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Kim Jae-kyoung

Korea Times Business Planning Reporter

I’m currently managing director of Content and Business Planning at The Korea Times. Before I took the current position in early 2024, I served as managing editor in charge of both paper and online for over three and a half years. In 2015-2018, I worked as Singapore correspondent covering ASEAN nations.

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Economy

Firms urged to strengthen digital assets

By Byeon Joon-young All companies must prepare to “go digital.” Data about customers, competitors, suppliers, and employees are exploding. Ninety percent of all data were created in the past two years. By 2016, there will be 3 billion Internet users globally, and the Internet economy will reach $4.2 trillion in the G-20 nations. No company or country can afford to ignore this phenomenon. The fact is that we have entered the “second half of the chessboard,” where the scale and speed of change are indelibly altering industry structures and the way that companies do business. Farsighted companies, even ones in traditional industries, can separate the signals from the noise and create new sources of advantage by going digital. To build digital advantage, companies require a digital transformation. Most will need to improve their people, processes, and organizational structures and adapt them to the digital world. Given the rapid pace of change and the intensity of competition, they will need to move away from long-term planning cycles and toward adaptive strategy setting. Mor

Feb 24, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Social media calls for mindset reform

Diageo, Wells Fargo, Tesco change marketing strategies to gain digital customers By The Boston Consulting Group The Internet, social media, and mobile technologies have transformed how consumers interact with brands and how companies market their products and services. Besides having an effective strategy that integrates traditional and digital media, companies need to restructure their marketing organizations to fully capitalize on today’s opportunities. But too many companies are jumping onto the digital bandwagon without thinking through this critical step. Success requires a fundamentally different mindset. Unlike traditional media, social media such as Facebook pages and Twitter “handles” are free. But they do require a commitment of resources: people, training, new-content creation, tracking, and follow-through. Just as important, these new platforms mean that for the first time, companies can easily engage with consumers directly, but the learning curve for doing this effectively can be steep. To gain a better understanding of how marketing organizations are dealin

Feb 24, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Mini liquidity rally

There is more room for an equity rise but be cautious about occasional pullbacks By Kim Jae-kyoung Is it just liquidity or fundamental change? After a turbulent year in 2011, Korea’s stock market appears to be back on track for a rebound powered by a foreign investors’ buying spree. The benchmark index KOSPI closed at a yearly high of 2,025.32 Wednesday, up 10.9 percent or 199.58 points from last year’s close of 1,825.74. What’s happening in the market has confused participants as most analysts and experts expected late last year that the domestic market would undergo a downward trend in the first half, citing worsening economic data and lingering debt woes in Europe. Let’s rewind to December. At the end of last year, pessimism prevailed. The volatile won, rising inflation, a worsening current account balance and sovereign debt concerns in Europe made a perfect recipe for pessimism. Fast forward to February. Now we have seen the equity market continue gaining ground, on the back of a massive inflow of foreign capital. Many believe that it was a short-term rally

Feb 20, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Aon Hewitt Conference 2012

Global consulting firm Aon Hewitt will share its insight on human resources management in two conferences on Feb. 21 and 28 at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in southern Seoul. The main subjects of the conferences include compensation and benefit strategy to secure and keep talents, expansion into India as a new business model and advanced HR-related strategies for mergers and acquisitions. Prepared for CEOs, HR directors and managers, the event will feature speeches by officials from both the Korean and Asia Pacific units of Aon Hewitt and presentations by McLagan, Aon’s subsidiary that holds the world’s largest data collection on compensation and benefits in the financial industry.

Feb 19, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Korea needs strong economic ties in Asia

By Park Jae-ha Less than two months have passed since the start of the New Year, but the Korean economy is already facing many internal and external challenges and uncertainties. The primary challenge is that the global economy is rapidly slowing, led by declining advanced economies. In particular, European economies are declining rapidly because of the impact of the eurozone crisis, while the United States is seeing a sluggish recovery following the global financial crisis. Despite international efforts to overcome the crisis and efforts of many countries to spur growth through stimulus spending, the global economy is far from experiencing a normal recovery pace. These unfavorable external economic conditions are significantly affecting Korea’s trade balance. International financial markets are also expected to see significant volatility as many major European banks were heavily exposed to the distressed assets in the eurozone, which put them into serious financial difficulties. In addition, international commodity prices, particularly oil, may rise sharply if the unstable

Feb 19, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Ex-BOK director to head SEACEN

