ΆΓ  Fuji Xerox Korea Taking Root Through 'Globalization'

KoreaTimes 2000.11.27

`A Strong, Exciting and Friendly Company.'' Fuji Xerox Korea's CEO Takasugi Nobuya has been cherishing this principle as the locomotive that he says has enabled the firm to see an outstanding business performance in Korea against all odds.

The company forayed into the Korean market in March 1998, acquiring a 50 percent stake of then insolvent Xerox Korea. It registered 189.2 billion won in total output last year and $27 million in exports, up 91.9 percent from a year earlier.

Due to the business success, Xerox Korea has emerged as one of the mainstay branches of Fuji Xerox in the Asia Pacific region along with its Australian subsidiary.

``In the process of coping with the business difficulties, I decided to apply the three-point principle for company management, judging it would be the key to accommodating Korea's unique culture and harmonizing it with global standards. It's a kind of ``glocalization'' (a combination of globalization and localization),'' he says.

He stresses the importance of transparency in management based on mutual trust. ``Opening communications channels with company workers is essential to accumulate mutual trust. I often visit and have samgyopsal (fried pork strips popular among Koreans) with company employees,'' he says. He is affectionately called ``samgyopsal'' chairman by his employees.

Turning to business, he underlines the need to upgrade the Korean office environment. Some may think of Fuji Xerox Korea as a mere copy machine producer but it has already become a world-class document company, providing total solution to office environment, according to Takasugi.

Korea lags behind even less developed Asian nations like Thailand and the Philippines in terms of digitization of office work conditions. Korean firms tend to opt for low-priced copy machines regardless of function and quality.

He deplores that such tendency has been undermining the companies' bids to cut costs and improve productivity. More than 95 percent of the Korean enterprises are accustomed to analogue-type copiers.

He expresses his determination to focus on selling digitized state-of- the-art copiers in Korea, saying it would help enhance productivity and curtail expenses to a great extent.

With the mission of conducting a comprehensive overhaul of Korea Xerox, he came here in 1998 and at the time was stunned to feel a sense of defeatism gripping the firm as well as its ``inefficient'' management system.

He first embarked on analyzing the financial and managerial state of Xerox Korea to grasp the reason that plunged the firm into the managerial hardship.

The company was then the second largest firm in Korea among copy machine makers in terms of revenue but failed to deploy effective management in the area of after-sales service despite the ever growing market.

While avoiding tactics toward external growth, he decided to focus on profits on a return-on-sales (ROS) basis. In order to provide differentiated services, the company developed a direct sales system under which company agents visit clients to explain the merits of the company products. In the process, he did not consider lay-offs.

The company has already turned its eyes to the concept of ``document solution'' which means a global document processing system to manufacture, convey and distribute document-related information.

As a high tech copier is equipped with multiple functions such as scanning, faxing as well as printing, such equipment has become essential for companies in their bids to leap into the digital era, he underlines.

Thanks to its contribution to the national economy with its exceptional business performance, the company was deemed as one of the best foreign invested companies by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) recently.

``Improving the office environment would be a prerequisite to companies' bids to enhance managerial efficiency and productivity. Digital networking through proper document provision has become inevitable for Korean firms and Fuji Xerox Korea hopes to be a growing contributor toward that end,'' he says.