Diversification Strategy Through Market Creation

The purpose of this paper is to investigate upon a diversification strategy through market creation of CJ Group, which has contributed in positioning of the firm as one of the leading conglomerates in South Korea.With such objective, the background of CJ Group, followed by its business diversification strategies were explored, with reference to several case studies.The history of CJ Group began with establishment of CheilJedang Industrial Corporation in 1953, as the first domestic sugar producer and exporter of South Korea.The corporation gradually expanded its business ever since at both national and global level, to include the fields of food production, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and life chemicals.Later, CheilJedang (CJ) Group was established as an affiliate of CheilJedang Industrial Corporation.With such independence, extension of business has been witnessed across the industries of media, entertainment, finance, information technology and distribution.Thus, the current CJ Group pursues to define itself as a progressive global living culture company with four major business categories from food and food service, biotechnology, entertainment and media, and logistics.Despite its success in today's market, CJ Group underwent hardships in its business diversification in 1990s due to indiscreet management, along with the Asian financial crisis.Here, many firms overcame the financial difficulties by taking advantage of the exchange rate for overseas expansion.Though, CJ Group tried to differentiate itself by focusing on the domestic market by creating something out of nothing.Hence, CJ Group takes a unique position among many cases of business diversification and their categorization.