Samsung to overhaul business structure

While it's always followed a rigid corporate structure, South Korean conglomerate Samsung has announced that it will begin to embrace a start-up like culture to foster growth and develop new ideas. "Samsung will stay away from top-down structures and build bottom-up structures, while the company will put more focus on improving efficiency by introducing programs to self-motivate employees," the Korea Times reported, citing a statement by Samsung. 

According to the report, Samsung employees need to work their way up five ranks — sawon, daeri, gwajang, chajang and bujang — before reaching the level of an executive. A typical undergraduate begins as a sawon and it can take them up to 20 years to reach the level of vice president. 

Samsung is expected to do away with such rigid ranking structures and stated that it would promote employees who hold managerial potential. The human resources policy would offer more credit to employees based on their work as opposed to their position in the organisation. 

Samsung will also enable MOSAIC, its internal communications portal, where employees can pitch their ideas to executives. Employees "...can put any idea into MOSAIC and we [Samsung] will respond to it." The organisation is also reported to "kill unnecessary internal meetings and require executives to end the rigidity of internal reporting systems, which we believe is a legacy from decades ago." 

Android Central reports that the company has also launched its own in-house incubator, called Creative Lab, that will help employees grow their ideas.