Chairman Cho Hyun-joon of Hyosung Group. (Photos: Hyosung Group)

“A winner is willing to make a path by treading snow accumulated on the field, but a loser waits for the heaped snow to melt away.” Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Hyun-joon made the remarks while his commemorative speech to executives and staff members in celebration of the company’s 54th anniversary on Nov. 3.

Hyosung Group’s anniversary event was cancelled due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and unlike in previous years when anniversary events took place at the group’s headquarters, only Chairman Cho’s anniversary message was delivered this year.

Chairman Cho said, “A winner tends to get down to tackling problems, but a loser would hover over them.”

 
He called for his executives and staff to make joint efforts in solving problems without wavering in the face of a crisis to become a “100-year company.”

His remarks may be construed as his determination to overcome hardships caused by the pandemic, and blazing a trail on its own.

“In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, global companies are rushing to exploring new businesses based on IT, not staying on the conventional businesses, and the conventional business paradigm we’ve ever known have been completely changing,” he said.

Things such as AI and big data, which have evolved in a tremendously fast pace, will dominate people’s lives, and as the days of technological singularity has dawned, management should take root, Chairman Cho said.

VOC, designed to lend an ear to voices of customers, is Hyosung Group’s management tenet.

Hyosung Group has attached management priority to data management based on VOC-oriented information.

An unprecedented crisis, caused by U.S.-Chinese power struggles and the COVID-19 pandemic, has raised uncertainties in every segment of society, including the economy, he said.

Cho said precise and no-frills data-oriented management will empower the values of VOC management.

A view of Hyosung TNC’s spandex plant in Turkey.

Hyosung is pushing ahead with the expansion of a spandex plant in Turkey, making a foray into the European premium market, a preemptive investment move to secure an unmatched competitive edge as the global No. 1 spandex maker.

Hyosung TNC on Nov. 2 revealed a plan to invest 60 billion won to expand the capacity of its plant in the Zerekezkoy area near Istanbul by 15,000 tons next July. The expansion will raise the capacity of the plant to about 40,000 tons.

The expansion will be made according to Hyosung Group Chairman Cho’s willingness to make a preemptive investment on the spandex segment as the global garment market show signs of rebound.

In particular, the European market shows signs of a shortage of textile as plant shut-downs, caused the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to declining production.

Chinese companies are scrambling to expand spandex production at a rapid pace to make up for a shortage of textiles, but they have so far failed to have quality enough to satisfy European corporate customers’ demands.