LG R&D VIETNAM

Introduction
LG Corporation, formerly known as Lucky-Goldstar, was established in 1958 and has since
become the leader of the advanced digital era, thanks to the technological expertise acquired
by manufacturing home appliances like radios and TVs. It is a South Korean multinational
conglomerate founded by Koo In-hwoi and managed by successive generations of his family.
The headquarters are in the LG Twin Towers building in Seoul. Nowadays, they control more
than 142 local subsidiaries worldwide, with roughly 74,000 executives and employees.
Their philosophy revolves around people, sincerity, and the fundamentals. LG focuses on
understanding customers, offering optimum solutions, and providing new experiences through
ceaseless innovation to help people lead a better life.
They’ve developed their brand image gradually and consistently to communicate, “Life’s
Good.”
Jeong-do management
The ‘Jeong-do management’ embodies high ethical
standards and transparent business operations. They
explain they are becoming a faster and smarter global brand
of the future thanks to their pioneering and innovative
technology and continuous growth.
LG aims to succeed through fair management practices
and constant development of business skills.

Sustainability
Sustainability is a great priority for LG.
The company is focusing on two major areas: ‘3Cs’ for the planet, which are carbon neutrality,
circularity, and clean technology, and ‘3Ds’ for people, which are designed for all, a decent
workplace and diversity & inclusion. As released in the Sustainability Report, LG said:
“3Cs for the Planet: Carbon Neutrality, Circularity and Clean Technology
This year, LG’s global sites recorded total global emissions of direct (scope 1) and indirect
(scope 2) greenhouse gases (GHG) of 92.7 million tons, * a 22 million ton decrease from the
previous year – a reduction that supports its pledge to achieve net-zero (direct and indirect)
by 2030.
The company also recorded a renewable energy conversion rate of 8.2 percent. This comes
after it committed to only using renewable energy at its global business sites by 2050 and
successfully joined RE100 (Renewable Energy 100), an initiative advocating for businesses
to convert to 100 percent renewable energy.
The company is also accelerating carbon reduction in the product use stage by expanding the
application of highly efficient eco-friendly technologies. Approximately 80 percent of LG’s total
carbon emissions come from the product use stage and include indirect emissions (scope 3)

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that are generated outside the company’s operational facilities. Last year, the functional unit
carbon emissions of seven major products, which account for about 80 percent of the carbon
emissions generated during the product use stage, decreased by 13.1 percent compared to
2020. Functional unit carbon emission refers to the value obtained by dividing the amount of
GHG emitted during the average period of product use by the functional unit of the product.
For example, a refrigerator’s GHG emissions are expressed per liter while a washing
machine’s GHG emissions are conveyed per kilogram. In addition, in 2021, LG became the
first South Korean appliance manufacturer to have its GHG emissions reduction target at the
product use stage (scope 3) validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
To establish a circular ecosystem, the company recovered a total of 472,876 tons of electronic
waste from 52 countries last year. Since 2006, LG has recovered a cumulative total of
recovered electronic waste that amounts to 3,992,768 tons. As of 2022, the number of
recycled plastics used in the company’s products reached 32,987 tons, 25 percent higher than
2021 figures. What’s more, the company’s South Korean business sites recently received
Zero Waste to Landfill (ZWTL) verification.
3Ds for People: Design for All, Decent Workplace, and Diversity & Inclusion
LG has also been prioritizing accessibility by integrating voice recognition and voice guidance
features into its major products and distributing braille stickers that attach to every LG home
appliance. The company also plans to expand the universal design concept – products
designed in a way that makes them easy to use by everyone – to all products going forward.
Last year, the company surveyed its major Tier 1 suppliers about their energy usage and
carbon emissions and then verified this data through a third party. Since this year, LG has
been raising awareness among the executives and employees of its partners through a
carbon neutrality education program. A total of 152 suppliers have participated in the program
as of the first half of this year.
In addition, in accordance with international Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) standards,
the company is also providing support through third-party ESG certification reviews to pre-
emptively respond to ESG risks of suppliers in areas such as labour, environment, ethics as
well as health and safety. Beginning this year, the scope has been expanded to include
partners based not only in Korea but around the world.
Expanding Role of ESG Committee
LG continues to expand the role of the ESG Committee which reports to its board of directors
to internalize ESG management. The committee, made up of 4 independent directors and 1
executive CEO, is overseen by chairman Seo Seung-woo, an independent director who was
appointed to the role earlier this year.
Last year, to ensure transparency in the management and governance of the board of
directors and governance structure, the ESG Committee established guidelines for the
independence, diversity and expertise of independent directors as well as the corporate
governance charter.
Since 2006, the company has published its sustainability report every year. Starting last year,
alongside the LG ESG Fact Book which outlines its ESG management goals, activities and

