Investigation Of Battery Explosions In Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Phones

Literature Review

This research proposal has tried to investigate the real issue behind the battery exploding cases of Samsung Note 7 phones. Samsung had never dominated the mobile phone market the way it did in the year 2012 when it overtook the market from Nokia in regards to record unit sales of phones. It continued on the earned reputation and soon became the largest selling Smartphone brands in the world (Samsung in, 2017). However, in recent years, few of the existing and the new phone brands such as Sony, Lenovo, Asus and many more challenged its earned supremacy. In order to maintain the same reputation as that of the period from 2012-14, it came up with the best Smartphone ever the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The high-end configuration of the phone did tell the promising part of the product; however, some unwanted accidents had returned some unexpected outcome to the manufacturer. The exploding battery cases in Aeroplanes in several of its units have forced the manufacturer in thinking of their reputation. Moreover, they reacted to the urgency and made an announcement for the recall of millions of units of Note 7 (Recode, 2017).

The aim of the research is to investigate the complete story behind the battery explosion in Galaxy Note 7 series of Samsung phones.

Research Objectives

• To investigate the reasons behind the explosion
• To investigate the action from the Company in response to the problem
• To enquire about the publicity of the brand after the explosion
• To find out the impact on its market position
• To find out if there is any recall to the Galaxy Note 7 in the market
• To know the impact on customers

Research Questions

1. What are the reasons behind the explosion?
2. What actions did Company take after the incident?
3. What impact did the explosion leave on the Company?
4. How did it influence the market position of the Samsung?
5. Is there any recall to the Galaxy Note 7 in the market after the series of explosions?
6. What was its impact on the customers?

Research Issue

The main issue behind the research is about the series of explosion of the batteries used in Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones.

The whole scenario is surrounded to the accidents that had taken place with the series of explosion of batteries used in Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The initial reaction of Samsung towards the accident is worth praising as it announced the recall of millions of units of phones. However, the replacement of phones while bearing the same lithium battery did create some confusion in the mind of customers. The negative publicity for the phones from several airlines such as Federal Aviation Airlines has added extra pain to the Company. It was by far the most negative publicity a tech product has ever received. The long-term affect is hard to determine but experts do feel that it is not good for the fate of the Company (Todd and Krueger 2016).

The main problem is with the lithium ion battery, which is a third party property. Most of the brands are using lithium ion batteries for their phones. The presence of liquid swimming inside the battery makes this highly flammable. If any short-circuits happens there, it would affect the separating medium between the positive and the negative battery power. Moreover, it would consequently leave less resistance to the flow of electricity. It then can heat up the liquid swimming, which can anytime cause the battery to explode (SALOOJEE and LLOYD 2015).

Research Methodology

The Company responded to the problem by announcing the recall of millions of units those were already shipped to the market. It was not an easy decision to take as it costs for a big financial loss to the Company (Ayyaz and Rehman 2016). However, Company responded to the problem, which also helped them in winning praise for their gutsy move. Assurance was given to customers about the phone that the main problem lies with the battery itself, which is a third party property. The replacement phones did not provide any solution for the problem as the problem again persisted. The Company then decided to stop the selling of the device (Papageorgiou and Raptis 2016).

The accident did hamper the reputation of the Company, which could not be outplayed even after the replacement of handsets (Chawla, Aggarwal and Aggarwal 2016). It was not enough in the agony of the Company as the announcement of the U.S. Consumer Safety Commission did enhance it by encouraging consumers not to use the particular device. The encouraging announcement for not to use or carry Galaxy Note 7 phones in Federal Aviation Airlines and numerous others airlines have added another glitch in their reputation (Recode, 2017). It did also affect the vision of the Company, which is about technological advancement and society betterment. The Company had proposed some visions for 2020, which is related to the inception of more innovation in its technology to bring phones that are more powerful to the customers. The explosion has raised question against the aspiration of innovation in technology. Another vision is about inspiring the societies with the product and offering; however, it failed to do so when it went against its committed goals to put forward the replacements for the Galaxy Note 7 phones (Samsung in, 2017).  

