The entire management activities of the late Choi Jong-hyun, former chairman of SK Group, who led the Korean economic growth period from the 1970s to the 1990s, have been revealed to the world for the first time in 27 years since his death. It is expected to become an important historical document for studying modern economic history beyond the history of a single corporation. SK plans to utilize the materials of the digital archive for the spread of its unique philosophy, known as SKMS, and the Sup'ex culture.
SK announced that it has completed the 'digital archive' project, which involves ▲discovering ▲digitally transforming ▲permanently preserving and utilizing management philosophy and corporate activity-related materials from 30 to 40 years ago that have been stored for a long time in group archives, etc. During the process of publishing the 2023 '70th Anniversary Compilation of Sayings,' the historical value of old materials was confirmed, marking two years since the project was initiated.
Chairman Choi recorded business performance and plan reports, meetings with members, various meetings, and events, leaving them as originals. Through this, he aimed to develop the group's management philosophy and techniques and ultimately raise the standard of corporate management in South Korea. This policy is said to have been inherited as 'a unique record culture of SK.'
SK explained, "The process of establishing and disseminating the SK Management System (SKMS), which is the corporation's unique management system, as well as scenes of discussions with employees during key decision-making moments and conversations with renowned figures at home and abroad are all documented in detail."
The restored materials amount to a total of 17,620 items, including approximately 5,300 audio and video pieces, over 3,500 documents, and about 4,800 photos. The audio recordings of Chairman Choi alone amount to 3,530 audio tapes. This is a substantial volume, requiring over a year of continuous listening at 8 hours a day.
According to the discovered records, Chairman Choi emphasized multiple times during his term that "even in the vast United States, if talent exists, foreign people are used; in the small land of Korea, we must not form cliques based on regionalism, academic connections, or factions," advocating for an end to South Korea's relationship-oriented hierarchy.
During a meeting with executives in 1992, he noted, "Employees engaged in research and development should also experience from market management to marketing; knowing where money converges and what technologies customers seek can increase the probability of R&D success," seemingly forecasting the successful process of high bandwidth memory (HBM) and calling for practical research.
In the same year, he remarked in a meeting with SKC executives, "Selling a floppy disk is $1, but if you include software in it, its value increases 20 times," stressing that South Korean industry should not remain confined to hardware manufacturing.
In a report prepared for a meeting with the crown prince of a European country in the mid-1990s, it was suggested that climate crisis would become a serious international issue in the future and that efforts should be made together to meet environmental standards that are much lower than legal limits.
A representative from SK stated, "Chairman Choi's management records are like treasures that allow for a direct feeling of the concerns and philosophies of entrepreneurs who drove Korean dynamism," adding, "Although the quantity is vast and restoration was challenging due to the age, we were able to significantly improve quality through advanced technology."