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performance, the company has published the ESG Story Book which helps customers and
stakeholders understand LG’s ESG activities in a more engaging story format”.
Core values
Uncompromising customer experience: consistently pursue high-quality products, services,
communications, and everything they provide meets their uncompromising.
Human-centered innovation: sincerely look at diverse people and their lifestyles, creating
remarkably innovative smart life solutions to lead the whole world in a better way.
Warth to power a smile: put care and thoughtfulness into everything they do, to make people’s
lives, communities, and the environment better, and ensure their products and services leave
people with a smile.
On January 1, 1995, the morning newspapers unveiled LG's new CI to citizens nationwide.
The winking red smiley face had a simple message printed below, "Happy New Year."
The ad sparked widespread curiosity. Then, on January 4, after the New Year holidays, LG
satisfied public curiosity with a full-page newspaper article titled, "Lucky Goldstar turns into
LG." This was LG's first official greeting to the public.
The symbolic mark, dubbed the "Face of the Future", presented along with the new LG name,
was inspired by an artifact from the Silla Dynasty, the "Smile of Silla." It symbolizes five
concepts (world, future, youth, humanity, and technology) and describes LG's management
philosophy of "Creating Value for Customers" and "Promoting People-Oriented Management."
The one-eyed smiley face, created with the "L" and "G," represents goal orientation,
concentration, and positivity. The asymmetric blank section represents creativity and
adaptation.
The "Face of the Future" represents striving to be the best in the world, embodying dynamic
youth, and undertaking new technological challenges. It also symbolizes the face of the global
customers that LG always keeps in mind. It shows LG's People Resolution to respect and
satisfy customers all over the world.
On December 31, 2015, after 20 successful years, LG embarked on another transformation.
The company developed the LG Smart Font, a reflection of love towards the customer, and
applied it to the logo. The LG Smart Font incorporated the emotional connection of
handwritten text and conveyed a customer-oriented, innovative image. The font was also
applied to the "Life's Good" slogan for consistency and unity.
In May 2023, LG Electronics reinvented its brand to actively engage with customers across
various touchpoints. It added youthfulness and dynamism to its distinct brand identity, which
aligns with core values of uncompromising customer experience, human-centered innovation,
warmth to power a smile.
With brave optimism to ensure that Life’s Good for everyone around the world, LG Electronics
introduced its Active Red color and digital logo play and made its slogan “Life's Good” more
iconic.

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 LG Vietnam
The LG Sel Electronics Joint-Venture in Vietnam was established in 1995 and in 1997 started
to manufacture the first product, namely the CTV. The second Vietnam-based affiliate, LG
Meca, was established in 1998 to manufacture refrigerating appliances. In 2002 LG Sel
Electronics was restructured as a 100% foreign-owned company. Later on the digital versatile
disc (DVD), the liquid-crystal display (LCD) and the cell phone were added to the LG product
line in Vietnam. Together with LG in Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, China, India, the United
States and Brazil, the Vietnam-based affiliate is an important manufacturing base of LG
worldwide and as such participates in the global value chain.
At the beginning of the establishment, like many foreign investors in Vietnam, LGEV used to
face a big problem with different culture and working styles of foreign managers and local
employees along the company hierarchy. The language barrier made it difficult for them to
understand each other; Vietnamese staff was often too shy to check the instructions from
Korean managers again and thus could not follow them properly. The cultural gap and the
difference in the working styles resulted in a lot of misunderstanding and conflicts between
Korean and Vietnamese employees. As most Vietnamese employees of LGEV were young
and did not have either experience or soft skills, the differences piled up like a non-tangible
barrier and made them too unconfident in the workplace. The big question for the company
was how to get to know the issues and expectations of local workers and address them
properly. If the problem persisted work quality and productivity would be put at risk.
Mr. Ko Myung Eon, LG Electronics Vietnam General Director, commented on the impact of
the corporate culture as follows: “When the gap among people is filled up, all of us will become
friends and open our hearts to everything. This helps build trust and loyalty among the
employees. The company agenda will be understood from the bottom to the top of the
structure. Once we have trust and solidarity, we believe nothing can block our way to success.
This is the guiding principle of LG Vietnam. I believe it is important for every company,
including those in the electronics industry, to pay attention to building its corporate culture.”
Open Communication is one of the keys to working with people, which means controlling
current self-pride, communicating with speed & accuracy based on respect for others through
modesty, attentive listening/consideration, and open-minded thinking/behaviour.
Side by side, managers worked for harmonized industrial relations and strengthened
corporate culture. The efforts led to great achievements as LG is ranked in the Top 100 best
places to work in Vietnam and in the list of most favorite employers in the electronics-electricity
industry in 2022.

