POSCO POWER Is the Global Complex Energy Company Opening the Eco-Friendly Green Growth

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
Customer Solution Case Study
/ Harmony of Culture, Space and Technology,
Creative and Productive Work Smart!
Overview
Country or Region: Korea
Industry: Energy
Customer Profile
POSCO Power, which obtained a license of the private power generation for the first time in Korea in 1968, is the global leading energy company doing its business for LNG power, fuel cell, solar photovoltaic, coal-fired electrical power, etc. all around the world.
Business Situation
There has come a time when it has to make an organization where people work creatively and intelligently rather than work hard but inefficiently, as its operation and employees expand both onshore and offshore.
Solution
It has established the foundation for Work Smart by considering the communication and collaboration between domestic and overseas staff in terms of not only IT technology, but also new place and cultural (people) change.
Benefits
· Changed the organization
· Improved idea sharing
· Increased immersion on business / "In terms of communication, people can identify if they can talk with to communicate with phone or messenger in any place. In terms of immersion, there is island room, focus room and individual business room, which made business productivity improved.”
Minsik Sim, Leader of Talents Management Group
POSCO POWER exclaimed to make a leap to the global complex energy company as a vision. POSCO POWER has been paying a lot of attention to the very Work, because it felt the difficulty in communication and collaboration due to its expansion around the world. So, the company decides to changing work and the workplace. This project was not IT development initiative. POSCO POWER faced up squarely the fact that it need not only IT, but also space and cultural innovation to make the organization work smartly so that it has driven the large project of building a intelligent building and establishing new culture including flexible workplace. POSCO POWER moved a step closer to the transition into creative and productive Work Smart system, which it had aimed at first, by laying the foundation of communication and collaboration in the harmony of culture, space and technology.

Situation

POSCO POWER is the global complex energy company opening the eco-friendly green growth era including LNG power, solar photovoltaic, fuel cell, etc. The company is doing business at home and abroad like North America, Asia, Africa, etc. In case of Korea, it is operating plants and factories across the nation including Seoul, Incheon, Pohang and Gwangyang.

In such a company which has organizations distributed at home and abroad, the communication and collaboration become the criteria to evaluate the productivity and business capability. This is because the rapid and reasonable decision making regardless of physical distance ensure the enterprise-wide business efficiency.

POSCO POWER has also heard a voice coming from departments, which has frequent internal and external communication, such as management Innovation group and talents management group that they must reduce the wasted factors in communication and collaboration for recent years. As the organization and workforce expands, it felt the limit on improving business efficiency with its existing way of work.

The external consulting result was also the same. In a result of survey for immersion on performance, communication, collaboration, autonomy, etc. was rated low. POSCO POWER didn’t make light of it, but thought it would be a good way for improving its current organizational culture and how to work.

POSCO POWER identified that the domestic companies are working hard but aren’t getting the same high productivity compared to global players through a variety of case studies and statistics. It has found that as it grows as a global company, its employees’ sex, region, age and religion have diversified. This perception made the company decide to work more smartly.

To change the way of work and culture, it thought, the three-dimensional approach would be needed. It looked the harmony of three factors of culture (people), space and technology could realize the real innovation. It thought the fundamental transition would not be possible with the lack of anyone of them.

Solution

POSCO POWER thought that it has to change the vertical management into the network management for improving productivity based on creativity. To open up a road of change, it thought, it has to acquire the enterprise mobility using IT technology and enable providing the business flexibility through the time and space innovation and flexible workplace. It means that the company found the harmony of IT technology and business workplace innovation would be essential to make great working place where the work and life are balanced. Such a blueprint was not a picture that existed only in mind.

POSCO POWER built the Future Center, which presents an archetype of future office space in Incheon and made employees in headquarters move to it in the second half of 2011. This building is featured by the business immersion- and communication-driven space design, as a future intelligent building where the Work Smart was considered from the stage of design.

For example, this Future Center has no partition which the office has generally. The view opened out to help staff to work looking into each other's eyes. In addition, people could even feel as if they are working in resort due to the seating arrangement and enough resting space. In the open environment, there are functional rooms including Island room, focus room, etc. for helping staff to use, when they have to concentrate on their own business and talk on the phone long time.

