Spanish practices alive and well in S Korea

PYEONGCHANG'S SUCCESSFUL bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games may shine a light on the country in all sorts of unexpected ways. Those seeking to use sponsorship of the Olympics to grow their business in this fast-growing market should perhaps take a look at other brands who have gone before them. Supermarket group Tesco has enjoyed success in S Korean retail where rivals WalMart and Carrefour have been stymied. They were forced to withdraw from the market completely after abandoning attempts to change local management practice. Auto group Renault partnered with divisions of Samsung to ease their market entry and is hailed an exemplary investor in the country. Key to the success of both Tesco and Renault is weak or non-existent unions which is where Standard Chartered bank may have made a mistake. StanChart has 400 branches in Korea and the market contributed 6% of global profits last year. However, it is currently locked in a bitter dispute with local unions resisting a move to the kind of performance related pay structures common to financial services elsewhere and well established in Korean manufacturing.