work ethic comes from the basics. And a firm base will hold us tight and give us the strength through any difficult time.
Therefore, my personal business philosophy is back to basics," said the newly-inaugurated fourth President of the Korea Post Jung Kyung-won. Through an interview with the Korea IT Times, President Jung added more of his business philosophy. "The customers are always right. I will always keep that in mind as I run the Korea Post. When we work up to build a firm base and use our creativity, the capability of the organization will increase, the image will be strengthened and the service quality will also increase to win our customers' hearts and keep them at home. The Korea Post is called Oo Jung in Korean. Oo Jung in Korean also means friendship. Oo Jung, the Korea Post will work to build friendship."
Jung has shown his devotion to the Ministry of Information and Communication since 1979, from the first day he started to serve the government. From his contribution in broadband convergence networking to establishing a hub in Daejeon Exchange Center to monitor the flow of mail parcels in real time through CCTV and many other numerous accomplishments in the time between, he has never stopped to contribute to the growth of the Korean IT industry.
Since the president was one of the first to adopt an automatic information system in traditional postal service days, a change from analog to digital, the question followed to his newest accomplishment hub. He explained: "The Korea Post recently established a Central Management System on top of our newest achievement hub. Using IT technology at the hub in Daejeon Exchange Center, the Hub was designed to efficiently distribute mail. The Hub allows us to monitor mail in real-time and tracks the postal delivery flow all over the country using CCTV channels set up in every state and GPS GIS sets on every postal service car to insure efficient delivery. As time has become gold for modern people, I believe that fast postal travel is our priority to focus on," he continued. "The Overall Postal Central Management System allows the customers to check eight step delivery states via a website or call centers.
We monitor each step of the delivery through the system and send text messages to our customers informing them of the delivery state, he said. "In order to assist a faster delivery service, we provided PDAs to our mailmen, which saved us an hour at least compared to prior deliveries," he Jung explained.
All the effort towards fast delivery service seems to pay off. The Korea Post, which met a deficit in 2003, is now working in a Golden Age since 2006. The profit from parcels increased by 22% compared to last year. Promotion of the Express Mail Service (EMS) and building up a descent business relationship with foreign post offices contributed to this result as well.
Jung's goal for 2007 is to take it a step further and focus on Korea Post IT exports. "We are about to start target marketing to postal IT exportable countries who have great potential. We will strengthen partnerships and promote advertisements. We are trying to get support from the government to have PostNet, the system we use to distribute parcels, reach overseas." At the current date, Korea Post contributes to one third of the county's export property. The President's ambition is for Postal IT to contribute more in exports this year. "In order to meet our goal in exporting, Korea Post recently established an Export Managing Department to support Memorandums of Understanding between the countries, provide consulting for foreign postal modernizing, and promote the Korea Post overseas by attending Post Expos and international conferences."
As matter of fact, the Korea Post will sign a MOU with Vietnam this month.
He noted: "The purpose of this visit to Vietnam is to exchange thoughts on developing both countries' postal services, sharing postal experts, and exchanging postal business experiences. This MOU will eventually give Korean IT enterprise an opportunity to enter Vietnam."
Korea IT systems are also being wanted by some countries like Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia. They are in partnership with Korea Post as well in recent years. Moreover, countries like Egypt, Algeria, Mongolia, Brunei, and Pakistan have visited Korea for benchmarking.
The Korea Post started a new management technique called 6 Sigma from August 2003. Until 2006, 554 tasks were improved and led to gain US$75 million. And we have trained 538 experts who are specialized in 6 Sigma. They are working as a reform leader at this point. The Korea Post has been continuously developing 6 Sigma over the long term, building management systems to manage its work in efficiency. Also, the organization is giving out training and early education to expand the reform culture.
Jung further noted: "As a result, the Korea Post had won the 2006 6 Sigma Award over all the private enterprises. Korean Industrial Property, Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, and Kyonggi Province already showed their high interest in post 6 Sigma and developed into benchmarking." The president added: "In 2005, we started Maintenance, Repair, and Operation (MRO) as a pioneer in government office and reduced the 7 to 14 day delivery to 2 to 4 days in the marketplace. That saved US$700,000 for the Korea Post. We even lowered the morning express delivery rate to 95.2%, still saving US$1.1 million by improving the express mail working process."
The Post Office Insurance is expected to be weakened due to Free Trade Agreement Korea recently built with America. President Jung expects "the continual growth of financial institutions and its subsidization."
As the competition is expected to be tough, Mr. Jung prepared: "This year, we established one hundred eighty-two 365 Automatic Service Corners and forty-six customer service rooms to provide convenience to users. We are planning to find the villages in the countryside of Korea that still has no easy access to financial institutes to provide services to them. We will also train financial experts on a regular basis to strengthen the business range. As far as our insurance business is concerned, we will come up with common interest items like donation insurance or funeral insurance. In 2007, we will focus on training our elite employees to strengthen marketing and to come up with creative items that the citizens need."
Having Back to the Basics as his business philosophy and Consider Others as his motto, the president is credited as a true businessman with a human touch. Jung stated: "It is the Korea Post's duty to provide affordable postal services with the best quality service that is available anywhere at anytime." "Korea has the best information technology that would be competitive anywhere. By applying such information technology into postal services, we are seeking to build a ubiquitous post office in the future," President Jung Kyung-won marked as a conclusion.
"Until the day our post offices take a big part in serving the citizens as blood vessels in our body that connects every little organ, our undying effort will continue."
