Screenshots

Boh H. Choi, head of LG Mobile Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA) Business Team... LensaPress photo by Jeff Ooi

"We know the task ahead is very tough, and we have to dislodge some of the dominate players to be among the Top 3," said Choi, who is also the team leader for Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA) Business Team for LG Electronics' Mobile Communications Company.

However, Choi declined to identify which brands among the incumbents LG targets to displace in three years' time.

Probed further on LG's scanning of the market environment in the next three years, an LG senior manager who chaperoned this blogger during the tour expressed his high regards for Nokia and SONY-Ericsson, while the company was closely the staccato in product and marketing strategies taking place in Motorola and Samsung.

Meanwhile, another senior LG official told me that his company was watching Motorola very closely as the American company had not had any unique model after RAZR.

Last week, LG hosted some 70 business and IT journalists, comprising 11 countries from Africa, Middle East, the Indian Sub-continent and South-east Asia, to Seoul for a firsthand look at its new products and future technologies.

This blogger was the only non-mainstream journalist invited to the media tour, which incorporated a visit to the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

Blue Ocean Strategy & REEC

Apparently, girdling LG's ambition in global dominance is a corporate strategy skewed on the Blue Ocean Strategy, an important milestone for LG which I highlighted in this blog last May, when Chocolate, the first LG Black Label series was launched in Malaysia.

At the press conference where LG unveiled its second Black Label series, Shine (preview in Screenshots soon), Jae Bae, LG Executive Vice President for Overseas Sales & Marketing Division obliged my question and explain at length on how LG had embraced the integrated management philosophy outlined by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.

I had asked Bae that, being a relative late-comer in the GSM market, what strategies LG had taken to create uncontested market space in mobile phone sector and make its competitors irrelevant.

"LG Chocolate is a Blue Ocean product," Bae said. "It was our first flagship series to penetrate the GSM market with a strong point of differentiation that separates us from the competitors."

Chocolate... LG's key milestones in global market share

He added that, instead of competing on me-too features and slashing prices, LG had bold steps researching into consumer needs in combining functionalities with innovative designs.

"Several years ago, we have invested heavily in innovative industrial designs by setting global design networks in Milan, New Delhi, Beijing, Tokyo and New Jersey," said Kang-Heui Cha, Executive Director at Mobile Communications Design R&D Lab at the LG Electronics Design Management Center.

"We have since gone on to win numerous industry awards in 2006, including the Design for Asia Award (DFA) Grand Prize, iF Design Award for the Chocolate Phone, and the prestigious Design Team of the Year award from Red Dot," Cha added.

The latest scoop for LG was its recent success, beating other competitors, to forge a collaboration with PRADA, a premium brand in fashion, to introduce a jointly-developed lifestyle phone for the up-market.

LG PRADA (KE850)... Picture courtesy LG Electronics Inc.

Bae also emphasised that LG managed to seize sizeable market share when it launched the Chocolate series, starting with the European market last year.

"Last year, LG has sold 64.4 million handset units globally, which is a 17% increase over the previous year's sales," Bae said. "The success was in part due to the global hit product, the LG Chocolate."

The Chocolate sold more than 7.5 million units last year besides winning numerous design awards.

Bae said, given the rapid growth of the 3G market and LG’s position in the global market, the company targets to sell 78 million handsets in 2007.

The flagship model for 2007 is the second LG Black Label series, Shine, augmented by the LG Prada, which had been launched in UK last month, and is slated for a soft launch in Malaysia next month.

Introducing LG Shine and PRADA (from l to r) Chang Ma, VP of Marketing Strategy Team, Choi, Bae and Cha... LensaPress photos by Jeff Ooi

However, over the farewell dinner, Choi confessed to this blogger that 2007 will be the phase of survival for all global players. He anticipated a more competitive environment in that there will be atrocious price-slashing and customer needs has to be accommodated in an intimate manner.

Bae rounded up his answer to my question by saying that, to be the Top 3 in three years' time, the entire LG workforce -- from product development, global marketing and distribution to analysing customer feedback and user exoerience -- has been psyched on the mantra of ERRC Framework which, in the LG's adoption of Blue Ocean Strategy, stands for Elimination (of factors that the industry have taken for granted), Reduction (of factors that are below the industry standards), Raising (of factors well above the industry standards) and Creation (of factors that the industry has never created).

Blue Ocean and ERRC Framework are omnipresent in LG workplace... LensaPress photo by Jeff Ooi

The convince the media of its single-purpose focus to be a Top 3 player, LG brought us to visit its global HQ at the LG Twin Towers, the Design Center, the R&D Center, the manufacturing plant and the product authentication centre, which are scattered around Seoul City.

I was given a further dose of confidence-boosting to learn that Young Mun "Matt" Seo, who also sat near me at the farewell dinner, has recently been assigned to take care of the Malaysian market. He is the group manager who oversees the South-east Asian and Oceania markets.

NEXT: LG's 'Blue Ocean' on product innovation and industrial designs.