For POSCO POWER, Work Smart is not a challenge only in a single department. They can’t complete the puzzle of Work Smart without a close collaboration between the related departments. Regarding this, Jinho Kim, Assistant Manager of Management Innovation Group said, “As we move to the Future Center, we started the enterprise-wide Work Smart.” He said, “To build the Future Center, Administration department was in charge of space, Sustainable Management Group of organizational culture and Management Innovation Group of IT. The Future Center was sketched based on the collaboration of these.”

The Future Center in POSCO POWER is not a state of the art building only in terms of space. It introduced the flexible seats to allow staff to do their business in a seat they want without seats specified and the flexible working time to make the autonomy-and creativity-based business culture settled. These space and culture (people) are chemically combined through the United Communication (UC) technology.

HongJun Song, Leader of Management Innovation Group, said, “It is difficult to do the space and culture innovation including flexible seats, through which staff can do their work conveniently in any seat, if there was not UC.” He added, “As the Work Smart environment implements in the Future Center, we tried to provide IT infrastructure enabling communication between employees across the organization to improve immersion on business and productivity.” POSCO POWER paid attention to selecting UC solution because of its important role.

It examined the UC solution and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) system from Microsoft. It decided to choose the UC solution for UC foundation in the Future Center, Pohang and Kwangyang, after analyzing pros and cons from both of them. They made a decision with the additional cost when expanding and user convenience in mind.

POSCO POWER has a lot of operations in Korea, and project sites abroad. It would cost much to implement FMC to these all operations to support UC enabling enterprise-wide Work Smart. From a perspective of convenience, Microsoft’s UC solution enables users to use voice talking, data communications, document sharing and video conference in a single window called Lync unlike FMC which has a strong point in wired/wireless voice talking convenience. This means UC solution allows all business communication and collaboration to be processed on Lync. POSCO POWER decided the direction of UC implementation and has extended the service from the Future Center to headquarters, Incheon, Kwangyang and Pohang.

Benefits

Changed vertical organization into network-type organization

POSCO POWER’s Work Smart environment sets the pattern for other companies in the industry as of 2011. Lots of enterprises noticed the balance of space, culture and technology. The company assessed internally that it made the turning point for changing its organizational structure from hierarchical and vertical one to network-type one through the creativity-based productivity improvement.

People working in the Future Center of POSCO POWER stands for the reality of network-type organization. They are working at the very seat according to their current tasks, not their departments. Regarding this, Sujin Oh, Manger of Management Innovation Group, said, “It is the best thing that we can have a seat according to our current task.” He added, “When working with personnel of outsourcing firm, I can sit and work at near them.”

Improved idea sharing and spread and convenience and speed

Creative business troubleshooting is also the archetype of network-type organization, in addition to flexible seats. Employees in the Future Center can do interactive communication across the every area in POSCO POWER including partners, related firms and overseas branches as well as internal departments at any place, if needed.

Wonbo Sim, Manager of Sustainable Management Group, said, “In our past business environment, messaging between employees, calling, conference or document sharing were not processed in a single application. In the past, we had to print documents to report to high-level director’s, which was time consuming and inconvenient.”

He also said, “Introduction of UC enables us to communicate immediately using messenger and screen sharing to make a decision on the spot.” He said, “Besides, UC made the information sharing and speedy business processing possible.”

Increased immersion on business

People in the Future Center agreed to say that Work Smart improved the immersion on task. Minsik Sim, Leader of Talents Management Group, said “Moving to the Future Center made changes in the office environment. The change of Office environment has been made with communication and immersion in mind. Especially in terms of communication, people can identify if they can talk with to communicate with phone or messenger in any place. In terms of immersion, there is island room, focus room and individual business room, which made business productivity improved.”

In addition to UC and space for immersion, there is another important factor of relaxation in the Future Center. Sujin Oh said, “I am likely to immerse myself in business in the morning. After lunch I feel like sleeping, so I can be refreshed by enjoying game in the break room. Flexible seats and enough break area helped us to increase immersion. For example, we divide clearly the working time and break time that we can spend more time in thinking our tasks, which enables high-quality immersion.”

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