The Korea Times

Secret of employee wellness

Finance and healthcare offer higher benefits than IT and engineering By Austin Kweon The Employee Benefit Program is an important part of the total reward to employees and this is increasingly more important these days. However, the demographics keep changing in the company and the satisfaction of this program has been even decreasing in many companies for the past few years, despite employers spending more money on it. It is mainly due to the fact that the employee benefit programs are not fully incorporating what employees are valuing. AON Hewitt’s Benefit Index Study, designed to value the employee benefit programs more independently and analytically, is regularly measuring the value of employee benefit programs in Korea and provides some insights. First, there is a trend by industry: there are industries providing benefit programs with higher or lower competitiveness compared to others. Finance and health care provides higher benefits, while IT and engineering industry tends to be lower. This is due to the different historical backgrounds and total reward policy.

May 1, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Korean firms urged to tackle drinking culture

By Chung Min-uck With many Korean firms going global, they have made efforts to upgrade their systems to global standards. In particular, they are spending a huge amount of money on improving employee welfare programs to attract global talent. A global consultant with expertise on employee benefit programs, however, said that Korean companies are well aware of the importance of employee wellness but their approaches are totally wrong, citing anti-smoking campaigns and mind-body training programs. In an interview with BusinessFocus, Carl Redondo, a practice leader from global consulting firm Aon Hewitt stressed that the big drinking culture and long working hour are the areas Korean firms should focus on. “Smoking is not actually that high in Korea versus some other markets. So is it really the area of focus? In terms of mind, body and spirit there is already a big culture thing going on. There are a lot of people into Yoga and those types of things. Do we need more of those programs?” asked Redondo. “(Korean) people work very long hours and they have very long commute

May 1, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Hawkish vs. dovish

BOK likely to continue taking baby steps toward normalization By Kim Jae-kyoung “Hawkish” and “dovish.” These two terms appear everywhere in financial news these days. It is now getting more fashionable to be “hawkish” for most central banks in the world, particularly in emerging economies. There are growing signs that the Bank of Korea (BOK) is also turning more hawkish on monetary policy in line with the global trend, with inflation expectations rising fast due to high-flying oil prices and hikes in food costs. There is no doubt that the BOK will move toward normalization by raising key interest rates but it is hard to forecast how fast it will tighten its monetary policy due to lingering economic uncertainties both at home and abroad. There are a few ways of predicting the course of monetary policy. First, you can get a clue from the wording of BOK Governor Kim Choong-soo at a press conference following the interest rate-setting meeting every month. Also, you can make a wild guess based on a wide range of economic data, including inflation, gross domestic produ

May 1, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

How to make money in digital era

By Kim Sang-ik While the digital era presents significant opportunities, it also poses serious threats, especially to companies that remain mired in an analog mindset. Companies of all types that survive and thrive will be those able to engage customers with relevant information and offers, encouraging long-term dialogue and deeper relationships. New kinds of technology platforms and capabilities will enable them to build these relationships. When it comes to media and entertainment companies providing digital channels, the winners will be those that successfully migrate to a performance or outcome-centric monetization model. They will be able to identify how to develop, distribute and sustain digital relationships with their customers. They will forge focused and accountable partnerships with marketers to present more relevant and compelling advertising propositions founded on a much deeper, more data-driven understanding of their consumers’ preferences and interests, learned and developed through time. Marketers will pay digital dollars, not just digital pennies, to pu

Apr 24, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Learn leading practices

Samsung, Loblaws and Corona Light all serve as case studies that highlight a number of leading practices for getting the most from digital out of home buys. Those include: Harness technology to its fullest: Samsung serves as a perfect example. They intercepted targets working with the Wi-Fi environment of the airport lounge. Likewise, with Loblaws, the company used live feeds of weather reports to dynamically alter ads. In both examples, creative was straightforward, instantly digestible, and took into account the environment in which it was consumed. Experience is the new marketing: Engage the viewer through active involvement; experience is the new marketing after all. Like Corona posting headshots over Times Square, ads should reward the viewer through interaction. In turn, advertisers should leverage the opinions they get back from those interactions to gain valuable insight. In Corona’s case, that meant gaining a more granular view of age and regional demographics of users. To add stickiness to their efforts, Corona linked their campaign from Facebook, Twitter and othe

Apr 24, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Cast study: Samsung Galaxy Tab

