Research Article
Strategic Evolution of Kolmar Korea: Toward another 100yr for Kolmar Korea
1 Seoul School of Integrated Sciences and Technologies
Published: January 2009 · Vol. 12, No. 3 · pp. 1-50
Full Text
Abstract
In the present case-study, we exhibit strategic evolution process and core competencies of Kolmar Korea co. by analyzing the case of the company. Kolmar Korea is the largest OEM/ODM manufacturer in cosmetic industry in Korea. In the initial period, it was made by Joint Venture with Nihon Kolmar so most of things had been learned by Nihon Kolmar at that time however it has dramatically made lots of evolutions and then it reversely taught some new knowledge to Nihon Kolmar and recently also made Beijing Kolmar. In other word, Kolmar Korea which was made by Kolmar network, specifically Nihon Kolmar, is making another network through FDI in China. In the case-study, we found there were three stages in the strategic evolution process of Kolmar Korea. The 1st stage is “Initial investment and learning of technologies” and the 2nd stage is “Making technologies in house and initial evolution” and the last stage is “making new networks: establishing new business model and FDI in China”. We can told the whole processes were successful until now however we can also guess there will be lots of challenges in the future such as the variations of business environment in China, the heavy competitions in the cosmetic industry in both countries, Korea and China. Therefore, even though there were many researches about the company, we can not confidently argue that the future of Kolmar Korea will be successful continuously because the performance is nothing in the China market. Hence, as the perspective of an evolutionary study, researchers need to analyze and forecast the performance in the China market through considering the performances and processes until now and also we anticipate many scholars will analyze real performances after this study.
