On October 24th (Wed), the 17th anniversary ceremony was held in the grand conference room of the Seoul Office with all members of Nepes, including Mr. Lee, watching through a video conference system. Starting with worship service to give thanks to the God, the ceremony proceeded with awarding workers for long time service, conferring a certificate of sponsorship for Severance Marathon and scholarships to promising youths in Chungbuk province, and closed with CEO's message. In his message, Mr. Lee, declared a new code of conduct to attain the goal of ‘getting into 100 largest companies in Korea' by making sales of KRW 1 trillion in 2010 and emphasized that Nepes has been passing through the turning point toward Nepes II.
As you are well aware of, the current business environment is going very bad. When we first started business, there was no competition because our products were unique in the Korean market. However, now we have a lot of competitors and severe competition remarkably lowers our profit margin. Under these circumstances, if we are slow not enough to catch up good opportunities, we will be eliminated from the completion right away. Our business environment is in the midst of rapid changes. With the development of China, the price of raw and auxiliary materials is surging. Due to these factors, it is difficult for us to keep growing with profitable business models. In the past, we could see great opportunities coming and catch them. However, from now on, it will be a different story. Unless we are well prepared in advance and catch them at right time, we will not be able to survive. As you may know, Nepes launched a 5-year business plan to 2010. This goal is to achieve sales of KRW 1 trillion in 2010 and to get into 100 largest companies in Korea. Now, we have 2 years to make this "Quantum Leap" realized. On Nepes 20th anniversary in 2010, I truly believe we reach this goal. To attain this goal, we must complete the following three missions:
Firstly, all of us need to have loyalty. Everything you have, such as talents, time, abilities, home, money and human network and so on, should be directly or indirectly dedicated to your job. People with loyalty don't care about whether the performance from a job is big or not. Even you achieve small, the same compensation like self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment will be followed. Therefore, to achieve good performance in a job, you should devote yourself to what you want to do and dream of. This attitude is called loyalty to a job. It is needed for us, for Nepes community and for the country.
Secondly, we need to cooperate with each other. T-Management scheme, the means to realize the management philosophy of Nepes, represents cooperation. You alone can not do everything from beginning to end. Success can be defined in many different ways, but some define it as ‘taking the initiative'. The only way to take the lead is to cooperate. We always need to keep the slogan of ‘Cannot do it alone' in mind. Cooperation comes from the attitude of giving first before taking. This philosophy forms a foundation for a matrix structure of our organization and the strategic alliances like when we get on the western technology platform and when we make a joint venture. We should adapt ourselves to this philosophy so that we will be able to confirm our belief.
Thirdly, we need to be honest when working. Honesty and transparency are essential for being trustworthy. The more credible we are, the easier we can cooperate with. One of reasons why we covered the exterior wall of the Seoul office with glass is to symbolize that we are transparent. I think that honesty makes us more reliable and cooperative, which in turn, we get to confirm our belief. If we faithfully follow the above three keywords of loyalty, honesty and cooperation, we will have many things to be thankful for. Personally, we will get to recognize the true purpose of working and find new meaning for our lives and ultimately, the goal and value of our lives will be changed. And I'm sure that we will be summoned by the times and that all of us will become the one that our country and the world needs in difficult times.
I would like to give my sincere thanks to all of you who have given so much of yourselves to Nepes, and I wish God's blessings to you and your families.
Thank you very much.
October 24, 2007
Byung-Koo Lee