Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

Very cool.  In 2014, I visited the Hyundai MotorStudio, an impressive five story building at a major intersection in Seoul’s style and fashion Gangnam district. The MotorStudio differs from the local competition in that the purpose of the showroom is not to sell you a car but rather to share the Hyundai’s brand direction of “modern premium”.   I have come to understand this to be a set of values less about luxury cars and more about striving to go beyond what customers expect in merging performance with reasonable pricing and fluid style. While in Seoul last week, I came upon the new HyundaiStudio Digital in the COEX Mall complex.   My timing could not have been better since after my day of meetings and media interviews, including visiting the Hyundai Motor Company global HQ, I was able to attend the Grand Opening of the HyundaiStudio Digital experience.   Targeting Seoul’s younger generation, the Studio shares the car brand through a mix of lecture an...

Our suggestions and some guidelines for selecting the right local management.   In Part 2, we noted the major issue in staffing an overseas operation is not in the recruitment of a local Korean resident over a Korean expatriate or a westerner but in the hiring of a highly qualified individual—Korean or Westerner. Setting aside my personal bias, I have worked under all three scenarios and found times when each scenario worked well and times when each was less than successful I find that even the leading Korean groups with decades of international presence have no one model for staffing their overseas operations leadership (COO and CEO/President level).   Therefore, it is not surprising that I see the Korean brands new to overseas expansion facing the same dilemma when they look to go global. To restate the options with some additional elaborating: 1. In some cases, Korean expatriates serve as key leadership for a subsidiary.     The best scenario is w...

Commentary 1, Part 2 In contrast to Part 1 (LINK) in which I discussed the disadvantages of dispatching dedicated teams from Korea to manage a local overseas operation, another alterative is the hiring of Koreans permanently living abroad.     The thinking is that these first and second generation Korean locals will be able to better represent the brand than Korean expatriates dispatched from their headquarters.   This approach does have merit. Koreans living abroad have been educated and employed locally and have considerable localization insights. They are hired with the assumption that their understanding of the Korean language and heritage enables them to bridge the cultures.   While language and cultural understanding are huge pluses, a gap occurs as a result of the very advantage that local knowledge brings. These employees tend to be more comfortable with western business practices than with Korean workplace norms. I have encountered...

By Don Southerton Before I share insightful reader feedback from my first commentary “A Global Approach: A Roadmap For Korea Management Teams,” some background in case you are just joining us….  Challenge 1 is available upon request.   LINK Background In this series of commentaries I depart from a previous focus on sharing insights specifically to non-Korean global teams working for Korean companies. Instead I now provide a roadmap and best practices to Korean management and overseas divisions.   This includes new Korean brands eager to launch their products and services outside Korea.   The series is also applicable to established Korean brands already in overseas markets who could benefit from benchmarking “what works” and “what doesn’t.”    Frankly, too often I see the same missteps re-occurring.   What is frustrating is witnessing one company enduring the challenges in their market entry only to see the same scenario repeated...