The second lecture of the IBRE Business Insights Series was held at the LG-POSCO Building on November 28. The IBRE Business Insights Series is a project to present new perspectives on education and research to KUBS members, and is carried out every semester with topics including economic outlook and industrial analysis. Ji-man Shin, a researcher at Naver, was the speaker.

Shin explained the overall direction of the platform industry that Naver is going, under the theme of "Platform Industry in 2020." "The platform industry is sometimes called a two-sided market, but users are also creators and become small businesses themselves," Shin said. "Naver works as a Technology Cube, allowing users to solve problems or issues that need to be resolved through our technology. The technology Naver provides can be easily accessed as a tool for end-customers," Shin said, stressing that Naver seeks for a technology platform that users themselves lead in designing.

Shin continued to explain how local businesses can use the platform to create their own business model, and what services Naver is developing for them. Introducing services such as Naver Reservation, Table Order and Smart ARS, Shin explained that the platform provided by Naver allows small business owners to systematically manage data from consumers that have been easily missed so far. "We are constantly reorganizing our services to reflect the needs of small businesses," he said. "We are trying to be flexible in responding to the creation of various types of businesses. At the end of the day, it can be said that Tech Cube is a pre-work to advance into the global market," Shin said. "In the end, Naver is heading towards the global market by combining technologies that have been built user-friendly."

The lecture ended with the question and answer session. One student who participated in the lecture asked if there were any special criteria for the platform industry to choose which market to enter. "In fact, the platform is chosen by the market and users," Shin said. "How the platform responds to users' needs and how much they satisfy them seems to determine how the platform business is created."

IBRE Business Insight Series is offering offline lectures once a week, followed by two lectures on November 21st and 28th, and will be conducted on December 5th as well under the theme of EV battery industry.