Samsung SDI Wins Most Respected Company Title

Samsung SDI, a display manufacturing company, ranked first place in a research study named “The 30 most respected companies in Korea.” This research surveyed locally listed companies based on criteria such as financial status, management reform, transparency, staff, customer satisfaction, social contribution and environment-oriented activities.

Samsung Electronics Co. followed just behind Samsung SDI by a narrow margin. Shinsegae, KT&G, and LG Electronic Co. took third, fourth, and fifth place, respectively.

Donga Ilbo and IBM Korea Business Consulting Services (BCS) jointly selected the “30 respected Korean companies” and released the outcome of survey on June 20. Among domestic listed companies (COSPI 200), they applied five major checkpoints such as shareholders, company staff, customers, society, environment, and 52 core performance indexes. IBM BCS Korea is the Korean branch of the worldwide renowned consulting firm, IBM BCS.

The two companies decided to release a report on the “30 most-respected Korean companies” every year and encourage a desirable image for the companies.

This selection of “respected companies” was the first attempt of its kind in Korea, following in the footsteps of the U.S. economic magazine “Fortune,” which evaluates global companies every year.

It took eight months to develop an evaluation system and questionnaire for the survey, and 101 companies replied to it. In addition, seven experts from different fields have been involved in the project as advisors.

In number terms, the manufacturing sector ranked in first place with 19 companies among the selected 30 companies. The financial sector followed next with five, construction and the electronic-gas sector with two companies each, and distribution and advertising sectors with one company, respectively.

As for the public sector that has completed the privatization process, POSCO (21st) in addition to KT&G were included on the list of 30 companies.

Samsung SDI also ranked first in terms of staff and social activities, and Kookmin Bank won the top spot regarding shareholders. Amore Pacific and LG Electronic Co. placed first regarding customer satisfaction and environment, respectively.

Regarding the average score of each criterion, experts pointed out that environment (61.91) and society (55.97) indices rate far lower than customer (73.3), staff (69.52) and shareholder (66.49) indices, which will therefore need more efforts to improve. The advisors expected that this survey will contribute to help Korean companies reinforce their management reform efforts and social responsibility.

Won-Jae Lee Byong-Ki Lee wjlee@donga.com eye@donga.com