Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon Discusses 'Project Kkot'... "Focusing on Scale-up for Small Business Owners"

Project Kkot Impact Discussion 진행

Naver announced on the 17th that it held the second Project Kkot Impact Discussion following last year. The event was attended by Choi Soo-yeon, CEO of Naver, and the 'Kkot Ambassadors,' a group of employees interested in platform social impact, to discuss the sustainable growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

During the discussion, ambassador employees revealed cases where they integrated their actual work with Project Kkot. The Commerce Solution Market manager stated that they are preparing a campaign that allows SMEs to directly experience AI solutions that can contribute to improving productivity for a certain period.

Choi Soo-yeon, CEO of Naver [Photo by Naver]

Kim So-yeon, a planner at Commerce Solution Market, said, "Among various solutions, AI-based solutions received remarkable responses, and there are cases where this led to actual seller performance. However, after meeting with SMEs, it seems many still face barriers to AI solutions." In response, CEO Choi said, "To break down barriers to AI solutions, it would be good to offer trial opportunities through free usage vouchers for a certain period to help SMEs take their first step into solutions. We need to consider ways to raise AI literacy among SMEs so they can improve business resource efficiency, including solution operating costs, according to their business situations."

The discussion also continued on the long-term direction of Project Kkot. CEO Choi explained, "Until now, we have focused on onboarding SMEs and prepared support programs, but now it is time to focus on scale-up. We must appropriately provide the necessary solutions so that SMEs can increase sales and grow into global brands." She emphasized, "In addition to Smart Store and Smart Place, we need to look at more diverse touchpoints such as SME clients using cloud and collaboration tools to expand the scope of Project Kkot."

Lee Jae-hyun, a planner at Naver Works, responded that SMEs in the process of scaling up actually need various B2B solutions from cloud and Works. He said, "Food and Beverage (F&B) and space operators are also deeply concerned about organizational management. As SMEs grow, their organizational size inevitably changes, and at this time, Naver’s cloud, Works, and Software as a Service (SaaS) can play many roles. We will create successful implementation cases."

CEO Choi added, "Many good ideas from the 'Kkot Ambassadors' activities are practically applicable. We will make use of these concerns and ideas."

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