In today’s fast-changing digital landscape, the Microsoft partner ecosystem is the catalyst for building Frontier Firms that lead with AI, embrace innovation, and deliver transformative outcomes for enterprise customers. To illustrate this, the Enterprise Partner Solutions (EPS) Asia Regional Leadership Team (RLT) has launched a new series called Frontier Forward: Asia Edition focused on how partners are creating impactful solutions across Asia.
About the Frontier Forward series
By interviewing executives from key partner organizations, we spotlight successful joint initiatives and tangible results that matter to enterprise customers. Follow along to learn how partners have developed strategies that accelerate transformation and create customer value.
Episode 1: KT Corporation’s AI journey
In our debut episode, we sit down with Jeon Seung-rok, Head of Go-to-Market (GTM) at KT Corporation, formerly known as Korea Telecom (KT), to explore how KT and Microsoft are working together to transform businesses through AI and cloud technologies.
Key takeaways from the conversation
- SPARK framework: KT’s GTM organization follows SPARK—Strategy, Product, Alliance, Readiness, and Knowledge—to drive AI-powered transformation across industries.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot at scale: 10,000 KT employees now leverage AI agents for productivity gains.
- Customer Zero approach: By sharing their own journey with AI, KT offers customers insight into how to avoid common pitfalls and speed up adoption.
- Breaking regulatory barriers: GitHub Copilot was introduced in Korea’s financial sector, setting a new precedent for regulatory compliance.
- Customer-centric wins: Major wins in e-commerce and cosmetics highlight the joint impact of KT and Microsoft.
- Regulation fast track: KT’s initiative creates sandboxes for financial and public sectors, supporting both progress and compliance.
Access the video or the full transcript below to learn more about how KT is shaping the AI frontier—for their organization and their customers.
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Keep tuning in to Frontier Forward: Asia Edition for more stories from Microsoft partners driving innovation across the region.
Full transcript:
Disclaimer: This AI-generated transcript may contain errors. Please verify with the original audio or script for accuracy.
Ungse Lee:
Hello, Seung-rok. Nice to meet you. First of all, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Please briefly introduce yourself.
Jeon Seung-rok:
Nice to meet you, everyone. Hello, Microsoft team. I am Jeon Seung-rok, the head of the Go-to-Market (GTM) department in the strategic business consulting department at KT.
Ungse Lee:
Naturally, you talked about the GTM organization. Could you explain in more detail what the GTM business department is doing?
Jeon Seung-rok:
Yes, the GTM headquarters is similar to Microsoft’s Go-to-Market, but it plays a much broader role in KT. Our mission is defined as SPARK. If I explain these five missions, it will be easier for you to understand what I do. One is S, Strategy. We import and implement strategic marketing of AICT. And P is Product. With AI, we define products and services that have changed and transformed, so that they can be Go-to-Market. A is Alliance. Since there are many changes happening throughout the company, our GTM headquarters adjusts to move various departments together. R is Readiness. The GTM headquarters does not focus on traditional CT business and PECO business, but prepares AICT businesses. Finally, K is Know-how Knowledge. The GTM headquarters plays the role of creating and re-selling well-made solutions and offerings as assets, and expanding them in various ways. In short, the GTM headquarters of KT, in addition to Microsoft’s GTM role, also plays the role of pre-sales defines products and services.
Ungse Lee:
Wow, the name SPARK is very impressive. Did you name it yourself, or did the teams give you the idea?
Jeon Seung-rok:
When we first set up this organization with the teams, we all got together and set up our own missions. It was January of this year. As we started in January, we all got together in December and made a mission together about what kind of mission we would set up.
So SPARK has the meaning of becoming the root of the AX business and promoting it.
Ungse Lee:
Yes, that’s cool. Now, let’s get into the questions. First of all, I’d like to hear about the recent case of Microsoft Cloud’s AI innovation. Can you tell us a few things?
Jeon Seung-rok:
Yes, WinWire joined last week and yesterday. It is the largest cosmetic company in Korea.
I don’t know if I can tell you the company name, but WinWire is the largest A company in Korea. The company selected KT. Of course, Microsoft’s M365 Copilot and Microsoft’s data services led to two wins. Looking at the winning backgrounds, the company has tried a variety of things, but there were a lot of challenges in terms of change management and introduction. Even if you pour out a lot of AI services, there were a lot of questions about whether the employees could actually apply it to their work and use it.
We told you a lot about KT itself. First of all, we asked all the employees to introduce their own M365 Copilot and make their own agents and use them. It took almost a year.
When we told you that story, you trusted us and it was an opportunity to introduce Microsoft’s products and services. There was such an example.
Another example is the deal we talked about a few weeks ago. Microsoft has done a lot of challenges to e-commerce customers in Korea, but it has not been able to overcome AWS.
KT and Microsoft suggested and won an underwater business based on an e-commerce mall in the agricultural industry. As far as I know, this is the biggest e-commerce deal in Microsoft Korea. If you listen to the reason why we won, I think we focused more on the principle of focusing on the customer’s business. I think we were obsessed. Customers had a lot of worries about how the MD business itself that they had to buy could be transformed. We were able to win by giving various suggestions and opinions that fit the business.
The last one is a meaningful deal. For the first time in the history of finance, GitHub Copilot was proposed and KT was able to deliver it confidently. What this means is that the system in Korea is so high that the regulations are so high that the developers themselves can use AI functions in the form of Copilot. It is meaningful to say that the foundation has been laid.
Ungse Lee:
I think the most impressive thing is that KT’s customer zero story is very powerful. In the case of KT, there is a lot of information and it is very powerful. In the case of KT, about 10,000 employees are using Copilot and using AI agents to transform most of the work. When customers hear such stories, it seems to be much more direct and effective.
You must be strengthening the strategy for the future of KT. I think it would be good if you could explain that part a little more.
Jeon Seung-rok:
Yes, that’s good. KT itself is actually transforming the essence of the business. It is a business centered on network circuits. On top of the traditional telco business, we put AI on top of it and turn the direction of our products and services and set and carry out missions to be reborn as an ICT company. It didn’t change that quickly and apply to our business right away. The experience that KT has accumulated through various attempts, trials, and errors is actually a very precious asset. All customers talk about AI and AI transforms but it is not easy to prepare if you have not experienced any difficulties and challenges that you will experience while introducing it.
With our own experience, the concept of Customer Zero, we open all the know-how and lessons learned from failure to our customers so that they do not experience the same error again. I think it was the most useful for customers to suggest ways to minimize it.
So, I think it was a very moving story for customers to hear about changing the way we work and actually using AI in business. This is the area of regulation. As the number of sovereigns is increasing in most Asian countries, there is a trend to protect their own data and strengthen their sovereignty. In fact, it is the opposite position. They want to use the services but they are caught in the regulation and cannot use it. KT is contributing a lot to break through the regulation. For example, we made a TF team called Regulation Fast Track and we are running a regulation sandbox for financial and public customers in the country’s regulation area. We define the regulation sandbox so that customers can use it and not just KT and ensure the correctness of the regulations that the customer wants to use, and prove the safety. The references that were released one by one from the Regulation Fast Track are being reused and pre-circulated in other industries. From this perspective, I think the synergy that KT is working with Microsoft and having a partnership is getting much bigger.
Ungse Lee:
Yes, I 100% agree with what you just said. In fact, I have a strong conviction that the true partnership that Microsoft wants is finally being created with KT. