Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Lotte Chairman calls for restoring core competitiveness at executives' meeting
Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin speaks during the group's Value Creation Meeting at Lotte's employee training center in Osan, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Courtesy of Lotte Group
By Lee Gyu-lee
Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin emphasized the need to restore the fundamental competitiveness of the group’s key businesses to overcome the current struggling business environment during a gathering of the group's top executives, the conglomerate said Thursday.
The group held the biannual event, called the Value Creation Meeting, on Wednesday and Thursday at the group’s employee training center in Osan, Gyeonggi Province. The latest edition gained extra attention, as the group held the event behind closed doors unlike previous gatherings.
During the gathering, Shin assessed the group’s performance in the first half of the year, stressing that regaining core businesses’ fundamental strengths needs to come first in order to improve key performance indicators group-wide.
"A critical mistake in managing a corporation is to ignore problems you are aware of or to fail to recognize them as problems,” the chairman said during the event, calling on all its CEOs to approach their roles with a sense of heavy responsibility.
"CEOs should anticipate changes in the business environment five to 10 years ahead and plan for what needs to be done now and in three years."
Shin pointed out the importance of what the group calls "PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis" in management. The analysis is a strategic tool used to assess the external factors that can impact a business.
To navigate the uncertainties of the current business environment and restore the group’s fundamental competitiveness, Shin introduced management policies for the CEOs to execute throughout the second half of the year, including enhancing brand value, accelerating the implementation of appropriate strategies to each business division and improving productivity.
“The brand is the foundation of our group’s business competitiveness and an important asset that has accumulated over time,” he said.
Instructing each business division to execute their strategies in a swift manner, he highlighted the need for urgent innovation in the structure of its chemical business, while stressing the foods division to strengthen the branding of its key products. For the retail business, he requested thoughtful devising of new measures to meet various customer needs.
To enhance productivity, Shin underscored boosting employees’ job expertise and establishing a performance-oriented evaluation system within the organization. He also requested that executives cultivate a bold and proactive working culture and urge employees to utilize AI to improve work efficiency.
“The business environment is in constant flux, continuously presenting us with both risks and opportunities,” Shin noted, urging CEO to proactively respond to changes with innovations. “Failing to even make an attempt is itself a failure … I hope that all of you will join me in taking the lead to secure the future of our group.”