Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn. (Photo: Hanwha Group)

Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn asked for employees to prepare to make a leap forward in the new decade by securing each business’s leadership and future values. He made the remarks while delivering his New Year message.

The following are excerpts of his message.

This year marks the 10th and last year of “Quality Growth 2020,” a vision declared by Hanwha. Looking back, the past 10 years were a period in which Hanwha had explored global markets and upgraded each business’ specialization through continued restructuring and enhanced market leadership by strenuously pushing ahead with new businesses, even amid a vortex of tremendous changes in the global economy and trade order.

I extended warm-hearted encouragement to you for building a foundation for remarked change and a greater leap.

Now again, we’re making preparations to achieve qualitative growth for another 10 years.

Each company should aim to accelerate efforts to ensure quality differentiation compared to its competitions and upgrade core businesses to the level of a global leader, so this year ought to be a year to make preparations to make a leap forward in a new decade by securing each business’s leadership and future value.

First, I call for the company to secure competitiveness for the 4th Industrial Revolution by accelerating companywide digital transformation. Digital technologies have already changed everything in management.

With a mindset of making this the first year of implementing a digital transformation, each company should explore changes and growth opportunities by implementing digital reform of its own.

Things Hanwha can do well in the future need to be complete with the technologies that have expedited the 4th Industrial Revolution, and digital transformation will have to be effectively realized in all aspects of management.

I urge each business division to make all-out efforts to carry out strategic management actions to secure market leadership. Each company will have to invest in a far-sighted fashion with mid- and long-term goals, develop business models and reform its corporate culture into a flexible one.

We need to expand the portion of core businesses through choice and concentration, and make each company get higher in terms of business values and growth potential.

Even though outside corporate environment uncertainties still linger, we have to ramp up efforts to secure essential future capabilities and resources and the competitiveness of fundamentals.

I urge you to spearhead innovative activities to create values that have so far never seen beyond simple imitation and followers’ tactics.

Furthermore, we ought to purse a sustainable company that can grow up based on confidence on the part of diverse interested parties. Corporate pride depends on not just figures like sales or profits, but gaining trust from society, including shareholders and customers.

Preserving the environment, contributing to society, and managing companies in a fair and transparent fashion should be recognized as keys to building Hanwha’s long-term growth engines.

In particular, I have stressed that each company put into practice “principle management” for several years. Principle management should be rooted as all Hanwha employees’ philosophy, beyond my own conviction.

Among them, safety and compliance should become two strong wheels that will drive Hanwha to an eternal future. As every work is carried out under the name of Hanwha, you make sure the two things: safety and law-abiding spirit should be put into practice.