[CEO's Decision] Huh Tae-soo, Chairman of GS Group, "Solve Customer Problems with Technology"

[Asia Economy Reporter So-yeon Park] "The core competitiveness to overcome the era of hyper-competition lies in how finely we understand and respond to the individual needs of customers. Digital is the tool that makes this possible, and business innovation must be pursued based on an understanding of digital technology."

Huh Tae-soo, Chairman of GS Group, is deeply interested in solving problems that customers have based on understanding them. He believes that to properly define and solve these problems, data and digital technology must ultimately be used well. Drawing on his experience of renewing the company vision at GS Home Shopping and driving many changes as employees experienced digital transformation, he is spreading this throughout the entire group.

Chairman Huh emphasizes the need to focus on future changes brought by artificial intelligence and blockchain technology based on an understanding of new digital technologies, and has also disseminated the latest trends in IT technologies such as cloud and software services throughout GS Group.

This determination of Chairman Huh has been realized even more actively since his inauguration. In addition to managing the group’s business issues during the first half of the year, he has concentrated much effort on accelerating digital transformation.

To this end, he first began full-scale digital transformation by introducing SaaS (Software as a Service)-based collaboration solutions and frequently provided training to employees on how to use collaboration solutions and digital devices.

Furthermore, to enhance each employee’s digital work capabilities, not only were tablet PCs provided, but video conference equipment and systems were introduced to enable video meetings with affiliates and expert lectures, thereby establishing a collaborative work system involving everyone.

In addition, Chairman Huh believes that creative ideas require spaces where thoughts can be freely expressed, so he instructed the reorganization of existing office spaces, tearing down previously confining walls to create spaces where people can naturally gather and communicate, and sharing various meeting spaces with affiliates.

Accordingly, GS Caltex demonstrated a service earlier this month that delivers convenience store products by drone in cooperation with GS Retail’s convenience store GS25, the first such service in Korea, and plans to start a pilot operation twice a month in Jeju Island from September.

This service, which is evaluated to have accelerated the commercialization of drone delivery services amid increased demand for contactless services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, can be considered a representative case of digital transformation.

Also, since December last year, GS Caltex has been promoting the ‘Digital Transformation Master Plan Establishment Project’ for company-wide digital transformation and established a DX team for digital transformation in the management innovation division earlier this year.

GS Retail opened a future-oriented convenience store in February equipped with 34 deep learning smart cameras recognizing customer behavior and about 300 weight sensors installed on shelves detecting customers’ purchase quantities, and established a Digital Customer Experience (DCX) Promotion Office to respond to the future distribution environment.

GS EPS, in cooperation with LG Uplus, developed an AR-based power facility data analysis and remote monitoring system, prepared IoT (Internet of Things)-based facility diagnostic solutions such as gas leak detection and motor diagnosis, and planned the introduction of autonomous driving robots for logistics automation, laying the foundation for a smart power plant.

"If a company is seen as a living organism, corporate management is the process of quickly recognizing and responding to changes in the external ecosystem."

Chairman Huh’s special perspective on corporate management is evident in his considerable effort to sense trend changes. He meticulously reads domestic and international business books, newspapers, and magazines and shares them with related employees. When questions arise, he always invites experts for lectures or directly visits them to inquire.

Despite his busy schedule, Chairman Huh carefully reads domestic and international newspapers, magazines, and new business books whenever he has time and shares them with related employees. When questions arise, he always invites experts for lectures or directly visits them to inquire.

In the first half of this year alone, there were about 60 lectures and webinars conducted with external experts. He shows great interest in various fields such as startup investment, social impact investment, and digital transformation, passionately discovering future new growth engines.

Chairman Huh’s approach can also be understood in the context of startup investment. Just as a large ship cannot quickly change direction, the traditional large corporation model has limitations in reading and adapting to changes, and through cooperation with startups, it is possible to quickly read and respond to new technologies and changes in the business environment.

At the Design Thinking Symposium held last January, Chairman Huh emphasized, "Building cooperative relationships with various business partners including startups to exchange healthy influences is the way to increase sustainability for companies and society," and expressed his determination by stating, "We will actively disseminate open innovation and innovative methodologies verified by advanced companies in Silicon Valley to each affiliate and make them the driving force of innovation."

Accordingly, to accelerate open innovation, GS launched the GS Group Open Innovation Community ‘52g (Open Innovation GS)’ in June under the goal of fostering creative human capital that can respond more quickly to changes and has embarked on full-scale open innovation.

Chairman Huh participates in the ‘52g’ community, inspiring members with innovation and frequently directly preaching the importance of digital transformation and open innovation to employees.