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INTERNATIONAL TRADE
Hyundai chose this year’s Consumer Electronics Show to exhibit its autonomous concept car, which features hydrogen cell technology (see p39); an AI platform that adjusts the ambience of the cabin to match the passenger’s emotional state; and a gesture-controlled infotainment system
postgraduate level and many have become disillusioned with the hierarchical culture that’s particularly prevalent in chaebols. “Traditional Korean companies can be culturally conservative and male-dominated,” Lazell says. “The idea of working in a more relaxed organisation that’s less hierarchical and more gender-balanced appeals to people who want to get out of these big corporations.” An employer offering work-life balance will attract talent in a jurisdiction that operated a maximum working week of 68 hours until last year, when the government cut it to 52, partly as a measure to boost the nation’s declining birth rate. British businesses considering South Korea as a base should not be deterred by the threat of confl ict with its unstable northern neighbour, according to Welch. Seoul may be only 35 miles away from the rogue state that was fi ring missiles into the Sea of Japan as recently as July, but he says: “You’d have thought that world war three was about to break out, with everyone in Seoul hunkering down, if you’d read the international press when I arrived here in 2017. Yet that was very far removed from the reality.”
South Korea’s perennial battles with corruption are perhaps of more concern. On Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2018, the nation ranked alongside Dominica and Cape Verde in a lowly joint 45th place. Also last year, a shocking bribery scandal led to the impeachment
‘If a product makes it big here, it’s likely that other countries in Asia Pacific will consider it cool too’
of, and a 25-year prison sentence for, President Park Geun-hye, plus jail time for her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, and a number of senior directors from Samsung.
people have frantically refused to accept a Houses of Parliament pen.”
BORDERLINE AWKWARD “Be careful when talking about politics,” Godin warns. “People in Europe will easily discuss divisive topics, but here you shouldn’t be cavalier when discussing North Korea, for instance.” It’s wise to keep references to South Korea’s other neighbours to a minimum too: “Don’t spend the whole meeting talking
about how important China or Japan is to your business,” Blakeley advises.
HEART AND SEOUL South Koreans may work hard, but they play hard too. “It’s very easy to get along with them – there’s a certain joie de vivre,” Godin says. “People here enjoy life very much, which comes across in their business meetings. You don’t need to speak Korean to get along with them either.”
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Yet Blakeley argues that foreign fi rms shouldn’t worry unduly, as “corruption tends to happen at a high level and you won’t see much multinational involvement. It’s a very Korean issue.” He adds that, despite the chaebols’ weaknesses, they can move quickly for such big organisations. Their fast decision-making has rubbed off on South Korea’s wider business culture, which he sees as generally a good thing. “Local companies can be demanding, with many late-night calls, but you can land here and open up shop before you’ve had your third meeting in Japan,” he says. Such dynamism is something that Denby,
Interfl oor and the 7,000 other UK fi rms trading here can attest to. “British companies shouldn’t feel intimidated by the chaebols,” Welch says. “To anyone considering South Korea, I would say: ‘Can you afford not to be here?’ There is just so much going on.”
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