Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin on Wednesday urged the conglomerate's top executives to bolster each affiliate's fundamental businesses to ignite new growth, stressing the importance of returning to the basics.
Chairing Lotte's half-yearly value creation meeting of top leadership across all Lotte affiliates at the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, Shin noted that the market's assessment of Lotte firms remains "cold-hearted" despite overall earnings improvement across the conglomerate in the first half of this year.
The Lotte leader forecast that uncertainties will grow due to global geopolitical issues in the second half of the year, while technological development, including artificial intelligence agents, will accelerate.
Reflecting on the group's performance over the past decade, Shin expressed concern that Lotte's business competitiveness had largely stagnated. He outlined three priorities for restoring the group's edge: greater focus on core businesses, continuous improvement and innovation, and a renewed commitment to the fundamentals of management.
As part of that strategy, Shin called for streamlining noncore businesses that no longer align with the group's long-term direction, saying portfolio optimization would improve both profitability and competitiveness. He also emphasized strengthening Lotte's competitiveness on the world stage by enhancing the value of its flagship brands.
Calling on executives to prioritize customer-centric management while maintaining financial discipline, Shin said investment decisions should undergo rigorous feasibility and profitability reviews before being executed within prudent financial limits.
"Tradition should not be a ceiling that limits us, but the starting line for innovation," Shin said. "CEOs must present a clear vision, continuously improve from the customer's perspective, pursue bold innovation and keep evolving their organizations."
According to Lotte, some 80 top executives from Lotte affiliates attended Wednesday's meeting.
Doug Stephens, a Canadian retail industry futurist and business adviser, opened the meeting with a lecture on the changing trends and insights of AI and the global market. It marked the first time Lotte invited an external speaker to the meeting.
Later, the CEOs of Lotte Holdings shared the conglomerate’s management and financial strategies for the second half. The CEOs of key Lotte affiliates in the food, retail, chemical and hotel sectors presented ways to bolster their competitive edge by focusing on their key businesses.
Before the meeting, Lotte showcased the current status of its AI transformation efforts as the conglomerate pushes for the use of AI technology in the workplace. The showcase included 10 AI agents developed for administrative work, price monitoring, demand prediction and analysis of global market forecasts.
hwkan@heraldcorp.com
