OREANDA-NEWS. SK planet (CEO Seo Jin-Woo, www.skplanet.com <http://www.skplanet.com>) introduced 'NEXT Commerce' strategy that provides a differentiated customer value using big data in Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014, held in Barcelona, Spain.

During the 'Up Close & Personal: Power of Big Data' session, CEO Seo Jin-Woo, delivered a keynote speech under the theme of Big Data in NEXT Commerce on February 26, 2014.

CEO Seo Jin-Woo said, “Now is not the time to think about investing in big data, but it is time that we should focus on which value we have to deliver to our customers using big data in business. We can find the answer to this question from the mobile.”

CEO Seo explained this using the Korean market as an example that is rapidly adopting mobile environment, “The drastic increase of customers' mobile data use doesn't simply represent quantitative increase, but explosive increase of chances to observe customers multilaterally. We reached a conclusion that, through experiences on operating various mobile platforms, we will be able to deliver a special value to our customers using big data in the 'mobile commerce' sector.”

It is expected that the annual turnover of the Korean mobile commerce market in 2014 will reach to KRW 10 trillion and it is recording 154.7% of annual growth rate since 2011. Compared with the American mobile commerce market of which annual growth rate is 61.1%, the Korean market is showing 2.5 times higher growth rate, which represents that the Korean market is emerging as the world's best mobile commerce market.

The mobile commerce transaction amount of SK planet 11th Street, which is leading Korea's mobile commerce market, increased more than eight times in the past two years. In addition, mobile payment is rapidly increasing and it is accounting for 50% of daily payment.

CEO Seo declared, “Through the data from customers, we were able to have better understanding on our customers and, based on this, we were able to provide consistent experiences to customers and constructed Omni-Channel that connects online, mobile, and offline at the same time. We will introduce NEXT Commerce that realizes true combination of online and offline and provides better understanding on human beings through combination of commerce with big data.”

CEO Seo Jin Woo explained, “NEXT Commerce that SK planet is thinking of is a 'Unified Commerce' that customers and service providers can continuously communicate using mobile based on combined online and offline. At the same time, they can easily and conveniently share information before and after the transaction.”

He added, “As we switched from OK Cashbag with 37 million members and 50,000 franchises into NEW OK Cashbag that is specialized into mobile, we will provide new values to our customers with our convenient, efficient, and individualized experiences, and give cost efficient and profit creation opportunities to service providers. This will make it possible to construct a unified commerce platform that will connect various sellers with customers under the open structure.”

The most prominent characteristic of NEXT Commerce is that it enabled to construct organic relational networks among consumers, shops, and manufacturers through various innovative technologies such as mobile-centered LBS, NFC, and BLE. Using these networks, they are able to communicate with each other.

For example, when customers touch NFC tags in the shop with their smartphones, points get accumulated and they can receive coupons and information on events held around the shop. Also they can participate in promotions provided through co-marketing between shops. As it provides information on restaurants and shops around the customer based on their location, business partners can have chances to provide differentiated marketing opportunities and customers can enjoy convenient services.

SK planet will add new values to customers' daily lives via mobile and is planning to actively promote NEXT Commerce's global business based on strong commerce platform competitiveness such as OK Cashbag and 11th Street.

Meanwhile, CEO Seo Jin Woo delivered an opening keynote speech in Tech Planet 2014 held in November 2013, “The real transformation into online and offline unified commerce is to create values by grafting creative thoughts into innovative technologies based on understanding of human beings. SK planet will become the spearhead that opens this era.”