Samsung SDS Co., Ltd. (formerly Samsung Data Systems; ), established in 1985 as a subsidiary of Samsung Group, is a provider of

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...

(IT) services, including consulting services, technical services, and

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

services. SDS is also active in

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

of emerging IT technologies such as

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

(AI),

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, ...

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...

(IoT) and engineering outsourcing. In 2019, Samsung SDS reported a net profit of 750.4 billion won ($635 million), an increase of 17.5 percent year-on-year. The company is estimated to have the 11th most valuable brand among global IT service companies, at US$3.7 billion as of January 2020. Samsung SDS has headquarters in South Korea and eight overseas subsidiaries, in America, Asia-Pacific, China, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, India, and Vietnam.

History

Samsung SDS was established in 1985 as Samsung Data Systems, and was renamed Samsung SDS in 1997. The company was established to provide ICT services to Samsung Group affiliates based on contemporary digital technologies, including mobile, social media, sensors, cloud technology, and others. The company initially focused mainly on systems integration and IT outsourcing, before expanding into the fields of

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

business process outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

(BPO) and IT-based manufacturing process platforms. More recently, the company has worked with AI, blockchain, cloud computing, data analytics, and security-based platforms. The company began to expand overseas in 1997 with the establishment of Samsung SDS America, followed by Samsung SDS China in 1999. The company currently has eight regional headquarters and offices in 41 countries. In 2014, the company launched a domestic

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

(IPO), which was at the time the third largest ever in South Korea. In 2019, the company became the first Korean IT services company to surpass 10 trillion won in annual sales.

Services

The company provides IT professional services, platforms and tools, and IT infrastructure, to the

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of f ...

, and services industries. The company also provides logistics BPO services for global logistics and logistics specialized IT services. The company has a range of platforms, tools and services that use AI, blockchain, cloud, data analytics and security-based technologies.

IT professional services

Samsung SDS provides project-unit consulting and SI services by analyzing business problems using IT master plans, process innovation, information strategy planning, agility, and CX. It also provides application analysis, design and development services across different verticals such as business management ( enterprise resource planning (ERP),

supply chain management In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the flow of goods and services including all processes that transform raw materials into final products between businesses and locations. This can include the movement and st ...

(SCM),

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information. CRM systems compile data from a r ...

(CRM), and manufacturing analysis (MES). Through stable infrastructure services, the company provides cloud, data center, network and security services for various industries. The company's application outsourcing services support resources such as staffing, software, and information resources.

Platforms and systems

Platforms

The company's AI-based big data analytics platform, Brightics AI, provides analytical, visual, and conversational AI services. The platform incorporates

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

deep learning Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised. ...

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to proc ...

(NLP), and Chatbots, which can be adapted for different purposes. The platform is used in the manufacturing, construction, logistics, and retail sectors. The company also has an open-source version of the platform known as Brightics Studio. Brightics IoT is an

platform designed to optimize the collection and processing of data from many devices as well as

legacy system In computing, a legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program, "of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system", yet still in use. Often referencing a system as "legacy" means that it pave ...

s. The platform supports a variety of different communication protocols such as

MQTT MQTT (originally an initialism of MQ Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe, machine to machine network protocol for Message queue/Message queuing service. It is designed for connections with remote locations that have devices ...

Constrained Application Protocol Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a specialized Internet application protocol for constrained devices, as defined iRFC 7252 It enables those constrained devices called "nodes" to communicate with the wider Internet using similar protocols ...

(CoAP),

Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications i ...

(BLE),

Zigbee Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and oth ...

, and Modbus, and is in use in the manufacturing,

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and ...

, smart city, and smart building industries. The company launched Nexledger, its

proprietary {{Short pages monitor