Pangyo Transformed into a Massive 'Remote Work Laboratory'

ICT Companies Proactively Respond to Remote Work with Their Services
KakaoTalk Usage Increases Compared to Year-End and New Year
T Telephone with Group Call Feature Doubles User Numbers
Sharp Rise in Collaboration Service Inquiries from SMEs and Others

A scene of a video conference using NHN's collaboration service 'Durey'

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] #About 100 executives at SK Telecom held a remote meeting for 1 hour and 30 minutes on the 28th of last month using the T Group Call service. Despite the long duration of the remote meeting, it proceeded smoothly. CEO Park Jung-ho said, "Although we are a mobile company, this is the first time that 100 people have conducted a group call with such quality," adding, "The implementation of remote work is both an opportunity and a challenge to apply the smart office and work infrastructure we have developed so far, such as the T Phone Group Call 'Teams'."

#Venture company CEO Mr. A is deeply concerned about how long remote work should continue. Although the company adopted internal communication tools early and established a remote work system, work is proceeding smoothly, but developers are complaining about the difficulties of remote work. Employees with children are exhausted from juggling childcare and work, while developers working alone are reportedly experiencing increased work intensity as they work without distinguishing meal times. Mr. A said, "Since the situation of employees getting infected is a bigger problem, we plan to monitor the trend for the time being."

Remote and telecommuting, which once felt like a distant concept, are rapidly spreading among domestic companies due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). Pangyo, a symbol of the ICT industry sensitive to technological changes, has become a huge 'remote work laboratory.' ICT companies equipped with remote work systems that allow work outside the office are proactively adopting remote work and exploring its possibilities.

From the end of February, ICT companies with remote work infrastructure took the lead in experiments. SK Telecom, which was the first in the IT industry to start remote work, demonstrated its capabilities by conducting large-scale meetings using the T Group Call service. Kakao decided to maintain a 'mobile office' system without an end date starting from the 26th of last month. In addition, KT, Naver, Nexon, and Netmarble have also entered remote work systems.

An SK Telecom employee is working from home using Teams and the T Phone group call feature.

The use of mobile messengers and group meeting services surged as a result of remote work. This is because there are not many companies equipped with remote work infrastructure accessible from outside. On the 2nd, KakaoTalk experienced an outage lasting over an hour, causing working professionals engaged in remote work to face a work paralysis situation. KakaoTalk is recording higher usage rates than during the year-end and New Year period when traffic usually surges. According to Rankey.com, the average KakaoTalk usage time per person in the last week of February was 41 minutes and 17 seconds, higher than the 39 minutes and 17 seconds recorded in the last week of December. The number of KakaoTalk launches also increased by 2.84% compared to the last week of December.

Usage of SK Telecom's T Phone, which supports group calls of up to 30 people, has also increased significantly. Since the 25th of last month, T Phone usage recorded 17,300 cases, a significant increase compared to the January average of 12,500 cases. The T Group Call app allows group calls of up to 100 people and offers an 'Open Listening' feature that enables voice transmission without restrictions on the number of participants. An SK Telecom official explained, "From the end of February, when companies increased remote work due to COVID-19, the number of users of T Phone and T Group Call approximately doubled."

Companies operating collaboration services such as NHN and Works Mobile, a Naver subsidiary, are also smiling broadly. As remote work spreads, small and medium-sized enterprises recognize the need for collaboration services, increasing corporate customers. They are also providing free services to small and medium-sized enterprises. An NHN official said, "Since the last week of February, inquiries about collaboration services have surged about threefold, and we decided to provide free services to small and medium-sized enterprises," adding, "After providing free support, the influx of new customers increased about fourfold compared to usual."

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