Kevin Lee's Blog

“A Factory that Produces a Clear, Blue Sky.” It doesn’t make sense at all. How can a factory produce a clear, blue sky? Factories are usually the number one image of air pollution. It’s KC Cottrell’s catch phrase. KC Cottrell is a small-medium sized company in Korea that specializes in air pollution control. So what’s so special about them? The fact that they have won the overseas contract with GE (General Electric Company). Think about it. GE chose a small-medium sized company in a small country, not a major corporation in U.S. or Europe. This demonstrates that KC Cottrell is very competitive in the global market and being a small-medium sized company, shows that scale doesn’t matter. Clearly, the CEO of KC Cottrell knows how to do business.
Their development and growth taught me three things.
1. You can’t just jump into the major league. You need a strong, solid base to jump into the global market.
2. Widen your views. Look and think far ahead. Expanding your business through discovering and developing a new field will open the opportunities of success.
3. The power that allows a medium sized company to continuously grow is to have independent technical skills without relying on major corporations.

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Hyundai is introducing its flagship model, Equus, to the North American market. As always, Hyundai has set its price tag much lower than its competitions. Since they do not have reputation and quality like Lexus, competitive price and 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty is their advantage. Have you ever wondered how Hyundai maintains its business and creates huge net profit? Here’s a clue. Equus will be sold around $56,000 to $60,000 for the base model and $63,000 to $67,000 fully loaded. In South Korea, base model starts at $67,000(which is equal to a fully loaded Equus in North America) and fully loaded at a whopping $110,000. Moreover, warranty in Korea is 4-year, 50,000-mile.

Hyundai has been exploiting its home market. They exploited the fact that South Korea’s car market is an oligopoly. Considering that Hyundai owns Kia, Hyundai possesses nearly 87% of the market. Hyundai treats domestic customers as sitting ducks. Currently, Hyundai might be happy with maximizing profitability through unreasonable pricing in the domestic market, but when FTA with Japan settles, Hyundai might face the risk of exiting the market. WATCH OUT!

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Dear Hyundai,

It is time to surprise the North American market with a proper car. Proper meaning a car bought because of performance and quality rather than price and warranty.

In 2000, GM completely took over Saab as a subsidiary. In 2003, the all-new 9-3 was a success. It looked, felt, and sounded like a Saab. Everything went wrong in 2005 when GM tried to use Saab as a utility to increase sales. GM combined vehicles from its subsidiaries and added a Saab badge. Result? It was a total commercial failure. Then, GM met a steep hill and decided to loose some weight. GM sells Saab’s technology to a Chinese company. Totally legal. But no matter how urgent they were, they should have at least kept the pride of Saab. How can the Scandinavian passion be used in cars with no soul and passion?

After the all-new 9-3, none of the Saab technology resulted as a new Saab vehicle. GM knows better than anyone that Saab has its unique taste and there are lots of enthusiasts who are crazy for it. Simply, GM “used” Saab. Not illegal but ethically wrong. They have not only destroyed a passionate automobile company that has been around for 73 years but also made thousands and thousands of Saab lovers to despair. Do they care? No. Because they have all the Saab technology they need.

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Joyrde. Web. 15 Sep 2010.
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