Rhu Hoo-kyu, 57, the former director of the Financial Systems Stability Department at the Bank of Korea, will head the South East Asian Central Banks Centre (SEACEN) based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He will be the first BOK member to take the helm of a major regional financial organization. He will take office this July for a three-year term. The appointment came at the 47th Conference of the Governors of SEACEN, High-Level Seminar and the 31st Meeting of the SEACEN Board of Governors Feb. 13-14 in Seoul. “I’m really honored to be the first Korean to head the organization. I think it is a great honor both to myself and the Bank of Korea,” Ruh told Business Focus. “As the head of the entity joined by 18 central banks in Asia, I also feel a strong sense of responsibility,” he added. Ruh joined BOK in 1977 after graduating from Seoul National University majoring in economics. He worked at various departments at the central bank including research and international divisions, as well as the bank’s New York office. SEACEN was first established as a legal entity in 1982 with

Feb 19, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Human resources play a critical role in MandA

By Toby Kim The success of any merger or acquisition (M&A), be it large or small, depends as much on effectively managing people and the organizational environment as it does managing the timing and financial aspects. More M&A deals are failing because of unresolved cultural issues rather than fundamental problems with the transaction. The reality is that performance is driven largely by an organization’s people ― specifically, their competencies and contributions ― therefore, their ability to stay engaged during difficult transition periods is critical. And that’s where HR (human resources) plays a pivotal role. According to our research, along with my first-hand client experience, it is clear that more deals can be successful when organizations address people and culture issues early on, strategically, and with discipline. In a Towers Watson global survey of more than 400 business and HR executives, respondents rating their company’s deal as successful in regards to meeting primary objectives were those that recognized the importance of people issues and involved HR in

Feb 19, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Cultural integration

How cultural diagnostics contribute to effective M&A consolidation By Towers Watson Following the extended economic downturn, which slowed merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, corporate transactions have been on the rise again since 2009. Many business experts predict that trend will hold, given the large cash reserves created from several years of cost cutting, increased pressure to grow the top line and the larger number of “distressed” targets struggling for survival post recession. From a strategic perspective, an acquisition or merger is typically a path to faster growth or market dominance. But the ability to achieve those goals is far from assured, as many deal makers have found over the years. When deals fail to meet financial, competitive or other objectives, the reason often comes down to how well the entities fit together in terms of culture, strategic priorities, leadership style, and a variety of workforce and workplace practices and processes. Ironically, periods of heightened deal activity often lead to a diminished focus on culture and leadership iss

Feb 19, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Era of big 4 financial groups

Business Focus conducted written interviews with chairmen of big four financial groups to hear their plans and strategies after Hana’s takeover of Korea Exchange Bank. The following discussion has been reconstituted based on separate interviews, which were conducted from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6. ? ED. By Kim Jae-kyoung The chairmen of four financial groups ? KB, Woori, Shinhan and Hana ? all agree that Hana’s takeover of Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) will reshape the domestic financial industry. They said that competition used to be focused on the banking sector but now it has turned into group-to-group rivalry. Except for Hana Financial Group Chairman Kim Seung-yu, the three other CEOs ? KB Chairman Euh Yoon-dae, Woori Chairman Lee Pal-seung and Shinhan Chairman Han Dong-woo ? do not take the move seriously, saying that it has been widely expected and has already been factored into their business strategies for this year. They all shared the view that 2012 will be an important year to reinvent business models and develop new growth engines to take the lead in the rapidly-changing

Feb 10, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
Economy

Big 4 trapped in status quo

Hana Financial Group’s takeover of the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) has changed the landscape of the domestic financial industry, ushering it into an “era of the big four financial groups.” Business Focus asked industry experts about how the industry will unfold down the road and how they should react. We also conducted written interviews with the chairmen of the four groups — KB’s Euh Yoon-dae, Woori’s Lee Pal-seung, Shinhan’s Han Dong-woo and Hana’s Kim Seung-yu — to see their strategies for the coming year. — ED. By Kim Jae-kyoung Hana Financial Group’s takeover of KEB has reshaped the domestic financial industry. The move has reorganized it into a new look dominated by four big financial groups — KB, Woori, Shinhan and Hana Financial. Now, they have become almost homogenized in all aspects, including total assets, net profits, number of branches, number of employees and deposits. It is widely expected that they will face uphill competition as they are pursuing differentiated strategies to get the upper hand in the newly-shaped market. However, wit

Feb 10, 2012By Kim Jae-kyoung
  • Era of big 4 financial groups
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