Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
SK chairman calls for employees to push for 'deep change'
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won speaks during a townhall meeting with SK Telecom employees at the firm's headquarters in Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of SK Telecom
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has urged his employees to have a sense of urgency in the rapidly changing 5G era, calling on them to push for “deep change.”
He also urged them to take a more customer-centric approach, emphasizing the importance of building trust with customers.
SK Telecom said Friday that Chey held a townhall meeting on Thursday with about 300 employees at the firm's headquarters in Seoul. He discussed emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the fifth-generation (5G) network, big data and digitization for two hours.
“SK Telecom commercialized the code division multiple access (CDMA) service for the first time in the world,” Chey said. “It was a big challenge for us because we had to change the way we transmit signals from analog to digital.
“As every company is facing new challenges in the era of AI and 5G, we have to keep working to meet our customers' needs.”
Noting that it would be difficult to achieve success by staying loyal to old-fashioned business management methods in the 5G era, Chey urged SK Telecom employees to change their way of working.
“In AI technology-based personalized services, we have to take a more customer-centric approach,” Chey said. “Releasing new products and developing technologies is important, but in the era of AI, we have to focus more on building trust with customers.”
To become an industry leader, Chey said there must be efforts to form partnerships with different business partners. “It is essential to create an ecosystem that we can grow together with our partners,” he said.