[FOCUS] E-Land Group, Looking to Its 40th Anniversary, Runs with the ‘E-Land Spirit’
[FOCUS] E-Land Group, Looking to Its 40th Anniversary, Runs with the ‘E-Land Spirit’
  • Yoo Kyung-Ah. Reporter
  • 승인 2018.07.03 21:23
  • 수정 2018.07.04 05:25
  • 댓글 0
이 기사를 공유합니다

E-Land Group(Chirman Park Sung-Soo), awaiting its 40th anniversary in two years, is accelerating its reorganization with an aim to being listed by the first half of 2019. Particularly, this year, it reduced its debt ratio to less than 150%, which serves its intention well to secure capital soundness as a high priority.  

E-Land Group (hereafter E-Land) is largely composed of three divisions including E-Land World (fashion), E-Land Retail (distribution) and E-Land Park (hotel, leisure and dining).
The keys of the group, E-Land Retail and E-Land World, have achieved improved credit ratings by consistent efforts to improve financial structure. E-Land Retail’s business credit rating was upgraded from BBB0 to BBB+ as of June, and credit rating for commercial paper and electronic short-term loan also upgraded from A3 0 to A3+. E-Land World’s credit rating for the latter was upgraded a notch from A3- to A3 0 as well.

E-Land that has been focused on ensuring ‘internal stability’ plans to attract a 1 trillion won scale investment within the first half of this year. To date, it has raised capital of 500 billion won by issuing new stocks.
Park Sung-Soo, Chirman of E-Land Group
'Innovator' Park Sung-Soo, Chirman of E-Land Group

Sales of idle properties as an action of achieving capital soundness are also active. Early this year, E-Land sold Kensington Jeju Hotel and Sangrok Hotel ground to B&M Development, a subsidiary of SK, for 128 billion won. The main division E-Land World is a holding company at the core and at the same time, runs business in the ‘fashion sector’, which is the origin of the group. Mr. Kim Il-Gyu is the CEO of the holding company, and Ms. Jeong Su-Jeong the CEO of the fashion sector. 

 
Mr. Kim was appointed as the general vice president in the communication office of E-Land Group. He has been working for the fashion business sector, manufacturing and global sourcing, then appointed as the head of foreign offices in the US and UK. He has been also appointed as the head of the group strategic planning, the leader of future business group and the CEO of E-Land Construction.

Mr. Kim made a tie with E-Land in a part time job when he was a university student, and advanced to the top position, said to be Chairman Park’s closest staff. It is known that he first met Mr. Park in the bible study group of the university.
 
He said “There are many people who wonder about the secrets of fast growth of E-Land by Chairman Park, and I think ethical management and knowledge management are two of those secrets”.
 
E-Land was born as a small non-brand clothing shop ‘England’ in front of Gwangsaeng Pharmacy near Ewha Womans University on September 23, 1980. E-Land starting off with only 10 employees has grown to one of leading companies in Korea with 50,000 domestic employees in its affiliates and sales firms, and another 50,000 in overseas branches. The sales record of 6.6 billion won in 1986 when it was first registered has risen vertically to 10 trillion won now. It represents over 1,500 times of growth.

The most important management philosophy of Mr. Kim is the ethical management. As a Christian, he said he has been doing his best not to violate the law even if it is customary.
A representative anecdote is the story when the group was purchasing the Mapo corporate building.
In the 1990s, the ‘down-graded contract’ in which the purchase price was written lower than actual figures was a general custom in the trade of commercial buildings as well as houses. This allowed the seller to pay a less transfer income tax, and the buyer to pay a less acquisition tax. Thus, it was customary nationwide.
 
“Chairman Park insisted such a custom was wrong and gave a direction to find a building in Seoul whose price could be written correctly. Among many buildings for sale at the time, only the Hongik Engineering Polytechnique building under Wausan Mountain in Mapo-gu was found to be a building that we could report the correct price of, and thus, he decided to buy the building as a corporate building in 1989.”
 
E-Land Retail Building.
E-Land Retail Building.

E-Land is ending the era of the Mapo corporate building, and preparing to open a new era of the Magok corporate building on the occasion of 40th anniversary in 2020.

Mr. Park has been pursuing the enhancement of employee’s competitiveness through reading books since the early day of the company. Over 10 years before the term ‘knowledge management’ even appeared in the press, he had put it to practice.
 
He made his employees read at least a management-related book by world renowned scholars and entrepreneurs including Peter Drucker per week, and present their impression by team. His intention was that more reading would lead to more absorption of experiences, knowledge and judgement accumulated by other great minds. 
 
<50 Persons Who Achieved American Dream, A Man Who Rules Time, Hungry Spirit, There Is No Such Word As Impossible, A Company That Considers People, The Reason Why I Am Earning 1.8 Billion A Year, The Story of the Roman People, Oda Nobunaga, Harvard-style Foreign Affair Negotiation, Logistics Revolution of 7-Eleven, The World Best Limited Company’s Secrets to Success, Growth Strategy of Walmart…>
 
The scope of books recommended by Mr. Park is beyond the breadth and depth ordinary people can imagine, including not only management books but also self-development books, history lessons, negotiation strategy and business strategy
 
His such management by reading followed his realization of the importance of books after having read over 2,000 books in his bed when he was forced to be inactive due to amyotonia for a few years of his youth.
 
