CJ Chairman Lee Jay-hyun (Photo:CJ)

CJ is one of the conglomerates that has undergone remarkable change and achieved tremendous achievements over the past two decades. CJ, spun off from Samsung Business Group in 1996, has seen a food company with 1.7 trillion won in sales evolve into a global life and culture group with 26.8 trillion won in sales. 

CJ Business Group is a solid front-runner in the food and bio-business fields, and a leader in the entertainment and media business sectors. The group has acquired Korea Express to grab the No. 1 position in the Korean logistics market. Under the vision “Great CJ,” the company aims to chalk up 100 trillion won in sales and 10 trillion won in operating profit, and seeing the overseas business sector take up 70 percent .

The secret to CJ Group’s success is by creatively diversifying its business portfolios. Behind the explosive growth of the group is the industrializing of new markets and creative development. Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun has led the so-called 2nd Founding by establishing a long-term vision in a big-picture perspective. 

Some people doubted CJ’s investment of $300 million into DreamWorks in 1995, but the move has become a cornerstone for the business group’s inroads into the culture and entertainment business sector. 

CJ Business Group has restructured its business portfolios — diversifying its food business, the mainstay sector at the time of the inaugurating of Jeiljedang Business Group, the predecessor of CJ Business Group, in 1996. They have done so into four categories — food and food services; bio and life engineering; media and entertainment; and modern retail industry and logistics. 

CJ’s four-pronged business structure has synergetic effects. The group has a global business strategy with a virtuous cycle of enhancing preference of Korean food and culture thanks to the content of hallyu (Korean Wave) and connecting Korean culture with the consumption of Korean-made products.

CJ’s diversification of business portfolios began to pay off in 2012 when the group saw total revenues from non-food subsidiaries like CJ Korea Express, CJ Oh Shopping and CJ Olive Young surpass those of the conventional food business unit. The shift came 14 years after the group made inroads into logistics by establishing CJ GLS in 1998. CJ Business Group was set free from the limits of being a food company with remarkable growth momentum in the non-food business categories.

CJ is sticking around the so-called Only One spirit to steer its creative diversification into a success story. The Only One strategy — designed to differentiate itself from others to become the first, the best and different — takes a driver’s seat in entering new businesses or releasing new products. The Only One spirit has done very well in entertainment and media field. The business group introduced the nation’s first multiplex, a theater complex with many screens, in 1999, and developed a new multicultural space concept by opening CGV Cheongdam Cine City south of Seoul in 2011.

CJ’s exploration of global markets is aggressive. The group is trying to tap domestic demand in China and Southeast Asia, which have a high growth potential. It exports Korean-made processed food products, including mandu (Korean version of dumpling), spicy items, and paste products to 11 countries, including China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore under the brand “Bibigo.” It is focusing on releasing products tailored to meet local needs according to specific strategies catered to each country’s dietary culture to differentiate itself from its rivals.