Kumho Asiana Group‘s goal for the new year is to become a “leader of the fourth industrial society,” according to the new year’s address given by Chairman Park Sam-koo.

In addition to completing the “last task” of buying back Kumho Tire from creditors to rebuild his Kumho Asiana Group, the chairman said that it was imperative for the group to make preparations for big changes coming to Korea‘s business environment. 

“By the fourth industrial society, I mean a society that has undergone great changes in its industrial structure through the convergence of digital and analog, manufacturing and information communications technology, and online and offline,” he said.

Park urged the group‘s affiliate companies to rethink their operations structure and to adopt a bottom-up mindset for creating new strategies in the face of changing business climates.

In particular, Park said that the group would need to strive to collect, manage, and build meaningful uses for big data. “Using big data, we can make decision-making processes more efficient and automatic,” he said.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)