Yoon Seok-hwan (윤석환), CEO of CJ CheilJedang, stressed the need for a sweeping overhaul of the company. His strong call for self-reflection came as the company released weak results for last year, including a 15.2 percent fall in operating profit from a year earlier.

Yoon stressed that everything must be rebuilt completely from the ground up, including the company’s business model, organisational operations and ways of working. He set goals of optimising the business structure, fundamentally improving the financial structure and rebuilding the corporate culture.

CJ CheilJedang said on Monday that Yoon sent all employees a CEO message titled, "There is no complacent tomorrow for us."

Yoon said, "After 4 years of stagnating growth, we ultimately received a dismal report card of a net loss last year." He said it was not a one-off adverse factor but a survival warning to everyone and the organisation. He said the company must become completely different through destructive change and innovation in what he called a desperate crisis situation standing at the edge of a cliff.

Yoon also declared that he would push fundamental innovation, saying, "We cannot overcome this wave with small changes." The innovation agenda includes optimising the business structure, fundamentally improving the financial structure and rebuilding the corporate culture.

On optimising the business structure, he said the company will intensively foster businesses such as Global Strategic Products (GSP) aimed at expanding "new overseas territories for K-food," and will actively invest in areas with strong cash-generating capacity. Yoon said, "Under the name of expanding the business portfolio, we have been carrying even businesses with no profitability in sight." He said, "For businesses with no future in sight, I will make firm decisions and focus our capabilities where we have a chance of winning."

He also laid out a plan to remove all factors that hinder cash flow as part of a fundamental improvement in the financial structure. Under a "selection and concentration" strategy, the company plans to secure investment resources for growth businesses through intensive liquidity measures for non-core assets. Yoon stressed that he would review from a zero base budgets executed by convention, marketing spending driven by "because others do it," and even ineffective R&D investment.

The company will also pursue "organisational culture innovation." Yoon said, "Rather than being a 'good CEO' who boosts employee satisfaction, I will be a 'winning CEO' who saves the company." He said he would uproot a lax culture and establish a results-oriented corporate culture that focuses only on survival and fundamentals and speaks through results and accountability.

Yoon stressed, "If we do not change now, I am convinced we will no longer have any choice." He added, "If today’s discomfort can guarantee future survival, I will not hesitate."

A CJ CheilJedang official said that work will proceed to specify change and innovation by each business and organisation, as Yoon stressed that "this change will never end as a mere declaration."