The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Corp. (KOTRA) is accelerating efforts to diversify services to support Korean companies’ overseas marketing activities and expand projects to create jobs. KOTRA conducted an organizational overhaul on Aug. 1 to cope with the diversifying demand for Korean companies’ overseas market entry in keeping with the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution and expand job creation in Korea and abroad to make the most of support services to boost exports and foreign direct investments.
KOTRA inaugurated the Customer Service Headquarters, which is charged with supporting marketing services tailored to meet Korean companies’ needs for their overseas market entry and a team specializing in creating jobs at foreign-invested companies in Korea.
At a news conference marking the 55th anniversary at Gwanghwamun, downtown Seoul on June 14, KOTRA President Kim Jae-hong unveiled a blueprint for the establishment of a new global business platform for economic resurgence and job creation. At that time, he said, KOTRA will introduce a policy consumer-oriented, autonomous choice-based support service system while overhauling the organization and functions in such a way that export support for SMEs and mid-size superstars can be ramped up.
The latest organizational overhaul may be construed as an effective step to raise KOTRA’s social responsibility and value as a public entity by proactively aligning the organization with the government’s focus on job creation. In particular, the organizational overhaul takes on significance as it is designed to ramp up the connection between KOTRA’s principal functions as an expert in investment infrastructure and job creation by expanding projects to support the ability of Koreans to land jobs at home and abroad.
The inauguration of the Customer Service Headquarters is designed to integrate a two-pronged customer support strategy and to strengthen the agency’s capabilities to back customers by expanding services tailored to meet individual companies’ needs.
Online and off-line customer contact points have been unified into the Overseas Entry Consultation Center. The move is in the interest of convenience in setting up a one-stop service regime for consultations on exports and investments. It also expand KOTRA’s Overseas Markets Big Bot, a big data analysis platform designed to offer practical business advice to each company.
As for job creation, the Global Job Creation Business Team, charged with helping Koreans land jobs abroad, will be expanded into the Job Creation Business Office. The expanded office will be responsible for establishing strategies to connect KOTRA’s key functions with job creation, explore overseas jobs, and expand the “K-Move Center” serving as hubs to support overseas support for job seekers.
The office is also expected to contribute to the infrastructure of job creation in Korea by backing startups’ overseas entry and growth. The newly created team for supporting job seekers at foreign-invested companies will provide systematic support to help foreign investments, another pillar of the nation’s economic growth, translate into more job creation in Korea.
KOTRA has strengthened efforts to secure future export markets and offer support to Korean exporters. The Strategic Market Entry Support Team has been inaugurated to ramp up functions to explore markets in India, ASEAN and the Middle East to substitute for the Chinese.
In particular, the Service Export Support Center has been created to expand projects to support overseas market entries by the Korean service sector with the potential to have greater job creation.
KOTRA President Kim said, “Companies’ demand for overseas market entry has been diversifying in the wake of full-fledged inter-industry convergence related to the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution.”
Organizational operation will be primed to expand exports through the strengthening of capabilities to offer support tailored to satisfy customers’ needs and settle down a virtuous cycle of job creation, he added.
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