We had no choice but to pursue digital transformation to survive. AI left blindly to individual employees is inefficient. Leaders must personally design a management and operational system that spans the entire organization to succeed in AX (AI transformation).
CTK Chief Executive Choi Sun-young on the 9th emphasized at the 2026 SME AX Leaders Forum held at the Westin Josun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, that adopting AI is not a practical task for a single department but a process of redesigning the companywide management structure.
CTK is a "fabless" cosmetics original design manufacturing (ODM) corporations that does not have its own production plant. It was founded in 2001 and listed on KOSDAQ in 2017. It maintains horizontal collaboration with roughly 300 domestic and overseas manufacturers and packaging partners, providing an end-to-end service from product planning to design and logistics. Overseas sales account for 90% of total revenue (about 70% in the United States), and starting three years ago, it has been expanding its business to the domestic small brand and influencer market.
Choi cited the data silos faced in 2020 as the trigger for digital transformation. Choi recalled, "The materials we had accumulated over more than 20 years of product development existed scattered across each employee's computer and desk," and added, "We had to fix the inefficiency." As an export-driven corporations, it also faced limits in having to spend massive travel and exhibition expense to find overseas clients.
To solve this, CTK built CTK Clip in 2020 using a no-code platform that does not require coding. Choi said, "Until then, clients had to visit manufacturers in person to hear explanations about products," and added, "Now clients can access CTK Clip, choose the formulation, container, and ingredients they want, and request development directly." Currently, about 60,000 global brands are registered on CTK Clip. The number of registered products exceeds 3,100.
While the digitalization of customer touchpoints succeeded, internal barriers remained. The process of turning customer inquiries into actual development tasks was done manually, and information was scattered across email, Excel, and messengers, perpetuating a structure dependent on the capabilities of individual staffers.
Choi said that to solve this problem, the company is building an AI-based project management system (PMS) that integrates companywide processes.
Choi defined the need for AI as "not to replace people, but so the system can capture the flows that people inevitably miss." Choi continued, "When PMS is implemented, it will effectively create a situation room that controls companywide work at a glance," and explained, "CTK employees, factory partners, and client companies—the three parties—will no longer exchange emails for communication and will share required materials and task progress in real time through PMS alone."
CTK's AX is being led directly by Choi. Choi cited the formation of staff-centered task forces (TF) and leaving everything to the IT department as reasons many corporations fail at AX. Choi said, "When many companies do AX, they first call in the IT department and create a dedicated team, saying, 'You develop it,' but I've seen many cases where they spend massive expense, create inefficiency, and fail," and stressed, "The person drawing the map can never be a staffer from a single department. The leader must draw the map, and subordinate managers must build the structure."
In fact, only one internal CTK staffer is currently assigned to building the PMS. Through collaboration with external AI experts, the company is working to connect the system to the Google environment.
After completing the PMS build in September, CTK plans to begin developing an automated manufacturer brand development and production (OBM) platform in which Generative AI analyzes influencers' tendencies and follower data to automatically carry out everything from brand planning to design and product development.
Choi said, "When OBM goes live, CTK will achieve another leap forward," and concluded, "The success of AX depends not on adopting technology but on who redefines the company's operating structure and way of working."