“There is no fading industry for any line of business.”
How to do it determines the possibility to create a high added value.
[윤봉섭 기자] Everyone wants to succeed in life, but there is something different about a successful CEO. President Shin Yoon-ki of Seiyu Inc. has his own story of success. Many CEOs have had a life common but uncommon, full of ups and downs, and with many stories of success and failure. Though president Shin was not an exception, he made a comeback after much difficulty because of his unusual endurance, management philosophy for trust and a thorough self-management. We met him to hear his story.
Professional eye for trend and building confidence with buyers
Seiyu Inc., a manufacture of artificial leather for handbags, is supplying textile materials for handbags to world-famous brands such as MICHAEL KORS, MARC JACOBS, KATE-SPADE, etc. President Shin Yoon-ki, who has engaged in textile material sales for 36 years since 1979, started his own business in January 1990 after working for Daedong Chemicals and Samyang Chemicals. He has been running textile business for 25 years. Taking the most important part of most fashion material, textiles are such a field very sensitive to colors, texture and consumer’s trend that this market cannot be entered by those without a feel for fashion ahead of others.
President Shin’s principle is to be ranking first in the world. “Though we export several million dollars’ worth, we have no sales person separately. We figure out exactly what products our buyers need at any times, get ready by making them promptly, and the word of mouth for good quality simply sends buyers to us by looking here and there for us.” President Shin emphasizes that it is important to read out the trend exactly. He has been able to make success overcoming crisis, because of his quick feel for fashion and a thorough preparedness. Seiyu Inc. is actually reinvesting over 8% of annual sales in R&D. Such positive investment leads to increasing annual sales figures over 20% and from the factory located at Wenzhou, China, they are exporting all textile products worth $20 million (including direct exports of shoe textiles) annually and $1.5 million monthly to 17 countries including the US, Europe, Vietnam, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Iran, Brazil and Mexico.
President Shin says building confidence with buyers also matters. He explained, “Material for handbags is characteristically 100% produced to order. So failing to meet the quality and appointed date of delivery wanted by a buyer makes it impossible to build confidence. We have made sure to send our products preferentially in full by air to foreign customers even if it entails cost at times.” To do things responsibly is the start of building confidence, so we have been doing business by word of mouth alone seeking for more advanced competitiveness in prompt after-sale service as well as in quality and appointed date of delivery. “Don’t do business like you make a deal. Both have the same purpose of making money, but while in making a deal, you sell so long as it gives any amount of profit money, business is something to do looking far into distance. Confidence cannot be bought with money. Keep confidence thoroughly like your own life. Besides, make no enemies and attach importance to human relations.”
Believing that supplying good textile material will make the best product, President Shin adheres only to high-quality material suited for luxury goods. For this, the company makes a careful selection for materials through the personnel’s mindset, management system, etc. He is ready to go anywhere to find good quality, not low-priced one. Seyoo Inc.’s biggest merit is reading the trend of handbags in fashion exactly, responding promptly and making a rule to supply high-quality material differentially. That’s why president Shin Yoon-ki have observed the leather exhibition held in Italy twice a year for the past 20 years even at such difficult times of the company as hard to prepare traveling expenses. It was because success in textile industry required reading a new trend in the fashion of the world promptly.
Opportunity comes twice to a person who makes sincere efforts.
In running his business, President Shin attaches importance to quality, confidence and return to society. He also believes that “There is no fading business in any line of business and opportunity certainly comes to a person who makes sincere efforts. He has engaged only in the textiles of handbags (artificial leather) for as long as 36 years until running a manufacturer exporting $20 million a year. However, he had a bitter experience of losing his company failing to overcome the IMF crisis. If he had given up then, there wouldn’t be Seiyu Inc. as it is today. Rather, according to President Shin Yoon-ki, he thought hard about why the company had become bankrupt then.
“A business person cannot succeed without being different from others. How could he ever succeed if he is just the same as ordinary people having all the fun. The bottom line is that he must be different in something, a workaholic with a sense of responsibility and reliability.” In his forties of the prime of life, he says, he lost money, honor, friends and everything when his business went under. Going through many hours of desperate struggle for a comeback he ran a tremendous debt for a fling when his business was slow, not to mention a hard time he suffered. However, in resolution not to fail again, he endeavored to become the best in his field. Believing that ‘Opportunity comes twice for those in preparation,’ he has tried to have more expertise, build a perspective of business for a distant future instead of immediate small gains, and prioritize and keep confidence like his own life. “While I felt indigence and hunger myself, I became aware of how big a trouble and sorrow of the other can be and how large a sum of money a ten-thousand won bill is. I seem to be growing up only now.”
President shin Yoon-ki says, “Since money can be made tomorrow even if not today, I have tried not to lose people working in my own calling all the time.” He didn’t count on luck by chance, look to only compensation for his efforts, and even come to his office on weekends for mediation, which also brought him an unexpected good idea. However, he never impose this habit on his staff except that he emphasizes to them being different from others for a successful life. Especially, president Shin introduces that there has been a hit number called Metallic Mirror for the last 5 years. He explained, “When I had a hard time, someone advised me to develop this product because there were lots of buyers looking for it. I owe my comeback to this product and even now when 5 years have passed, orders and exports are constantly on the increase.” To develop the product, he had visited the leather-making factory in Italy for study in person and learned the process in which they made it. It was his unique endeavor to develop products different from others that has made him what he is.
President Shin, 59 years old now, says he will continue to work as long as his health allows it. From his knowhow and experience as an expert in fashion accumulated for the past 36 years, he says to his juniors, “If it is easy for you to learn, it is also easy for others. If it is hard for you to learn, it is hard for others, too. Professionalism cannot be made in a day.” Promising himself to go on with no loaning management, president Shin is considering a new business in China. It is a distribution of cosmetics and he is planning to display domestic products made from smaller companies, using the human network built in China over the 20 years of commuting between Korea and China. Besides, though he is called a workaholic, he has much interest in giving back to the community. “I have a mind to make money assiduously and spend it for the right cause. When I checked myself, I found there are so many handicapped, North Korean defectors, old people living alone and disadvantaged young students at Gayang-dong, Gangseo-gu, that I am going to get along helping them as far as possible,” he declared. He really wants to make a big hope of whatever he can do for them. Reported by Yoon Bong-seop
