Yonsei School of Business held five colloquium last fall as part of an ongoing Yonsei Venture, Innovation & Startup Program(YVIP). The following are summaries of the presentations.

» Being First Is More Important Than Being the Best in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Soo-Jung Shin, vice president of KT,, defined the Fourth Industrial Revolution as the advent of a society in which all industries are connected based on 5G technology, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. As a result, it is predicted, Shin said, that digital capabilities will become a key element of competition.

Because jobs are expected to change drastically due to AI and robots, Shin emphasized the need for companies and individuals to change their stances in response to digital innovation. "Being the 'best' was once important, but it will be more important in the future to be first,” Shin said. "From now on, it is a computer's job to solve problems and a human’s job to define the problem, so it is important to find inconveniences and problems in existing processes and fix them, and to do this, it is important to have an unconventional attitude with endless curiosity and suspicion."

» A Good Personality Emphasizing Management Is the Key to Success

Su-Gil Kim, representative director and president of JTBC, spoke on Oct. 25 on “JTBC and the Future of the Media Industry.”

Kim said JTBC opened with the purpose of "making broadcasting as it was originally" and focused on the virtue of the talented people the company sought to hire. This focus was because they valued people who fit into the organizational culture. As a result, she said, JTBC has shown outstanding performance in various fields, including entertainment and drama, and has been chosen by viewers as the best broadcaster in every year since 2016.

"With the emergence of an over-the-top (OTT) company such as Netflix, the media market is rapidly changing,” Shin said, “including more viewers watching TV programs through streaming services, and JTBC is pursuing diversification of content production while simultaneously responding to changes in broadcasting environment through investments in OTT."

» Making Great People Want to Work With Me

Ja-Young Yoon, CEO and founder of StyleShare, the largest community shopping platform in Korea, spoke on November 6 about “My Work: The StyleShare Story” and how her success grew out of an entrepreneurial urge to create a company that created value while benefiting society.

Yoon graduated from Yonsei University with a major in electrical and electronic engineering and founded StyleShare the same year.

"There were times when I didn't want to work,” Yoon said. “However, I used that time to rediscover my goal as an entrepreneur, agonizing over the way we worked and our culture. It was to create a company that has good influence on society by creating a service that users love and a company that good people hope to work with.”

Lastly, she chose “share, autonomy, and empowerment” to describe the way she works. That is, StyleShare gives employees the authority to actively share their work and to work with enthusiasm. 

» National Competitiveness and the Digital Economy...Won-Ki Min, Vice Minister of Science and ICT

Won-Ki Min, vice minister of Science and ICT, in speaking on November 22 said that the role of government and businesses in an age when data and information translate into national power is to balance the necessity of this data with the risk to personal privacy.

In ancient times, Min noted, force was important, and later in the industrial era, steam engine, computers and finance were, but now data and information are the source of national competitiveness. Therefore, he emphasized, a country with a lot of data and information is now a competitive country.

Although the introduction of smartphones has had a positive impact on our lives, he said, there are concerns about privacy infringement in the process of data utilization. Min explained that the task of the government and businesses is to coordinate this conflict and resolve it harmoniously. And he pointed out that the current service industry system creates more value with fewer people than the manufacturing system it replaced, which is partly a reason for the current suffering of unemployment..

» Balance and Harmony Are Important in Management

“To manage is to relate,” Kenny Park, CEO  and founder of Simone, a high-end global handbag manufacturer that covers 10 percent of the world's luxury handbag market as an Original Equipment Manufacturer, designer, and brand manager. He has carried out several projects related to the handbag industry such as publishing a dictionary on handbag terminology and operating a handbag museum. Park founded Simone in 1987 and grew it into a global company. 

Park explained the core values that drives Simone by dividing them into their industrial and cultural aspects, and said that success was especially owed to automating processes that previously could only done by hand by skilled workers.

"To manage is to relate,” he said. “It is important to see how society, customers, and employees are harmonized," emphasizing the entrepreneurship that is the driving force behind Simone's rapid growth.