Chairman Shin Dong-bin of Lotte Group, left, shakes hands with PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam, at his office while on a visit to the Southesast Asian country to inspect the group’s operation.

Chairman Shin Dong-bin of Lotte Group announced that the firm will expand the hotel business in Vietnam and set up startups for youths to provide jobs, he said while on a recent visit to the Southeastern Asian country.

Chairman Shin told Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at his office in Hanoi on Dec. 4 that Lotte has been investing in a number of startup projects in Vietnam and is nurturing talented youths. The Prime Minister replied that he hoped Lotte Group would do just that and more to fan the startup movement in Vietnam. He also thanked the Lotte chairman for his cooperation in the consumer products in particular.

While meeting with the Prime Minister, Chairman Shin talked about a number of large business projects that the group has been promoting in Vietnam, asking for support from the Vietnamese government on the projects.

The Korean conglomerate has been working on a plan to build a department store, a shopping mall, and an office and residential complex, an eco-smart city in the Thu Thiem New City in Ho Chi Minh City being developed by the municipal government of the city. The group also is engaged in building Lotte Mall Hanoi in Hanoi.

Chairman Shin Dong-bin of Lotte Group is out to step up the design management expansion since his release from prison at the 2018 Lotte Marketing Forum held at Jamsil Lotte Hotel in Seoul on Nov. 19.

At the forum with the subject of “Turn the Tide” designed to share the need for new strategies to cope with the dynamics in the make-up of the customers and global competitive trends among the executives and staff of Lotte Group, the chairman called for new approaches and reform not just in the service sector, but in over-all operations to put the group on the right track of its operations.

Professor Roberto Verganti of Polytechnic University of Milan delivered a keynote speech on design management entitled, “the Ways to Design Value Proposal Loved by the People” to cope with the changes in the world over flooded with ideas. He lined up various reform samples that produced the value proposals that people love made by a number of global enterprises including Apple, Nestle and Air BnB, among others.

The Lotte chairman urged the creation of a realistic reform based on ideas that the people that make up the group would take up voluntarily.

He pointed out that so called the “Interpreters” a new business manpower will be at the center of the reform centered on design to lead the reform as was noted in the “Design Driven Innovation” the book that noted the crucial role of the Interpreters.

The chairman, after getting out of the prison, met with high-ranking executives of the group in a meeting where he stressed the huge contribution made by the book entitled, “Design Thinking” for the revival of Toyota Motors.

The Japanese automaker chose the “Kaisen” or reform culture to boost the productivity and had it mixed with the Design Thinking that changed the way of thinking by its employees and its corporate culture to cope with the problems that came in the wake of the financial crisis and survive.

The chairman is more likely to set up a strategy and have the group follow it to learn the Japanese automaker’s experiences in beating the financial crisis for its survival and so that the group would become a sustainable business group with the personnel that make up the group fully read up on the Design Thinking.

A bird’s eye view of the 65-storey Lotte Hanoi Center, a hotel, shopping mall, office and residential complex which is being built in Hanoi. (Photos: Lotte Group)