consumer didn’t get support, why would that person go buy from the same company again? It’s pretty much the same story with frequent product refreshes.

Of course, more important than software support is software itself. Windows Phone needs apps. BlackBerry needs apps. iOS needs to stop being stale. Android needs more quality apps. Samsung’s Nature UX skin may not appeal to many of us geeks out there but it is totally user-friendly like iOS – and like we said, above all else, customer satisfaction is important.

“Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”

Good old Picasso says you just need to be influenced – you don’t necessarily need to copy the whole thing. You know what they say: “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” but to some people like Molko, we shouldn’t kill individuality.

It’s good that companies we mentioned are making quality products, but they should really step up their game and take a hint from other manufacturers and tinker with certain marketing elements. It may not be our business, but they do provide us quality products – and if they don’t do something about it, we might see them no more – or worse, there could be a monopoly.