GS Group Chairman Huh Chang-soo said, “It is more important to explore future growth engines to maintain sustainable growth than to concentrate on short-term profit-taking, which cannot guarantee future growth.”
Chairman Huh made the remark at a New Year’s gathering of his executives and staff members at GS Tower in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, on Jan. 2. He went on to say that all companies will have to invest personnel and money as a way of preparing in advance, since it takes much time and effort to explore new business opportunities, and they should map out business portfolios so that they can maintain long-term, qualitative growth.
“This year marks the 10th anniversary since the group’s founding. Despite a myriad of difficulties it has experienced so far, the group has made strides in terms of outward growth like the size of sales by implementing diverse activities to ramp up global competitiveness, but it will have to continuously complement itself in terms of substance like the upgrading of business portfolios,” said the chairman, adding that he expects all to come together with wisdom and passion to further evolve down the road.
First, Chairman Huh called for keeping them strong and strengthening their capacity to differentiate themselves from others. “Not a few companies carry out high-powered restructuring measures to the core despite the external and internal difficulties they’ve experienced, so we have to rebuild the fundamentals and foundation by taking our cue from them.”
In particular, he said, amidst the continuation of a business environment shrouded in uncertainties, the group will have to cope with market changes nimbly and take the lead in the market since the conventional methods cannot meet customers’ diverse needs and those who follow others cannot achieve trend-setting innovation. To this end, he said, the group will have to ramp up its core capacities though improving fundamentals and constitution and offer differentiated products and services to customers.
Second, he stressed the need for securing future growth engines. Chairman Huh said the group’s decision to acquire STX Energy would allow the group to expand its portfolios from the existing coal-fired power generation to LNG-fired power generation, thus not only contributing to stabilizing management of its power generation business, but also to create new growth engines by making a foray into foreign markets. If acquisition of STX Energy is completed, all GS subsidiaries will be asked to concentrate their capacities organically to have synergetic effects.
Huh emphasized the need for exploring future growth engines to maintain sustainable growth.
Third, the chairman called for creating a corporate culture focusing on inspiring a challenging spirit and translating it into action. The nation is now pushing for resuscitating the creative economy, and manpower, creativity, and power of execution should be backed up to make the creative economy a success. “Organizational leaders need to explore creative manpower and create an environment filled with a challenging spirit with no fear of failure, which could lead to being a body with strong power of execution. He also urged his group executives and staff members to share knowledge through open-minded communication and expand synergetic effects among businesses, and devote themselves to creating new businesses and jobs.
Lastly, he stressed corporate social responsibility. “GS has made strenuous efforts to become a company respected by society by behaving in a just and responsible fashion, and we have to do our utmost to maintain a productive, mutually cooperative mechanism and become a company offering hope to society by creating good quality jobs.
