Hanwha Financial Affiliates Introduce New Performance Management System Aligned with the Digital Era

The exterior view of the 63 Building, occupied by Hanwha Life Insurance.

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Hanwha Life Insurance and other financial affiliates of Hanwha Group announced on the 6th that they will introduce a new performance management system and accelerate digital transformation.

The new performance management system, 'OKR (Objective and Key Results),' has mainly been used by IT companies and startups. About 25% of Fortune 500 global companies, including Google, YouTube, and Facebook, implement it. It is known to have been the most decisive factor in Google's growth from a small organization of 40 people to a global company.

Compared to the existing performance management indicator KPI, OKR maximizes speed. While KPI evaluations are annual, OKRs allow goal management from a few weeks to quarterly. This enables agile responses to internal and external environments, making it the most suitable indicator in the era of digital innovation.

Also, OKR is a two-way method where the company first sets goals, and departments and employees voluntarily set their own goals. In contrast, KPI, still used by most companies, is mainly a top-down goal-setting approach.

An IT system that can monitor OKR progress in real-time will also be established. A dedicated operations team and coaches will be trained, and a consultative body for mid-term checks and reviews will be set up.

Hanwha financial affiliates have also introduced agile work methods in specific work units since last year. Hanwha Life Insurance operates key divisions driving future innovation, such as the Future Strategy Office, Technology Strategy Office, and Global Network Headquarters, as agile organizations, and Hanwha Investment & Securities established an Agile Innovation Office last year.

Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-yeon emphasized in his New Year's address earlier this year, "We must accelerate company-wide digital transformation to actively secure competitiveness in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

A Hanwha financial affiliate official said, "Digital technology is driving the entire financial industry to the extent that the term 'Techfin' rather than 'Fintech' is being used," adding, "With the introduction of OKR, we expect the digital transformation of Hanwha financial affiliates to accelerate by flexibly responding to the new environment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.