SWS Wine and Spirits

Seoul Wine & Spirits

Mr. Pierre André Doucet

General Manager

On April 18, Mr. Pierre-André Doucet, the General manager of SWS (Seoul Wine & Sprits), visit our class to tell us about his company and the relationship between France and Korea. Mr. Pierre first came to Korea as a student in 2003. After he has worked for several companies, he met Elan, wine and sprits importation and distribution company, and they decided to establish a branch in South Korea named SWS. The reason why they chose South Korea as a new branch is because wine market in South Korea has high potential. SWS Company’s vision is to become one of the top 10 wine distributors in Seoul and turn over 3 Million EUR. The other vision is becoming a leading company in fine dining and corporate events area.

To be hired in this company, you should meet 6 requirements. First, they want people who totally adapted in Korea culture. Second, you must have an English ability. Third, it is good having a competence of French, but it’s not essential. 4th they want person who has an overseas experience and understanding of the other Cultures. 5th, they need someone with a specialty such like IT, Management, and Marketing, Etc. Lastly, they don’t want someone who apply to the company lightly.

It was such a valuable time to get lots of information to understand foreign company. Following things are what we interested in his presentation. First, as a general manager, he can tell us what kind of person they need in their company. Second, being a foreigner living in Korea for a long time, he knows the cultural differences between Korea and France very well. It would be important to know for us who want to work abroad. Third, he said the most important thing that he’s thought when he saw a person for his company was the experience. It looks quite different compare to any other Korean company. Finally, if we work for his company, we could get many opportunities to work abroad because they have other branches in different country.

We would like to thank Mr. Pierre to come in our class to present his company, experiences and many advices. It would be important information for our future career.

Dayoung Hwang, Geumok Kim, Hyoeun Kim

 

I’m glad to meet him. He talked not only about SWS, but also about the relationship between France and Korea. France’s history and relationship are very interesting. And he said French and Korean offices use very different programs, work styles, and methods of communication. I was happy to hear stories about the differences in the business characteristics between Koreans and French and the company atmosphere. Because there are not many opportunities to receive such stories. He knew the difference between the two countries because he was French, worked in business in Korea, and married Korean woman.

신유리

On April 18, Mr. Pierre André Doucet, the founder and general manger of SWS, was invited for a lecture about his employing company “seoul wine & spirits” from French. He talked about many issues. Especially he explained relationship of France and Korea. The Korea-France FTA has created more jobs and allowed for economic revival.

I feel honored to have taken this lecture. I could learn many things and became interested in French company. Also I learned about the relationship between Korea and France in more detail. I respect Mr. Pierre because even though he came from far away, he got the best status.

김수빈

Rittal Korea

On May 9^th we visited the German company Rittal, which manufactures enclosures for machinery. Before we started our lecture, we were guided inside Rittal company. Through the guide, we could learn many things. What we thought about enclosures were just outward parts of machinery regarded as any other simple cases. But it’s much more essential than such cases, since most machines are really big and easily damaged by dust, water or from any other chemical substance that could go inside machines. Not only that, enclosures must prevent from natural disaster as well, such as earthquake and heavy storm to protect inner components of machines safely from anywhere of the world. To make this safe and big enclosures, it needs sophisticated and sensitive procedure of manufacturing. If there is a less than 1mm difference, parts won’t adjust to each other. After we finished looking around inside the company, Mr. Kim was waiting for us inside the conference room to give us a presentation on detailed information about the Rittal company.

Mr. Mark Kim is director of Rittal Korea. He majored electronic engineering and had started this job since more than 20 years ago. The first Rittal company was located in Ansan in 1996 and he was also there when he started working, while the warehouse of the company still stays in Busan. Then he explained more about the company, such as history and strategy for market. Unlike other companies, their strategy is making just one size of enclosure instead of customizing them. This model is accommodative to most machines. In Korea, there are lots of companies like Rittal. But in Europe, manufacturing such enclosures are not yet generalized and modularized. There is no common standard in production. So many of the companies in Europe simply buy the goods from Rittal. Through the company’s such systematic strategy, the company could have broaden its area.

Mr. Kim told us at the end of the presentation about the job opportunities. For the students from liberal arts college, there are unfortunately only few of them we can apply for. We could apply ourselves for management department, marketing department and sales department. Since the boss of the Rittal Korea Mr. Rotermund speaks really fluent Korean, employees are not actually acquired to speak German or English.

As machinery field is not well known for us, it was so beneficial and honored time to visit Rittal. Perhaps we could get more interest in this field and might think of other possibilities of potential company.