The astounding progress that’s been made in South Korea since the 1950s and 60s is nothing short of remarkable. The signs of progress are all around – arriving at Incheon International Airport you depart for the mainland passing to the so-called Songdo International Business District (Songdo IBD). Songdo IBD is a new "smart city" built from scratch on 600 hectares of reclaimed land along the waterfront. It is one of the largest urban development projects ever undertaken, with Intel and others as technology partners, managing traffic flows and even trash removal with advance networks of sensors and analytics technologies.
The largest of the conglomerates that comprise much of Korea’s industrial landscape, Samsung, is already a household name. But not many are aware that Samsung is fast becoming a leader in the biotech world through their Bioepis and BioTech businesses. The Samsung brand provides a powerful presence for these fast-growing businesses. Alongside Samsung we are also seeing a flowering of small-to-medium biotech businesses, offering biosimilar products as well as contract manufacturing and associated services.
For the digitization wave that’s sweeping industries of all type and sizes, the opportunity to take advantage of the latest technologies in fast-growing biotech businesses – especially one that are relatively new – is very exciting and bodes well for the success of this Korea sector overall. SAP is delighted to be engaged at multiple Korean customers helping them chart their digitization journey; we look forward to playing our part in helping to bring to fruition this dynamic and exciting biotech sector.