Yesterday (15 Sep. 2009), I got very excited from early morning. It was due to a TMT related conference held in Seoul, Korea. The conference was officially called ‘Telefonica Global Project Conference’, organized by KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency).

[Global Collaboration between Telefonica and KOTRA]

Telefonica (if you don’t know this company, just Google it!) in fact came to Korea to find potential business partners in Korea. The conference was structured mainly in two sessions: 1) Understanding of Telefonica (the company, its global business, and technology/service); 2) Private meetings between Telefonica and potential Korean partners. Since Veyond Partners is not mobile service provider, we attended the first session only.

Kim Faura, the CEO of Telefonica, Cataluna, gave presentation on ‘Where does Telefonica come from’, ‘Where Telefonica is now’, and ‘How Telefonica is evolving’ to give big picture of the company and its strategy. Followed by this, Dr. Gerard Mula, Area Manager for Internet and Multimedia Technologies at Telefonica I+D (R&D center). He focused more on ‘How they innovate their technology and services’, ‘How they collaborate with global partners’ and ‘What areas they want to collaborate with potential Korean partners’.

[Presentation by Kim Faura]

They seem to visit Korea because Korea’s mobile tech companies have so advanced technologies and services. They are basically highly flexible in terms of business partnership area but their hypothetical fields of interests include mobile 3D video, mobile contents download, User profiling services, mobile advertisements, mobile social network, u-Health, etc.

There were less than 100 attendants in the conference. But next conference in 10th November by KOTRA seemed even more interesting. The ambitious conference was called ‘Global Mobile Vision 2009’ (www.globalmobilevision.com) Next time, I expect to meet not only Telefonica but also many other global companies (113 companies) such as T-Mobile, Sprint, NTT DoCoMo, Nokia, etc in one place.

I am also going to post the summary of interview with Kim Faura with one of Korea’s leading newspapers soon.

Dear Korean Insight readers!

How are you doing? Today, I would like to update what I am doing these days.

I am currently working with two clients for one project. One of them is one of the Korea’s biggest conglomerates and the other is global top manufacturer.

I am helping to draw a long term strategic roadmap for their new business in Korea. The three months project is going well so far (60% of the project). I suppose I will have an opportunity to share with you about this emerging business in the near future.

Prior to that, I was working with one of the government’s body in New Zealand. They wanted to know about Korea’s super-fast broadband. Our research project for investigating the Korea’s innovation from broadband to super-fast broadband was successfully completed and we are now waiting for a next chance beyond the research. In other words, we are seeking an actual business execution by connecting them to Korea’s broadband players. Since then, we began to receive increasing number of queries about Korea’s broadband. To meet such intellectual needs of our global TMT fellows, I updated our company brochure. You can download it by following the link

here.

Of course, I am always open to communicate with you. Good luck~

Yunho Chung

On the first day of April, 1999 South Korea became the world’s first country that commercially launched ADSL broadband, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, which is 60 times faster than ISDN, Integrated Services Digital Network. And until now, South Korea’s know-hows and experiences in the development of advanced IT technologies and infrastructures have been benchmarked by many countries that want to develop and initiate their long-term plans for the IT infrastructure investment.

We, VEYOND PARTNERS, have long been dedicated to providing insights into the Korean TMT(Telecommunications, Media, and Technology) sector for clients from both public and private sectors in developed and developing countries. We understand that countries in the world are now struggling to find ways to lift their economies out of recession. We believe that Korea’s experiences and lessons learned in the course of the implementation of the IT infrastructure development plan during the Asian economic crisis would be a great reference to those countries.

Below is a quick snapshot for you to look at what changes had been made after the Korean government embarked on the IT infrastructure plan in 1999.

Source: National Information Society Agency, South Korea

After the launch of ADSL broadband service in 1999, a large number of new Internet-based businesses and service models were created not only by corporations and retailers, but also by students and those who want to run their own business by harnessing the power of broadband. Korea’s rapid technology pace has made many knowledge-based technology ventures that leverage experience in a broadband Internet environment feasible, and still such businesses as online game and Internet web service has been evolving, which certainly contribute to keeping Korean economy moving forward. So, it can be said that the broadband infrastructure became a road for Korean government to ride out the economic crisis and to generate the next wave of economic expansion.

Below are some reasons for Korea’s ICT success and whether they are replicable in other nations. If you want to know more about it, we, VEYOND PARTNERS, will help you find more in-depth information.

Source: ITU