One of the books that Mr. Park emphasized for essential reading was ‘Miracle Apples’. It was a book based on the story of a farmer Kimura Akinori in Aomori Prefecture, Japan who researched soils for 10 years and could produce apples that did not rot without using pesticides and fertilizers. This book led him to believe that a company organization could also grow rapidly if its structure changed to a healthy and creative system just like organic soils.
 
Under Mr. Park's policy of management by reading, employees who were apponied to the office in China had to travel to China beforehand as well as to read over 100 books. Naturally, to the astonishment of the locals, they revealed a wealth of knowledge about China as soon as they entered China. This knowledge management was naturally linked to the 'E-Land spirit'.
 
The 'E-Land Spirit' is a set of 18 items that E-Land made in the workshop when it had 13 employees, and whether something conforms to E-Land Spirit has become standards in all decisions of the company.
Chirman Park with employees.
Chirman Park with employees.

'E-Land Spirit 18' are as follows.

△ Centered on God, faith, and the word △ 'Can Do It' sprit △ World Vision
△Work above money △People above work △Future-oriented thinking △Frugal mind △Merchant spirit △Sincerity above talent △Attitude to learn △Tidiness, cleanliness, and hygiene △Sense of gratitude △Team Worker △Internal stability △Mindset of the best △'Others' centered thinking △Professionalism △Think differently...
 
'Think differently' among the E-Land Spirit was the motto that Steve Jobs, an Apple founder who later had shaken the global IT market, constantly emphasized. There would not have been any special interactions between Mr. Park and Steve Jobs, but as prominent executives, they must have determined that employees needed to have the virtue of 'think differently from others' in order to grow companies.
 
Mr. Park's 'World Vision' and an E-Land Spirit 'People-centered' are spreading all over the world as 'the spirit of sharing'. E-Land has been supporting the North Korean people since the late 1990s, providing humanitarian assistance to North Koreans who have suffered severe food shortages.
 
E-Land is working with the NP to provide food, medicine, clothing and daily necessities that can be of practical use to residents. A total of 14.2 billion won-scale humanitarian aid to North Korea has been implemented so far.
 
In addition, the E-Land Group uses 10% of its profits annually at home and abroad for social contribution in order to practice sharing. It is carrying out social contribution activities in accordance with the needs of local communities such as supporting projects for families in crisis in blind spots and operation of E-Land welfare center (E-Land CSR) at home, and scholarship project in China. 
 
Recently, Praveen Agrawal, Director for North Korea at World Food Program (WFP), delivered a letter of appreciation to E-Land last month.
Mr. Agrawal said, "In the difficult situation last year, when the amount of food aid to North Korea was the smallest in 21 years, E-land's food aid contributed greatly to improving the situation". David Beasley, Executive Director of WFP, who visited Korea earlier this May, also expressed his gratitude to E-land.
 
World Food Program - E Land Welfare Center.

WFP has provided nutritional foods to 84,000 infants and pregnant women living in 10 cities in Hamgyongbuk-do Province with 500-million-won support in cooperation with E-land in 2017. E-Land has not always had royal road.

 
In an unprecedented situation of IMF, E-Land had also faced a crisis of desperation that could not guarantee its existence, but it had transformed the crisis into an opportunity through ethical management and knowledge management. In recent years, as the financial structure has deteriorated due to sluggish business in China, it is accelerating improvement in its financial structure by selling idle properties and some of its businesses last year.
[Translation Support= TransMecca]
 
[FOCUS] 창립 40년 눈 앞에 둔 이랜드그룹…‘이랜드 스피릿’으로 뛴다
'혁신가' 박성수 회장의 '제2의 도약' 전략 기대 http://me2.do/5pTBPDdq

yooka@wikileaks-kr.org


  • 서울특별시 마포구 마포대로 127, 1001호 (공덕동, 풍림빌딩)
  • 대표전화 : 02-702-2677
  • 팩스 : 02-702-1677
  • 청소년보호책임자 : 소정원
  • 법인명 : 위키리크스한국 주식회사
  • 제호 : 위키리크스한국
  • 등록번호 : 서울 아 04701
  • 등록일 : 2013-07-18
  • 발행일 : 2013-07-18
  • 발행인 : 박정규
  • 편집인 : 박찬흥
  • 위키리크스한국은 자체 기사윤리 심의 전문위원제를 운영합니다.
  • 기사윤리 심의 : 박지훈 변호사
  • 위키리크스한국 모든 콘텐츠(영상,기사, 사진)는 저작권법의 보호를 받은바, 무단 전재와 복사, 배포 등을 금합니다.
  • Copyright © 2024 위키리크스한국. All rights reserved.
  • [위키리크스한국 보도원칙] 본 매체는 독자와 취재원 등 뉴스 이용자의 권리 보장을 위해 반론이나 정정보도, 추후보도를 요청할 수 있는 창구를 열어두고 있음을 알립니다.
    고충처리 : 02-702-2677 | 메일 : laputa813@wikileaks-kr.org
ND소프트