Back in April 2022, SK magic Malaysia identified a new leader, Andy Kim. Kim brings close to 20 years of experience within the rental service business and the broader direct selling industry. Before that, Kim was the pioneer of the first Korean water purifier and air purifier rental service company in Malaysia for close to 9 years since 2016. He has flourished the company which then led to his another achievement in establishing a new corporation of the same business in Indonesia and returned to Malaysia once again after 7 years. His comeback to Malaysia has been raising curiosity and drawing attention to his future moves for SK magic.

SK magic has been a trendsetter in Korea's home appliances industry since its establishment in 1985. As the company expanded, they have chosen Malaysia to be the first Southeast Asian market marking its foray into the region in December 2018. Deeply rooted in its philosophy to continuously innovate with the latest technologies, SK magic is poised to be the leading premium brand and the preferred consumer choice for home appliances in Malaysia. SK magic's signature products are its award-winning JIKSOO tankless water purifiers and its innovative air purifiers; both equipped with cutting-edge smart home technology to deliver a premium quality lifestyle to all Malaysians. 

In an exclusive interview, Kim is charming if not a little reserved, although we are putting that down to language - Kim made an accomplishment in handling an interview in a language that isn't his native tongue.

Andy Kim: I was overwhelmed, humbled and honoured. After all, my contribution to the rental service and direct selling industry in Malaysia is purely derived from passion, in the belief that everyone deserves to practise a healthy lifestyle and no one should be marginalized from getting fresh clean air and water. I still remember the day I received the news, I was truly happy because I finally get to be back in Malaysia again after 7 years being in Korea and Indonesia. 

I spent 13 years of my 20-year career overseas and 10 years in Malaysia. In 2006, I visited Malaysia and travelled almost every part of the country. Throughout my journey here in Malaysia, I have made countless friends, created a lot of fond memories and not to mention, I have tried many delicious Malaysian food. I am truly delighted to be returning to such a wonderful country where I love to call it as my second-home. As soon as I landed in Malaysia, I had my favourite dish - Nasi Lemak with chilli padi. I am looking forward to more splendid discoveries in this beautiful nation with new people along the way. 

I consider the prior company's career and business experiences to be a gift, and I am grateful for them. I also appear to have laboured with enthusiasm to match that. However, one day I asked myself if I was still growing and if I could attain as many personal accomplishments as I wanted in the future. As a result, I decided to challenge my mettle in SK magic Malaysia.

When I returned to Malaysia, several of my friends and colleagues greeted me warmly. Many of them have contacted me to join them in new tasks, which I am really pleased about and have been keeping me extremely busy, making me feel even more responsible than before. 

The passionate energy and optimism of our independent sales agents and entrepreneurs. It is truly second to nothing that I have experienced in my prior professional career. I believe this is a unique strength and outcome of the direct selling business model.

The immediate goal to is to prepare our company and sales agents to cope with the upcoming new business expansions and product categories. As we march forward together, our long-term goals are to achieve a monthly increase of 10,000 new customers and the expansion of our service coverage areas. Ultimately, we would be able to reach more Malaysian homes to provide a wholistic living lifestyle. 

Business growth to me is a stage where the business reaches the point for expansion and seeks additional options to generate more profit. SK magic Malaysia has reached its fourth-year mark now and it is ready for greater business expansion in the market. 

In early 2022, we noticed a drastic expansion in the company as we have introduced over 80 brand kiosks and brand stores all across Malaysia. We started off having just a few outlets in Malaysia and I am glad we have grown this far. Malaysia has always been important market for us as it is the first country outside of South Korea we are aggressively expanding our footprint due to the nature of the market and increasing interest in healthcare and home appliance products. 

Magic Growth 2022 literally means, achieving magical growth together. It implies that the company encourages individual growth while bringing all of that growth together to fuel the expansion of the whole. Having worked in the industry for 20 years, I have a wide range of examples of how to develop both the individual and the organisation.

