Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times: Asian Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact during COVID-19

ASIA BUSINESS COUNCIL HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 6 4 Lotte Group (South Korea) Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times rail to the packing zone in stores before being picked up and delivered to the customer. Lotte On will also utilize its fully automated warehouse located in Gimpo and try to expand online grocery services for overnight delivery to rural areas. In addition, Lotte’s Auto Fresh Center, which opened in Gyeonggi Prefecture in March 2019, is equipped with 19 robots that can pick up 3,000 items of products stored at room temperature and place them into 7,200 designated baskets, which are then moved to a conveyor belt line for the addition of frozen food and fresh food. 26 With less than seven minutes needed from order to packing, the automated logistics center is expected to play a bigger role in the post-coronavirus era. 27 And while fresh food and grocery may be the top priority for now, Choi notes that Lotte On will continue to improve and optimize its various functions for different products and services. Conclusion To be fair, as much as Lotte On takes center stage for Lotte as the group seeks to rebound from the coronavirus crisis, the South Korean conglomerate is a corporate giant with many other businesses, affiliates, and employees in multiple sectors and industries globally. For a glimpse into how Lotte’s top executives might be thinking about the pandemic, it may be worthwhile to read “BC and AC,” or “Before Corona and After Corona,” a booklet published in May 2020 by the group’s research institutes, Lotte Academy and Lotte Institute of Economy and Business Strategy. 28 Distributed to all C-suite executives at Lotte Group, 29 the booklet analyzes the pandemic from historical, economic, political, technological, and social angles, in addition to offering a public health perspective. 30 While Lotte On exemplifies the type of digital transformation taking place across many companies in various economies, the authors of the booklet opine that for South Korea this is an acceleration of pre- COVID-19 trends – rather than a “revolution” – given that the country already had one of the most sophisticated technological infrastructures in the world. 31 Indeed, South Korea could well be one of the countries that is more prepared for the “new normal” in the post-coronavirus era, in which there is what “BC and AC” calls the rapid strengthening of the “untact phenomenon.” 32 The challenge for Lotte is whether it too can adapt, transform, and emerge as a “winner” from a crisis that is unlike any it has previously seen. Indeed, the “untact economy” is a popular term in South Korea, where the word “untact” comes from a combination of the prefix “un” with the word “contact.” The concept is that of a contact-free economy. Lotte On appears keen to leverage its existing supply chains and delivery services to offer “untact” solutions.