[Good Companies Rising] Innovating Elderly Care Services with IT by Hanguk Senior Research Institute

"Innovating Technology for Home-Visit Elderly Care Services"
Differentiated by Pursuing 'Coexistence' Instead of Competition

Jin-Yeol Lee, CEO of Korea Senior Research Institute

"As time passes and our employees grow older, I want to create a company that lasts long enough for them to receive care from the Korea Senior Research Institute." CEO Jin-Yeol Lee stated that his goal is to build a '100-year company.' Founded in 2019, this startup has just passed its third year. Rather than aiming for rapid growth, looking long-term into the distant future is related to the characteristics of the market in which the Korea Senior Research Institute participates. Aging will continue, and as the elderly population requiring care increases, the related market will expand. This trend will not change over time. What can be changed is the quality of service, and the Korea Senior Research Institute has rolled up its sleeves to streamline this market through technology.

CEO Lee said, "The Korea Senior Research Institute defines aging as a decline in function," adding, "Just as glasses assist with vision decline, the Korea Senior Research Institute is like glasses that assist with functional decline." To support the functional decline caused by aging, the Korea Senior Research Institute is developing home care solutions. Home care services encompass care that can be received at home. The business areas of the Korea Senior Research Institute include not only home visit care and home visit bathing but also day care centers, which are similar to schools, and welfare equipment rentals such as electric beds.

To this end, they operate home visit care centers under the brand 'Smile Senior' and provide the Software as a Service (SaaS)-based administrative automation solution 'HiCare.' They also operate 'Yobosalang,' a professional job notification service used by more than 16,000 care workers, based on a community of 97,000 participants. In the home care service market, there is virtually no area untouched by the Korea Senior Research Institute’s IT-based innovation. This is why CEO Lee described their role as "laying the water and sewage systems in this market by providing IT solutions."

Currently, the Korea Senior Research Institute operates 60 home visit care centers nationwide. Five are directly managed, and 55 are partners. The metropolitan area accounts for about 40%, showing a spread across various regions nationwide. CEO Lee believes that having two to three centers per legal neighborhood is necessary to cover the increasing care demand. He said, "Home visit care centers play a vanguard role in elderly care services," and added, "Our goal is to expand to 1,200 to 1,300 centers."

Based on technological innovation, the profitability of home visit care centers is also increasing. When the Korea Senior Research Institute acquired the home care brand Smile Senior last year, the average monthly sales of partner centers were about 17 million KRW, but now it has increased to 23 million KRW. This represents a 35% growth rate in one year. Based on this, the Korea Senior Research Institute plans to establish integrated home care centers where one center is responsible for all areas related to home care.

For CEO Lee and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Sun-Joong Kim, the Korea Senior Research Institute is their second startup. Their first was 'Mydol,' an idol fandom service that achieved 14 million global downloads. Although confident in their technological capabilities, it was not easy to lead change in a fandom-based market. CEO Lee explained, "We had concerns about making our capabilities change the market, and we entered the silver market, which is technologically stagnant despite rapid aging."

In this market, CEO Lee chose coexistence rather than competition to differentiate. He emphasized, "Unlike other companies that grow through direct management of home care centers, we focus on supporting and helping partner individual business owners grow," adding, "We aim for coexistence, not competing with individuals operating home care centers or other brands."

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