S-Tec System Co., a mid-sized Korean company that has never experienced negative growth in its 24 years of operation, continues to break its sales record every year by making bold decisions and finding breakthroughs in new businesses. The company aims to achieve 1 trillion won ($762 million) in sales this year.

S-Tec started as a security and defense firm spun off from a large corporation and has since grown into a comprehensive safety solution provider that covers facility management, fire prevention and disaster management businesses. It is currently the country’s top security company specializing in manned security services.

Instead of resting on its laurels as the No. 1 company in the manned security industry, the company has expanded its scope to include total facility management and recently launched a pest control and quarantine business to provide services during the pandemic, which is why it has maintained steady growth, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Lee Byung Hwa told Maeil Business Newspaper in a recent interview.

S-Tec was spun off from S-1 Corp.’s manned security division and established as a 100 percent employee-owned holding company. At the time of separation, S-Tec, whose only business was security and guard, had sales of only 40 billion won ($30 million).

The “label” of being from Samsung became a barrier to securing non-Samsung customers. In particular, the manned security market was already saturated and growth was not guaranteed. In the mid-2000s, the company entered the facility management industry.

“In the early days of facility management business, we focused on differentiating the quality of outsourcing to the point where it was comparable to that of insourcing or direct management,” Lee said.

To differentiate the quality, the company attracted talented employees with unparalleled welfare benefits, such as overseas training and medical expense support, which are the envy of large companies.

As a result, the company began to gain the trust of the industry, securing four of the top five premium golf courses in Korea as clients. Now, it is hard to find a sector the company has not entered: hospitals, hotels, retail, food and beverage outlets, corporate offices and manufacturing sites.

Recently, the company has taken another leap forward by entering the pest control and epidemic prevention business.

Instead of focusing on the already saturated domestic market, the company established two subsidiaries in Vietnam, one for firefighting and the other for pest control and epidemic prevention.

S-Tec Vina, the company’s first overseas unit established in 2018, is a joint venture with an annual sales growth rate of over 50 percent. New orders won last year reached 10 billion won.

In 2021, the company was selected as a product certification agency by the Vietnamese authorities for fire protection, which means that fire protection products exported to Vietnam must be cleared by S-Tec for marketing in Vietnam, Lee explained.

S-Tec’s proprietary mini fire extinguisher was the first to be authorized by Vietnam’s fire authorities to be sold exclusively in the country. This year, the company plans to expand its second factory in Vietnam with about 1,000 square meters in size. Construction is scheduled to be completed in May.

“We will also focus on developing, producing and localizing firefighting products such as new spray fire extinguishers and simple sprinklers. S-Tec Vina aims to enter the entire Southeast Asian market in the future,” he said.

Last year, the company established a pest control and epidemic prevention company in Vietnam.

S-Tec also continues to explore future food businesses. This year, the company established a task force and a research center to explore future growth, which will seek to diversify business into robotics and others related to the fourth industrial revolution.

2023.03.16

Maeil Business Newspaper

https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/009/0005102338