Korea needs digital transformation
SAP Senior Vice President Maggie Fox
By Lee Min-hyung
Top-down and rigid are two symbolic words representing corporate culture in Korea.
But it cannot be more ironical that the nation has turned into one of the world’s leading technological powerhouses even with such a hierarchical social structure.
This is not a hype, given global information and communication technology (ICT)
giants identify Korea as a test-bed for their new products. They say they can succeed in any markets once satisfying Korean customers.
German enterprise software giant SAP is also on par with such views. Korean clients are important not as a part of their revenue source, but due to their high technology standards, which helps the company draw its marketing blueprints for the global market, the Europe’s largest software company said.
SAP Senior Vice President Maggie Fox, however, stressed Korea can achieve a bigger technological leap-forward, once data-based digital discussion penetrates deeper into the country’s overall office culture.
“For any organizations, digital transformation initiatives need two aspects ― top-down and bottom-up, and senior executives should be serious about digital transformation,” the SAP executive in charge of the company’s global digital marketing said in an interview, Tuesday.
At the center of the digital transformation is the data-based discussion between the management and employees, according to her.
“Everyone can have a good discussion based on data, as numbers show which is performing and which is not performing. The digital business is all about helping customers sense, respond, learn, adopt and even predict,” she said.
The company said the digital transformation will help reshape the country’s one-sided hierarchical corporate culture, as it puts power to individual employees.
Once the management decides to drive the digital transformation, this will help company officials digitally engaged, generating a massive influence on general outputs for a company.
Zarina Lam Stanford, head of marketing at SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), who also joined the interview, explained how important social engagement through online channels is.
“In one social channel across the Asia Pacific region including Korea and Japan, we have approximately more than 18,000 users who have identified themselves as SAP employees,” the SAP Asia Pacific regional head said. “Once we count on a first-degree connection with them, it will reach to 2.2 million people. That’s the scale of digital connectedness. This can bring a phenomenally powerful impact for SAP.”
To achieve a perfect digital transformation, management should never forget the importance of people, not the technology itself, Fox added.
“What people often forget about is people, as they focus on technology itself,” she said.
But such tech-oriented organizations end up losing their employees, which will jeopardize the existence of the organizations, according to her.
“Digital transformation is very disruptive and changes are hard for all people. That’s why an emotional connection with customers and employees is very important for the management,” she said.
Marketing strategy for Korea
The company said it will focus on building a more localized marketing strategy for Korea, as its online ecosystem is hugely different from its European or American counterparts.
“When we see Google, it has minimum boxes (on the homepage), but Korea’s top portal operator Naver has many options and a lot of content,” said Maggie.
“As a global team, we need to understand the flexibility of each market and country.”
For example, SAP Korea holds a special discussion event with local developers each month, to meet the high-level of the digital platform environment here, the company said.
Through the face-to-face event, the company said it aims to increase its footstep as a global platform service provider, sparing no efforts to offer localized businesses for a specific market.