This year, we will pursue four overwhelming differentiation strategies.
On the 2nd, Kim Sung-hwan, CEO of Korea Investment Securities, emphasized this in his New Year’s address, stating, "To secure our unique differentiation that competitors can easily imitate, we must pursue creative changes and innovations beyond the improvement of the existing business model."
The first area of differentiation mentioned by Kim is the business model. He said, "A one-size-fits-all service can never satisfy customers," adding, "Globalization is the most certain differentiation strategy to secure overwhelming competitive advantage."
Accordingly, this year, Korea Investment Securities plans to expand its global network and actively discover good products and deals in overseas markets. Kim noted, "Globalization is not a mission limited to specific institutional sectors; the entire institutional sector must achieve the change of globalization in terms of mindset, operational methods, and communication with customers."
The second area of differentiation is risk management and internal control. Kim stated, "We already know that a single mistake or oversight can lead to unsustainable scale losses," and emphasized that we must abandon the mindset of "It was fine last year, so it will be fine this year."
He added, "As global business expands and the products we handle become more sophisticated, the range of risks will widen and their forms will become complex," urging the establishment of a "360-degree risk management" process to prepare for any situation.
He also mentioned that customer management would be differentiated. Kim stated, "The remarkable growth in retail was achieved by the combined expertise of sales staff in differentiated customer management." He pointed out that "providing hyper-personalized financial content to meet the fragmented needs of mass customers, or digital-based personalized consulting services, are also areas of customer management that cannot be overlooked."
Finally, he announced that sales support would be differentiated. Kim said, "The goal of all support organizations is to ensure that sales organizations can sell more easily, quickly, and systematically, without sparing any support." He continued, "Starting from the premise that it is possible is the basic courtesy to colleagues who have done their best for sales," urging the support organizations not to forget that sales support is their reason for existence.