THE PIONEER OF THE FAR EAST

COPA-DATA Korea celebrates its tenth birthday this year. Ten years of continuous growth is a fantastic milestone for the whole team. We take the opportunity to look back at our Korean subsidiary’s 2013 founding with YoungSu Kim (aka Charlie), managing director of COPA-DATA Korea.

IU MAGAZINE: CHARLIE, DO YOU REMEMBER HOW IT ALL STARTED AND HOW “COPADATA” MADE ITS FIRST STEPS IN SOUTH KOREA?

Charlie: It all began in the middle of June 2010. I’d been working on a project in Vietnam for Intel and I came across zenon. It really impressed me because you didn’t need any programming skills. I saw an opportunity for the product in my home market, so I called COPA-DATA Headquarters.

Three days later, I found myself on an airplane to Austria for a faceto-face meeting with the international sales team in Salzburg. We started with setting up an Authorized Distributor (CDKR Co. Ltd) in 2010. We had the right to operate under COPA-DATA‘s name but were not a full subsidiary. That happened in April 2013 when COPA-DATA made the decision to set up a full-blown subsidiary.

WHAT WAS YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY INTO THE KOREAN MARKET AND HOW DID IT WORK FOR YOU?

Charlie: When COPA-DATA Korea was established in 2013, zenon had very little brand recognition in the local market. We had some limited success in the automotive industry and Samsung was one of our first customers. We deployed zenon in three of its factories.

However, our biggest early successes came in another key industry. With great support from Head- quarters, we established the beginnings of a bright future in the Korean energy sector. KEPCO, the government-owned electricity generator, distributor, and provider of electricity in Ko rea, became an early customer of ours. The IEC 61850 standard was very well known and a mandatory protocol. zenon’s native support for IEC 61850 gave us an edge and opened doors in the Korean Energy market. KEPCO has now standardized on zenon for substation automation, ECMS, and generation.

The fact zenon is a European product might have caused some concern in the local market because foreign products can mean difficulties in getting technical support. We were very aware of this and took specific steps with the HQ to ensure this wasn’t an issue for COPA-DATA Korea. We invested well in training for our employees to elevate their zenon skills and knowledge.

HOW IMPORTANT A ROLE HAS THIS COOPERATION PLAYED IN THE GROWTH OF COPA-DATA KOREA?

Charlie: International cooperation has been key to our success. COPA-DATA has a strong network of international subsidiaries, distributors, systems integrators, partners, and customers who are all well supported by the Headquarters’ team in Salzburg.

I have been spurred on by the success of my COPA-DATA colleagues in Italy and Germany; both very successful subsidiaries. I am working to make COPA-DATA Korea just as successful in our home market, inspired by the idea “stop wishing and start doing”.

Global work is great fun if you exchange ideas regularly and are interested in the culture of your colleagues. Even though teleconferencing is the first choice for global collaboration these days, the value of face-to-face meetings should not be underestimated. The team at COPA-DATA is aware of this and actively encourages it through internal events, personal support for onsite customer appointments or even longer stays.

In 2014, for example, two employees from Salzburg joined the Seoul branch for 12 months. From our point of view, it is valuable to work directly with employees trained at Headquarters. They know the company’s philosophy, corporate culture, work processes, rules and regulations; ideas which can be more difficult to communicate via email or video conferences. Personal exchange builds trust and strengthens cooperation. Cultural differences are recognized and understood.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER TIPS FOR SUCCESS?

Charlie: We’ve found that zenon is a very sticky product. Customers who use the zenon software platform come to love it and tend to stick with it forever.

Together with the great teamwork between sales, technical consulting, and marketing, zenon’s unique strengths have helped to grow our business every year since 2013. zenon is no longer unknown in the Korean market and it is especially well known in our energy sector.

We’d like to establish zenon as the default industrial software platform in other major industries in Korea, including in life sciences and food & beverage. These are important industries in which COPADATA has a lot of expertise and a strong customer base around the world. Our ability to demonstrate zenon’s particular strengths in these sectors to the Korean market will be key to our future success.

Three years ago, COPA-DATA Korea started to expand into the life sciences and food & beverage industries. We’ve expanded our sales team and built up support and marketing. Within the next 10 years, COPA-DATA and zenon should be as well known in these sectors in Korea as it is in our energy sector.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE? HOW DO YOU ENVISION THE NEXT TEN YEARS GOING?

Charlie: Our goal is to make our customers happy. We’d like to be the market leader in industrial automation in Korea and plan to establishing ourselves as a hub office for COPA-DATA in this region. This is an exciting and growing market with plenty of opportunities. The expertise that we’ve developed over the last ten years will help us to deliver on these goals for COPADATA and for our customers.

“When I picked up the phone in 2010 and spoke with Charlie for the first time, an incredible journey began for me, too. It makes me personally proud to see, after almost 13 years, the achievements of COPA-DATA Korea and zenon in the Korean market. It’s a status that we had to work hard for, with tireless effort from both the Korean team and the Headquarters team in Salzburg.”

Christoph Dorigatti, Head of International Sales

TIMELINE

2013: Founding of COPA-DATA Korea in Seoul

2015: The biggest customer event of COPA-DATA Korea to date: the Asian Partner Academy

2018: EUR 1 million turnover reached

2020: More than 20 partners in the COPA-DATA Partner Community

2022: Move to new office; achieved EUR 1.85 million turnover.