Future forward: Amorepacific highlights three strategies to drive growth in 2022

The K-beauty conglomerate is behind some of the most well-known Korean beauty brands, including Laniege, Innisfree, Etude House and Sulwhasoo.

Speaking during the firm’s online new year opening ceremony on January 3, chairman and CEO Suh Kyung-Bae revealed the group’s plans to concentrate efforts on products and solutions that relate more closely to today’s beauty consumer.

He stressed that the company needed to introduce “new beauty that customers in the new era want.”​

Suh explained: “The new beauty that we are introducing represents a new paradigm of beauty that values the unique beauty that each one of us has and focuses on its potential. Amorepacific will expand its business beyond the realm of traditional beauty to ‘life beauty’, which encompasses our day-to-day life and capitalise on digital technology to offer personalised beauty that best suits each individual.”​

To that end, the company has implemented three strategies to achieve its major goals for 2022.

First and foremost, Suh said the firm would focus on its brand building and expand into potential sectors of growth, such as derma beauty and wellness.

“We need to clarify our brand values and focus on building engine products that will drive a growth and fully understand and nimbly respond to what customers want based on data while expanding into promising business areas such as derma and wellness.”​

At the same time, the company was planning to deepen its digital transformation as a means to reach millennials and Generation Z consumers.

“We should develop a bond with millennials and Generation Z and build a strong fandom by making commerce, content, and community in the digital world easy and interesting. Digital technology will be an enabler for us to innovate offline channels for improvement in competitiveness,”​ said Suh.

Last year, CosmeticsDesign-Asia reported​​ that Amorepacific acquired a 38.4% stake in cult K-beauty brand COSRX to tap into the brand’s understanding of the younger demographic.

It was also imperative that the firm also lay down the foundation for future growth drivers such as personalised solutions, Suh added.

Lastly, Suh highlighted the need to restructure the business moving forward.

“We will drastically reduce products which are out of sync with the times, optimise inventory management based on data to identify and improve inefficiency across business for profitable growths.”​

This follows recent news from Chinese local media outlets which have reported that Amorepacific is set to shutter 80% of its Innisfree brand stores in bid to focus more on e-commerce and on more premium brands such as Sulwhasoo.

In May 2021, Innisfree announced the decision to close all North American retail stores, choosing the focus on e-commerce and its retail partnership with Sephora.

Suh concluded: “Let us remember that the future is not built with the experiences from the past but with the aspiration of today. Amorepacific is committed to becoming a brand company which is second to none and our business should be reorganised in the direction that customers expect us to go. Let us boldly get rid of the inertia of the past and accelerate the implementation of new initiatives.”​