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Hello, I am Park Kang-cheol, head of the Nexen Tire Shanghai. I have been with Nexen Tire ever since joining Woosung Industries, the precursor of Nexen, in 1988 to fill a position in its tire department. The 26 years I’ve been here have indeed been long and challenging, but it has brought me a whole host of valuable and precious experiences. Let me share with you my story about Nexen Tire.

It came to my attention that Woosung Group was looking for people to work in its overseas sales force while I was working for a small trading firm after graduating from university in 1986. Contrary to my expectations that I would be placed in the overseas sales force, I in fact ended up working in domestic sales covering the city of Busan, Korea. This became the first job I had at the company because the person who had originally been earmarked to fill the post decided not to join in and I happened to be from that city anyway. My job at that time was to sell tires and woolen fabric. Among the tires, large ones were of a bias type, incorporating tubes, which have since become largely obsolete. Everything was then in its infancy compared to today, including both sales volume and amount. Since then, I have gradually climbed my way up the ladder, from sales planner for domestic sales through to planning manager for the entire company, purchase manager, then general manager and executive director for domestic sales to managing director of the company’s subsidiary in Shanghai, China, where I am now. Looking back, a lot of water has certainly flowed under the bridge. (Laughing).

After Woosung Tire was acquired by Nexen Tire, the chairman and CEO of the company appointed me, who then had little experience, to take the responsibility for an important role – purchasing. Being aware that the company at that time required a huge amount of funding as well as cost savings, my subordinate employees and I put in a lot of effort and finally achieved cost savings of 4.5 billion KRW. I hope the achievement made even a small contribution to what Nexen is now. Looking at how Nexen is doing today, I am proud of all I did back then.

I was appointed to be the general manager of sales under Shanghai sales headquarters of Qingdao Subsidiary, when I was assigned for the first time ever to a post in China. Now as the head of the Shanghai sales entity, I feel a much greater sense of accountability on my job. At first I found myself unable to understand even the simplest Chinese, much less being able to speak it, I was faced with the huge challenge of adjusting to my new life in China and working properly on my job. For example, the company forbids Korean expatriates from driving in China due to the different driving culture and the fear of possible risk to foreigners on the roads. I came here alone, without my family, because my two sons had both the military service and college entrance exam coming shortly, respectively, which needed my wife’s full support. Nowadays, she comes over to China to visit me from time to time. The life of Korean expatriates here, outside their work, usually consists of intermittent dining together and family gatherings. My activity in my free time is also limited to going to downtown Shanghai by taxi or bus (now I can communicate in Chinese to a greater extent).
The Shanghai entity is one devoted to domestic sales of RE and OE tires and consists of an RE sales section, a marketing section, an administration section, an OE section and a CS section. Each section is headed by a Korean expatriate, except for the sales sections which have Chinese managers, team leaders and branch heads. Many of the section members show exceptional growth in their job skills, prompting the expectation that they will soon secure a performance comparable to that of their counterparts in advanced markets.

I once drank up a whole bucket of makgeoli, a Korean traditional wine, at a bar off campus back when I was a real heavy drinker. (Laugh)
Each person can handle drink to a varying degree, so it is hard to know your own limit before you hit it. But one thing is clear: “If you drink as much as you want to, get to work completely sober the next morning, and can repeat the same cycle for three days in a row, this is your drinking capacity. If you can do it, just cut down on your drink.”
For me, as I have always said, it is not alcohol, but networking that makes me drink. That is obvious because I don’t drink alone and don’t feel like it unless there is a special reason.

China is truly a huge market, but it’s also a very challenging market because a whole bunch of brands, global or local, are competing to establish a stronger presence there. Though it has been nearly 20 years since Korean brands like Hankook and Kumho first set foot on China, they still face many challenges. Looking ahead, I feel that for us as well there are many things still to be done.
For this year and next, three objectives have been identified. The first one is to secure more distribution channels. The Chinese market will be segmented to identify key regional markets, and distribution channels in each market will be analyzed to pinpoint distributors to focus on.
The second is to reinforce our sales capability. I will make sure that more talented human resources will be recruited locally and that existing employees will receive better training to help them have sufficient capability to achieve what the company expects them to do.
The third is to fulfill our business goals. I will oversee the Shanghai Subsidiary’s transformation into a sales entity that can really drive through the accomplishment of its business goals. Besides these three objectives, I would also like to see the subsidiary having Nexen’s original corporate culture brought in. A variety of ideas will be tested and implemented to make Nexen’s corporate culture known here more widely and thus will help it have a reputation to look up to. Thank you for your time reading my long story. I will keep you posted with news of the growth of Nexen in China.

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