The entire story of actions that Samsung took after the cases of explosion, the reputation has changed from praiseworthy to issue. Some of the questions have provided the Company this sort of reputation such as replacement of handsets after realizing the problem was related to the lithium battery (Tarkoma et al. 2014). The anti publicity stunts of several airlines and consumer forum have furthered hampered the reputation in the market. It is still one of the largest brands in the Smartphone industry; however, it has lost its top position to its rival Apple’s Iphone. Furthermore, customers are more concerned about other brands, which are using the same lithium ion battery. The Galaxy Note 7 successor phones are now in all sorts of doubts for a positive response from the customers (Geng 2015).

Data Analysis

The Company did take a praiseworthy move to recall the millions of units of phones from the customers. However, the decision to put forward the replacement for the collected units has faced criticism from customers and experts. It was believed that the Company should not have taken the replacement decision if it was just the case of lithium ion battery problem (Cascalheira, Goncalves and Bicho 2014).

The explosion added a new chapter in the Smartphone industry. It was first of its kinds and that to with the brands like Samsung (Jacoby 2013). The action to recall the millions units of phones that had already been shipped received ample of praises from the customers. However, their move to provide the market with the replacement of Galaxy Note 7 using the same battery did confuse customers. The customers did not have any idea about the product quality. The anti-publicity stunts for Samsung along with replacement of the phones with no counter solution to the problems have collectively lowered their faiths on the brand (Barsukov and Qian 2013).

Research methodology instructs on how to conduct the research on the subject topic with quality output from the research. It guides to a more systematic form of conducting a research (Flick 2015).

Types of Investigation

Of the three types of investigation method for the research, the researcher for this research would go with the descriptive form of research as the subject topic can well be understood and explained with the help of relevant concepts and facts (Panneerselvam 2014).

Data Collection Method

For a research, a list of data from different resources is required; however, the complete story of the battery explosion would not be easy to understand with the help of secondary resources only (O’Leary 2013). The available articles on the battery explosion story of Galaxy Note 7 phones are helpful in getting an overall view on the accidents. However, to judge the damages completely that had occurred to the reputation of the brand in the sight of customers can well be understood by conducting some kinds of online survey. Online Survey looks feasible to the desired results, as this is helpful in reaching to millions of customers, which is never possible with physical surveys. Moreover, for this research both the Primary and Secondary method of data collection would be useful. Primary Method of data collection would allow the researcher in filling up the gaps created by the unavailability of exact customer views on the reputation of the brand (Clough and Nutbrown 2012).

Conclusion

Sampling Method

For the research, the researcher would chose the probability method of sampling as the data would be collected based on online surveys on a random basis. Moreover, the researcher is choosing the customers of Samsung for the online surveys (Panneerselvam 2014).

Accessibility Issues

The one accessibility related issue is the truthiness of the data collected from the respondents. The data collected from the online survey might have certain respondents that had just participated in the survey for the sake of entertainment. This would actually affect the formation of results. Another problem with the online survey is the participation of serious customers who can provide some necessary feedbacks on the issue. Moreover, the online survey holds no guarantee of attracting serious customers for participating in the survey (O’Leary 2013).

Ethical Issues

Some ethical consideration is very important while conducting the research such as the protection of data. As per the Data Protection Act of 1998, it is mandatory for the researcher to manage the privacy of the contents that would be collected from the online survey. The researcher is not allowed to publish the collected data; however, the researcher can use the data to put forward some necessary findings of the research (Clough and Nutbrown 2012).