By Accenture In Heathrow Airport’s First Class Lounges, executives logging onto the Wi-Fi were greeted with a 25-second commercial about Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, the rival product to the iPad. Timing was impeccable: just weeks before the holidays. Targets were exact: high-income frequent flyers for whom Galaxy Tab is just the right solution. Results were impressive. Samsung moved 600,000 units in about a month across 30 markets thanks in part to the U.K. campaign. Perfectly-timed messages to exact targets to achieve stellar sales results. It’s the Holy Grail of advertising and the promise of digital out of home. With the increased mobility of consumers and the ubiquity of devices like smart phones and dynamic screens, digital out of home is radically transforming traditional outdoor advertising. In 2009, a whopping $6.69 billion was spent on digital out of home media, which constitutes about 20 percent of all out of home spending. China and the United States spent 23 percent and 19 percent respectively, and those numbers are expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Wha

Apr 24, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

New customer equation in digital world

‘Tip the scales back in favor from buyer to seller’ By Accenture Gaining customer loyalty used to be a fairly straightforward equation. Create customer segments, add promotions or rewards and gain repeat business. But the math has changed. Now, in a multi-dimensional digital world, there are more places and more ways to reach an increasingly fragmented customer base. As information availability tips the scale of power from seller to buyer, relevance is paramount. Selling products to this crowd requires companies to step up their game significantly. Against this frenetic landscape, buyers are more discontent than ever, reporting less overall consumer satisfaction. In fact, a recent survey by Accenture found that consumers continue to expect more from companies when it comes to service, and too few businesses are keeping up. The survey was conducted on more than 5,000 people across 12 countries in Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region Globally, 69 percent of consumers reported leaving at least one provider last year due to poor service ― up from 49 percent ju

Apr 24, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Korean economy: at a crossroads

Short-term outlook remains brisk but structural issues question sustainable growth By Kim Jae-kyoung The Korean economy is now at a crossroads, as its gross domestic product (GDP) growth is getting back on track but its growth potential is destined to head south in the future. Briefly put, the economy is expected to undergo robust growth in the short-term but it is unclear whether the expansion will be sustainable for the next decade due to structural problems, such as an aging population and deepening economic polarization. In particular, it is getting more and more difficult for policymakers to steer the economy as a broad range of economic data are delivering mixed messages on the future course of Asia’s fourth largest economy. While economists and market analysts are predicting a stronger economic performance, Korean consumers are far from convinced with confidence levels declining due to rising household debt coupled with falling income. Robust exports are firing up parts of the economy but inflation is emerging as a major threat to a full economic recovery. La

Apr 24, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Foreign banks in a fix

― Citibank, SC First struggling with anemic growth, sluggish profits ― By Kim Jae-kyoung Major foreign banks operating here ― SC First Bank and Citibank Korea ― have gained unwanted attention after suffering from a poor business performance last year in the wake of the global financial crisis. They are struggling with anemic growth and falling profits; in stark contrast to major Korean banks that have quickly recovered from the crisis by fixing their balance sheets and showing a handsome performance last year. Citibank Korea, the banking arm of U.S.-headquartered Citi, posted a net profit of 315.6 billion won in 2010, only up 1.4 percent from a year ago. In particular, its non-interest income fell by 40 percent to 146 billion won. The scorecard for SC First, the Korean unit of British banking giant Standard Chartered, is even gloomier. The lender saw its net income fall by 25 percent to 322.4 billion won during the same period. There are a number of reasons for the foreign lenders’ lethargic performance, which could be seen as a one-off phenomenon, but in fa

Apr 15, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Economy

Impaired monetary policy

By Kim Jae-kyoung BusinessFocus editor Inflation has arrived here. Now it has become more rampant, stoking inflation expectations and alerting the central bank. The problem is there’s no effective policy option for the central bank to tame inflation. It seems that the monetary transmission mechanism, the process by which interest rate changes affect inflation, has been impaired after the Bank of Korea (BOK) missed a number of chances to hike key rates ― seven-day repurchase agreement rates ― and lost confidence in the market. In other words, a rate increase by the central bank has failed to make its way through the economy. In theory at the first stage, a change in policy rate set by the central bank will lead to a rise in market rates which will, in turn, affect savings and loan rates at banks. The change will then affect the prices of many assets, including shares and houses. The exchange rate may also change to adapt to the new level of interest rates. Finally, all those changes in the markets will affect the spending patterns of consumers and firms, affecting aggreg

Apr 10, 2011By Kim Jae-kyoung

Kim Jae-kyoung

Read more

Secret of employee wellness

Korean firms urged to tackle drinking culture

Hawkish vs. dovish

How to make money in digital era

Learn leading practices

Cast study: Samsung Galaxy Tab

New customer equation in digital world

Korean economy: at a crossroads

Foreign banks in a fix

Impaired monetary policy

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