SK Telecom: Pursuing Happiness through Corporate Social Responsibility

Case summary:
SK Telecom was founded in1984 and introduced the first car phone and mobile paging services in Korea. Since then it has been known as the largest Korean mobile communications company and for a series of technological innovations. SK Telecom created a dedicated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) function to manage SK Telecom and SK Group’s corporate community involvement programs. They believed good CSR contributed to a better corporate reputation. In 2008, SK Telecom’s CSR program was revised to include five separate areas of responsibility, Ethics, Environment, Community Involvement, Win-Win Partnership, and Customer Protection. In 2009, it created a newly CSR Team which is composed of Corporate Community Involvement Team and the Ethics Management Team. As time passed, with the revised CSR strategy and the new CSR Team, some problems occurred. There was no clear line of decision making for CSR activities around the five areas; the newly created structure failed to deliver a comprehensive strategy on CSR; the two teams that came together to create the CSR team struggled to create synergy.
Five forces analysis:
◆ Threat of new entrants-Low
-High capital requirement
-Patents limit new competition
-Advanced technologies are required ◆ Bargaining power of suppliers-Low
-There are many suppliers of telecom equipment, like fiber-optic cables, high-tech broadband switching equipment.

◆ Bargaining power of buyers-High
-Telephone and data services do not vary much, regardless of which companies are selling them. For the most part, basic services are treated as commodities. So customers are seeking low price with high service reliability.
-Low switching cost
-Some customers require customized products and services

◆ Availability of substitutes-Low
-Limited number of