Data Analysis Plan 

For the research, the researcher would go with both the types of data analysis such as qualitative and quantitative. The research is based on both kinds of resources such as primary and secondary. For the primary kind of data collection, the researcher has chosen the online survey, which might miss some of the most effective feedbacks from educated customers. Moreover, the calculated data would be analysed quantitatively to measure the actual findings. It would be analyzed with the help of mathematical formula on the Microsoft Excel Sheet. However, all the available articles on the subject topic especially those from the governments are quality findings, which need to be measure qualitatively (O’Leary 2013).

Research Limitations

Limitations are bound to happen with every research. In this research, time and budget would be the main limitations for the research (Clough and Nutbrown 2012).

The research would consist of five chapters comprising of introduction, literature review, research methodology, data analysis and conclusion. The introductory part would include the main issue of the research, its aims & objectives and research questions. Literature review would highlight all the findings of the research based on several concepts and facts. Research methodology would have data collection method, sampling of data, data analysis and many more. Fourth chapter would put forward the finding of the research and its analysis. The last chapter would conclude the whole research based on all the available results from the research (Flick 2015).

Main activities/ stages	Month February	Month March	Month April	Month May	Month June	Month July
Topic Selection	ü
Data collection from primary & secondary sources	ü	ü
Framing layout of the research		ü
Literature review		ü	ü	ü
Formation of the Research Plan			ü	ü
Selection of the Appropriate Research Techniques				ü	ü
Primary & Secondary data collection					ü	ü
Analysis & Interpretation of Data Collection					ü	ü
Conclusion of the Study						ü
Formation of Rough, Draft						ü
Submission of Final Work						ü

Table 1: Gant Chart

Source: (O’Leary 2013)

The above picture shows the proposed activities for the research, which the researcher would adopt for the conduction of the proposed research. It is distributed in month wise activities for the different parts of the research such as data collection, sampling of data, data analysis and many more (Panneerselvam 2014).

References

Ayyaz, S. and Rehman, S., 2016. The Most Secure Smartphone Operating System: A Survey. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Computer, Electrical, Automation, Control and Information Engineering, 10(2), pp.354-357.

Barsukov, Y. and Qian, J., 2013. Battery power management for portable devices. Artech house.

Cascalheira, J., Goncalves, C. and Bicho, N., 2014. Smartphones and the use of customized Apps in archaeological projects. The SAA Archaeological Record, 14(5), pp.20-25.

Chawla, D., Aggarwal, R. and Aggarwal, A., 2016. Scientific Research and Development of Mobile Application for Android Platform. IITM Journal of Management and IT, 7(1), pp.125-131.

Clough, P. and Nutbrown, C., 2012. A student’s guide to methodology. Sage.

Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.

Geng, X., 2015. Self-adaptive thermal management-the fundamentals and applications in Li-polymer batteries. Michigan Technological University.

Jacoby, M., 2013. Batteries get flexible. Chem. Eng. News, 91(18), pp.13-18.

O’Leary, Z., 2013. The essential guide to doing your research project. Sage.

Panneerselvam, R., 2014. Research methodology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..

Papageorgiou, C.D. and Raptis, T.E., 2016. Battery Explosions and High Current Bursts during Short Circuit Events on Conducting Paths with Curvature. Open Access Library Journal, 3(11), p.1.

Recode. (2017). The death of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 leaves lots of unanswered questions. [online] Available at: https://www.recode.net/2016/10/11/13244190/galaxy-note-7-recall-exploding-smartphone-samsung-regulation [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].

SALOOJEE, F. and LLOYD, J., 2015. Lithium Battery Recycling Process.

Samsung in. (2017). Vision 2020 | Samsung Electronics | About Samsung. [online] Available at: https://www.samsung.com/in/aboutsamsung/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].

Tarkoma, S., Siekkinen, M., Lagerspetz, E. and Xiao, Y., 2014. Smartphone energy consumption: modeling and optimization. Cambridge University Press.

Todd, J.R. and Krueger, D.M., 2016. AIR TRANSPORTATION. THE TRANSPORTATION LAWyER, 18(3), p.32.