[New Year's Message] Hwang Hyun-sik, LGU+ President, "Transition to U+3.0 with 'Outstanding Customer Experience'"

Hwang Hyun-sik, President of LG Uplus. Photo by LG Uplus

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] Hwang Hyun-sik, CEO of LG Uplus, declared that he will successfully lead the transition to U+3.0, a future growth strategy, by prioritizing an ‘exceptional customer experience’ that pays attention to detail.

In his 2023 New Year message delivered via video to employees on the 2nd, CEO Hwang emphasized that providing customers with differentiated value through an ‘exceptional customer experience’ is the core of the U+3.0 transformation. This means focusing on customers, who are the foundation of all businesses, to open a new era.

He introduced 2023 as “a year when changes for future growth will blossom” and stressed the need for a more evolved customer experience to achieve this. CEO Hwang said, “If we provide customers with differentiated experiences in existing businesses, new value will be created, and by evolving this into platform businesses, we can advance to U+3.0. At this time, the customer experience we create must be clearly exceptional and differentiated beyond the ordinary level.”

In this year’s opening ceremony video, CEO Hwang mentioned ‘customer’ a total of 34 times, expressing his intention to transform the company into a customer-centric organization. Following ‘customer,’ he repeatedly emphasized the direction of change he wants to pursue by mentioning ‘exceptional (10 times)’ and ‘platform business (8 times).’

CEO Hwang explained that the ‘exceptional customer experience’ starts from seemingly trivial areas that are easy to overlook. Small differences that pay attention to details can complete the exceptional experience, and to find these details, all employees must put their soul and attachment into products and services and think deeply. He said, “For an exceptional customer experience, we must pay meticulous attention even to areas that might make customers say, ‘They even care about this?’ When we immerse ourselves in the products and services we create with the mindset of ‘this is mine,’ the exceptional quality recognized by customers will be completed, and customers will choose us.”

The ‘exceptional customer experience’ will be reborn as a future growth engine through U+3.0, which promotes the platformization of existing businesses. Specifically, LG Uplus has set plans to promote ▲a ‘lifestyle platform’ based on digitalization of telecommunications and routine/subscription services ▲a ‘play platform’ based on media viewing experiences ▲a ‘growth care platform’ based on Idulnara ▲platformization of B2B businesses such as SOHO, SME, and mobility.

CEO Hwang said, “In our core business of telecommunications, we will promote digitalization to dramatically improve online customer experiences such as subscription, activation, and customer service, and build a lifestyle platform with routine and subscription services that customers frequently visit and stay longer.” He added, “In media, we will enhance customers’ viewing experiences based on data and promote content business using our content production expertise to actively grow the play platform.” He continued, “In the growth care platform, Idulnara will establish itself as a new business, and in B2B, we will expand SOHO, SME, and mobility into platform businesses.”

As an execution strategy to successfully lead the U+3.0 transformation, he emphasized the internalization of artificial intelligence (AI) and data technologies and the transition to a flexible organization. Since the direction of change LG Uplus pursues must be set through customer data, the company intends to commercialize AI technologies capable of collecting and interpreting various customer data. Additionally, they plan to immediately apply the commercialized AI data technologies to business and expand the startup way of working to all business divisions to respond flexibly.

CEO Hwang said, “We will internalize and commercialize AI engines in areas where data-driven customer experience innovation is possible. Since the current organizational structure is not flexible enough to respond quickly to changes, we will expand the organization applying the startup way of working to 50% of the entire company this year and build a platform that can collect and analyze customer data so these organizations can operate well.”

He did not forget to give a message to employees for successful change. He said, “It is necessary to have an organizational culture where members directly participate in setting the goals each business division wants to achieve and lead the execution. If employees remember that they are ‘one team’ moving toward a single goal and strive for LG Uplus’s unique exceptional customer experience innovation, we can get closer to becoming a ‘digital innovation company that goes beyond telecommunications to provide customers with new digital experiences and lead enjoyable changes in daily life.’”