With the wide use of digital technology, companies across all sectors of industry are changing their communication style, work and sales approaches. The beauty market is seeing the new business opportunities created from the convergence between mobile tech and the main area of its business, for example medical and beauty devices. Here we met Park Yongjae, who prepares the beautiful future of Amorepacific in these days of change. He talked about the story of today shaping a better tomorrow through great vision and innovation.

The Future Growth Team was organized in 2015 to create new growth engines through the convergence of digital technology and business we're involved in: beauty. To be specific, we explore new market opportunities to expand our business and start new businesses. Our team is divided into two parts: NGI (New Growth Initiative) discovering new future growth engines and CVC (Corporate Venture Capital) making investment into ventures outside the company. I belong to the NGI part.

Amorepacific has many members who are full of passion and ideas for new business ventures. But, it's difficult for them to work toward their vision because they are given new tasks. Plus, there is the whole rigmarole of turning ideas into viable business models. The in-house venture program is designed to solve these problems: providing the time, capital and space required so that their ideas can be developed into new growth engines of Amorepacific.

Lean Startup is about building business fast with minimum resources. In other words, it allows us to bring products and services to the market in the shortest time possible and then to improve them through customer feedback. We adopted this model last year and launched two online brands, which released their first products in May.

Two of our online Lean Startups are completely independent of Amorepacific. They have both advantages and disadvantages. Though they cannot use Amorepacific's strong offline network and they have limited budgets, they nevertheless provide opportunities for everyone to turn their good ideas into a reality at the office located in Teheran Street, Gangnam district, Seoul, Korea. They have helped create a culture of innovation that surely motivates all members. They also allow testing for niche marketing and online channels. In other words, they are the investment for new future growth engine of Amorepacific.

Digital innovation has brought about many changes into the manufacturing sector, including the beauty business and one of them is Provice (Product + Service). Smart Beauty Care CFT was organized in January so that we could not only sell cosmetics, but also provide beauty services for a leading place in the global market.

I cannot yet disclose details about our team project, but our Smart Beauty Care aims to provide customized solutions, available anytime and anywhere. We will offer a personalized, integrated customer experience with O2O (Online to Offline) service and product based on an understanding of customers, including their skin type, weather, TPO (Time, Place, Occasion), purchase history and emotional preference. A photo and interview based skincare service application will be released in the second half of this year.

Our ultimate goal is to understand the beauty and lifestyle of customers using contextual data, which includes their emotional preferences, and thus provide a truly personalized solution. If we can help customers find their preference and style, which they didn't know themselves and offer the right products and services, rather than selling products through online and offline channels, then the relationship between Amorepacific and customers will develop in a whole new way and we can maintain a strong relationship with customers all year round.

The business environment being tuned to the digital reality is an irreversible trend and the true determinant of success as a global leader. If the trend continues, we have to immerse ourselves within it, rather than just dipping our feet if we are to strike upon the true treasure hidden inside. Take many approaches that are different from our usual approach and come back to our core expertise, which is cosmetics. Though it takes more time than we think, we should take every possible element into account and understand the overall trends so that we can find the right way for perfection. This is how I will take on Smart Beauty Care. I will optimize and blend the 70-year knowhow of Amorepacific into the digital mobile environment.