When I first joined the company, I discovered that the SK magic Malaysia team has a strong passion for personal development. The internal management team, together with the operation and service group, also desired to expand, but somehow they have less confidence on where to begin. Thus, this is also the reason why I started the Magic Growth 2022 in hopes to inspire our people in SK magic Malaysia to move forward. 

To me, supporting growth in all organisational relationships, whether the vertical or horizontal structure, will become the company's culture rather than sacrificing the others for one side's success. Besides, I believe what we truly seek from our personal growth is a fair income for work and the security of a job. My immediate plan is to maintain the best income structure in this industry for the long term. This would be made possible thanks to the financial stability and not to mention, the pursuing-happiness and employee first culture of SK Group.  

Individual happiness is one of the company's core values in SK Group. Additionally, it has a SUPEX culture that seeks to maximise human capabilities in order to promote the progress of organisations and individuals. I was recently encouraged to obtain a 'Social License' while conducting business in Malaysia at a discussion with a senior company executive. In other words, while financial results are critical, SK magic should cultivate a reputation among Malaysian institutions, society, and consumers as a "firm that makes social contributions via business." This transformation is a perpetual process, but it is essential for us to move forward. 

In order to better serve our customers, SK magic is redesigning its internal operations, products, and services, as well as experimenting with a number of new exciting ventures. As an initial step of embracing our core values, we have started an EPF program for our sales agent, which is the first in the industry. Furthermore, we are in the midst of planning for a young talent development program in collaboration with the government. We aspire to create happiness and promote personal growth amongst our stakeholders. 

I believe SK Group and SK magic's business philosophy and culture clearly demonstrate how global multinational companies should establish themselves and expand in Malaysia. I have no doubt that employees and the company will experience healthy growth if we can help Malaysian customers attain happy lives. Soon, Malaysians will eventually recognize SK Group's honesty and culture of pursuing-happiness.

In my opinion, I think nobody was born as a good leader and a person who wants to be a good leader should always try developing oneself with continuous effort. 

For me, having a humble and open communication is the most important thing to start a leadership. When I first joined SK magic, I have conducted '100 biz chat' with numerous sales agent managers to help me better understand about the organization's past, current situation and the future direction as well. It took me almost one hour for every session I had with the respected parties but it was truly worthy for me to be a step closer with our people.

Once we have gathered all the information we needed, I believe the crucial thing a leader should do is to practise 'strong execution'. However, for every leader out there I believe, would agree to the fact that there will never be a perfect decision. For every decision made, the leader will eventually face many obstacles such as inertial resistance to change, conflicts amongst teams, ambiguity of tasks and so on. Regardless of the difficulties faced, I believe that being a leader requires the ability to hold a consistent and clear process to communicate with people, to come out the best solutions together, and to step forward to mitigate the compromised tasks firmly. 

By the middle of 2023, I want to increase the service area and the foundational infrastructure, such the sales organisation. Various product categories are now being developed, and they will be released to the market one at a time. In fact, there are still many new category products in SK magic Korea and we set the plan to introduce them to the Malaysian customers in different stages. By procuring items at the highest level of the worldwide market for each product line, SK magic wants to provide customers a rental and management service that is cost-effective. The majority of top-tier premium goods will be SK magic items, but if it's required, they will be offered through a strategic alliance with top-tier businesses. We want distinctiveness along these lines.

In terms of top tier business alliances, a new exciting project will be launched in this September. Through the introduction of advanced SK magic products and strategic alliances, I believe customers will experience a new lifestyle trend, and the SK magic Sales Organizations will expand with all these business plans set in place. Our final goal is that all SK magic people would grow in terms of financial stability and move further in their career path.

We have planned on continuing to engage in infrastructure growth after having already invested over RM 270 million. Over the next three years, I anticipate that the present workforce of roughly 2,000 sales, service, and staff members will grow up to 10,000.