Chairman Christopher Koo of LS Group delivers his New Year’s speech at a New Year’s greeting ceremony to kick off the year 2019 on Jan. 2.

In his new year’s address, Chairman Christopher Koo of LS Group said the company should be prepared for the worst in 2019, but be ready to rebound. He said opportunities will present themselves at the end of the downturn.

“We need the organizational power and the capacity to change the game plan now more than ever for the cyclical change, as every downturn is followed by an upturn in business at any time,” he said.

“We are not going to have a good year this year, as most of our businesses are involve emerging countries and Korea’s domestic market,” he added. “We will make sure that we work hard to focus our operation on following three major objectives; First, we will strengthen our power to achieve the targets we set up for this year.

“We will work hard to strengthen the structures of our overseas subsidiaries to boost their business capacities by leveling up their managerial capacities this year as we built the foundation for our overseas business territories last year in a number of the key regions in the world including the U.S., Europe and southeast Asia.

“This year, we will have to revive our R&D activities to boost the competitive power of our major businesses, up to those of the top companies in the world; Secondly, we will have to strengthen our ability to stand up to the changes in environment with this year being full of uncertainty,” he said in the speech.

“Each of our affiliates should tighten its management so that it can withstand any tough situation by holding on to enough cash through wise management of its assets. The assets thus secured can be switched to fund M&As, overseas advancement, or secure talented employees and other areas to ensure the company’s future operations. “Thirdly, we have to speed up the digitalizatilon of our facilities.

“We have been hard at work to push the 2nd growth of LS Group in the past several years, but now the digitalization has been set as our target as we try to find the potential growth engines in the age of the 4th Industrial Revolution thru the Future Reform Team and make daring investments in them to change our business model to be future looking.

“All employees of the group should take advantage of the D/T academy run by the Future Institute to strengthen their knowledge and capacities in line with the digital age to change their work methods and minds in smart and fluid ways. The chairman continued, saying that the targets set for this year should be accomplished, unlike the past several years in which the company failed to accomplish all of the goals.

The situation LS Group faces is too rough to ignore and leaves some of the targets unfulfilled, he said. The economic slump can be overcome depending on how hard we work to cope with it, the chairman said.

 Koo urged each of the group’s affiliates to draw up a strategy to achieve its targets for 2019. He said employees should take care of their health, because individual health is essential for people as they work on LS Group’s targets.

Chmn. Koo shakes hands with an officer during the conglomerate’s New Year’s gathering held on Jan. 2 at the group’s new head office in its Yongsan Tower in Yongsan Ward in Seoul. (Photos: LS Group)