Chairman Koo has developed LG to become a symbol of innovation by practicing quality management
This is an assessment of Chairman Koo Bon-moo who has been leading LG Group for 20 years by the 22nd of next month. “Chairman Koo ordered ethical management to ‘receive customers with humbleness’ and also expressed strong will for technological leadership,” said a LG Electronics source who had been working for over 20 years in the company. The performances of Chairman Koo Bon-moo who has been leading LG’s sustainable growth over the last 20 years are summarized below.
◇ Global No. 1 = LG climbed to the global No. 1 position in a number of fields based on Chairman Koo’s strong determination and faith. LG Display is ranked the first in the global TFT-LCD panel and ultra high-definition TV panel markets by recording market shares of 21.6% and 28.1% respectively. In addition, having succeeded in mass-producing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel for large-screen TVs as the first in the world, LG released the first flat screen OLED, curved OLED and UHD ultra OLED TVs in the global market. As for LCD business, LG entered the area in 1995 when Chairman Koo first took the office of presidency.
LG is also ranked the first in the world for TFT-LCD polarizing plates, mid to large-sized secondary batteries, such as electric vehicle batteries and ABS, a value-added synthetic resin used in IT devices and automobiles.
◇ Sales expanded five times despite disaffiliation = During the course of last 20 years, LG Group’s sales expanded five times from around KRW 30 trillion (at the end of 1994) to KRW 150 trillion (2014). This achievement is meaningful as it was accomplished despite disaffiliation starting from that of LIG in 1999 to the split off of LS in 2003, GS in 2005 and LF in 2007. In particular, LG advanced to a global company by increasing its global sales by ten times from KRW 10 trillion to KRW 100 trillion over this period. The number of LG’s overseas offices also increased from 90 to around 290. LG emphasizes that its ‘conversion to holding company system’ and the declaration of ‘LG Way’ contributed considerably to such outstanding accomplishments. The holding company system conversion began full scale after LG Group’s disaffiliation was completed. Since then, the affiliates have been focusing solely on their own business areas. As for LG Way, it expresses LG’s mission to become a ‘global top LG’ through ethical management based on value creation for customers.
◇ Continuous R&D investment = At the New Year’s address, Chairman Koo said, “Even a gigantic wave cannot make us falter as long as we seize business opportunities based on thorough preparations for the future.” By this, Chairman Koo expressed his determination not to spare any efforts for investment in order to discover LG’s future income sources. Chairman Koo’s strong will for R&D, as such, has been well illustrated over the last 20 years. As for the secondary battery, this project was personally proposed by Chairman Koo in 1992 while he was serving as a vice chairman and bore fruits after more than 20 years’ of R&D. In addition, LG’s accomplishment to complete a nationwide LTE network implementation in nine months contrary to the original expectation that it would take three years was based on Chairman Koo’s bold decision for investment. As next-generation growth items, LG is currently focusing on photovoltaic module, energy storage system (ESS) and smart car electric components and solutions. At the same time, LG is promoting to build ‘LG Science Park,’ which is Korea’s largest convergence research complex, by 2020 with an investment of KRW 4 trillion in Magok Industrial Complex