LG Electronics R&D Vietnam

LG Electronics’ (LG) R&D center in Vietnam has officially become an R&D subsidiary in a move
aimed at strengthening LG’s rapidly growing electric vehicle-related business. The opening
ceremony for the new subsidiary was held in March 2023 in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The Vietnam-based R&D subsidiary is tasked with developing and verifying software for in-vehicle
infotainment (IVI) systems, which have been a major focus for the company’s mobility business.

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IVI systems, a key technology for future mobility that includes telematics and Audio, Video,
Navigation (AVN) solutions, simultaneously provide a variety of driving-related information and
entertainment functions.
According to market research firm Strategic Analytics, LG is leading the global market for IVI
systems with a 23% share as of the third quarter of 2022. The company has now recorded a
double-digit share of the IVI market for two years consecutively.
LG has continuously strengthened its R&D capabilities in Vietnam for automotive parts since it
established the Hanoi R&D Center under its Vietnam Production Corporation in 2016. With the
success of the first center, the company created an additional R&D branch office in Da Nang in
2020.
The new R&D subsidiary is part of LG’s strategy to solidify its position in the global auto parts
market and lead the fast-approaching autonomous driving era. Based on the balanced growth of
its three core businesses – IVI systems, lighting and headlight systems via ZKW Group and e-
powertrains developed through a joint venture between LG and Magna, the company now
possesses the technological capabilities, scale, and experience to accelerate the arrival of next-
generation mobility solutions.
LG also aims to increase the workforce at the newly formed LG Electronics Development Vietnam,
Ltd., boosting the number of skilled professionals by more than 30 percent, from 750 to 1,000
employees, by 2024. With the key mission of offering an environment that enables colleagues to
demonstrate their capabilities, focus on their work, and create value & deliver the “invaluable”
office operation services & solutions that contribute to a company’s business success.
Since 2021, LG has been operating programs in collaboration with Vietnamese universities to
help foster the next level, LG will continue to further enhance our capabilities and develop next-
generation, innovative mobility solutions.”
The IT labor market 2023 - 2024
In the report of Future of IT 2023, KPMG revealed some key points: IT can make pivotal innovation
happen at a remarkable scale and unprecedented pace, and IT will be under pressure, perhaps
as never before, to do more — both faster and better. This pressure is compounded by the
prevailing challenge of obtaining the modern talent needed to meet transformation goals and
cybersecurity requirements. In light of this, KPMG believes technology organizations will need to
attract and retain key talent in new ways and innovate at a greater scale to deliver features and
insights that delight customers and employees.
Having a closer look at the labor market, KPMG evaluates that current talent management
practices are not enough to combat the shortage of vital IT talent, thus, leading to the challenges
of creative solutions needed to recruit and retain IT Talents.
The labor shortage of IT professionals is not a new challenge. Most organizations have struggled
with this for some time and the extraordinary demand for IT professionals during the pandemic,
coupled with the ‘great resignation,’ only heightened the labor challenge. Latest estimates
suggest that 30–70 percent of data, security and development job postings are still going unfilled.
Looking forward, the shift to a technology ecosystem that is primarily ‘as a service’ will likely
compound the IT labor crisis amid the need for appropriate new digital skills. Not only are
organizations struggling to recruit talent, but they are also struggling to retain the talent they have.
Gartner reports that IT workers have a 19.5 percent lower intent to stay with their company, as
compared to non-IT employees. A large part of solving the labor shortage involves creating a truly
modern working environment. Interestingly, a shift to modern technology and ways of working is
not just important to the business, it is critical to attracting top IT talent that today prefers an

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innovative, future-ready workplace. Organizations can combat this challenge by upskilling their
workforce. However, according to KPMG analysis, while overall IT spending is expected to
increase year over year, many organizations plan to reduce the proportion of IT budget spent on
training and education. This strategy will not be sustainable for IT organizations that are already
struggling to recruit talent — it will only dig them into a bigger skills deficit. IT organizations should
expect to prioritize and invest in strategic recruiting models, upskilling their workforce, and
cultivating an environment that retains talent if they hope to reduce their growing skills gap and
remain competitive.

You are the consultant, invited by top management of LG R&D for specific responsibility to
prepare a report, citing relevant research, which addresses the following tasks in the areas
outlined below.
Task 1 – Individual assignment
Midterm exam by week 9.
Taks will be released in exam.
Task 2 - Group assignment
Performance appraisal
1. Design appraisal form so the top management of the company could apply in assessing
performance of staff by the end of this year.
2. Who could be chosen as appraisers?
3. Propose solutions to reward the good performance.
4. Propose solutions to improve the underperformance.
Presentation will be 15 minutes for each group. You are welcome to do Role Playing in the
presentation.
Word length: 4,000 +/-10%.
Notice:
Data are used for educational purpose only.
Sources:
- https://www.lg.com/global/
- LG 2022-2023 Sustainability Report
- https://www.lg.com/vn
- Company’s profiles
- And other documents provided by LG
- Preparing for Future of IT 2023, KPMG