LG Electronics is ramping up its transformation into a 'Smart Life Solution Company', as outlined in its 'Future Vision 2030' strategy, investing billions in innovation, potential acquisitions, marketing and brand in order to make it a reality.

The electronic company's CEO, William Cho, detailed the plans during this week's CES, highlighting three major inflection points to drive this transformation: Electrification, servitization, and digitalisation.

"If 2023 was the year in which we set the direction for new changes, we will make 2024 the year in which we truly accelerate these changes," stated Cho.

To bolster competitiveness, LG plans to invest a US$8 billion into research and development and other areas. High-growth and high-profit core businesses, such as vehicle components, HVAC, built-in appliances, and digital signage, are set to receive a larger slice of the investment pie in 2024.

In a bid to achieve qualitative business growth, LG has also earmarked more than US$40 billion in investment by 2030. This includes actively seeking inorganic growth opportunities through mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. Emphasis will also be placed on game-changing areas of technology that add customer value, such as AI and mixed reality (MR). The company has its sights on a 'Triple Seven' goal: An average growth rate and operating profit of seven percent or more, and an enterprise value that translates to an EBITDA ratio of seven.

The Vehicle component Solutions (VS) Company has emerged as a key business for LG, achieving annual sales of US$8 billion. The company's recently created EV charging business is emerging as a comprehensive EV charging solutions provider. LG is also expanding its telemedicine business in cooperation with Amwell and preparing for the commercialisation of MR devices.

Meanwhile, LG's HVAC business is experiencing rapid growth in emerging markets such as Asia and Central and South America.

LG is also planning to expand its B2B businesses, with a target to raise sales volume to more than $32 billion by 2030. The company is set to venture into non-hardware areas, such as content, services and subscriptions, to complement its existing product-centric home appliance and TV companies.

LG's Chief Technology Office (CTO) is conducting intensive R&D programs to strengthen business competitiveness and discover new core technologies. The company is making large-scale IT investments to establish DX across the entire organisation and is building a Next-generation Enterprise Resource Planning (N-ERP) system to seamlessly integrate and link the company's business processes and systems.

In line with this shift in business direction, the Home Entertainment (HE) Company aims to become a media and entertainment platform company and accelerate the growth of its webOS platform business. The HE Company is rapidly reinforcing the foundations of its platform business by expanding the webOS ecosystem to include smart monitors, IVI systems, and other TV makers. LG expects the webOS platform business to become one of the most potential growth engines in the near future.

In addition, LG will aggressively promote the commercialisation of intangible assets, such as its standard essential patents in critical areas of technology including communications, media, mobility, and IoT connectivity.

Helping improve productivity and value are LG's DX efforts, which have extended beyond innovating the customer experience to the improvement of value chain efficiency; from purchasing and manufacturing to delivery and sales. Last year, by applying DX to each value chain, LG said it raised productivity and efficiency to the value of more than US$240 million.

On top of this, LG is building N-ERP, or Next-generation Enterprise Resource Planning, to seamlessly integrate and link the company's business processes and systems. Intellytics Customer 360, a customer data platform that enables integrated management of data gathered from diverse customer contact points, will be rolled out globally from this year.

During his 'CEO F.U.N. Talk' with employees last December, Cho said he outlined the company's vision for 2024, which includes becoming a high-performing organization.

"To accomplish this, we need to intricately connect our mission, vision and goals, and have a relentless focus on execution," he said.

The CEO identified LG's newly established Overseas Sales and Marketing Company as a valuable asset for helping LG "break through limit", and said it now accounts for approximately two-thirds of the company's total sales. The new structure allows for specialised strategies that take into consideration the unique characteristics of each region and market, Cho said. These efforts have maximised the performance of the business, worldwide, and played a significant role in strengthening the capabilities and growth of LG's international subsidiaries, he said.

As for brand and marketing, a variety of integrated brand activities spanning marketing, ESG and CSR and united under the brand promise of Life's Good, will be initiated this year.

The company added the focus is about spreadinf the values and philosophy that underpin the brand iconic 'Life's Good' brand philosophy with the spirit of a brave optimist, while also infusing the brand with a youthful dynamism.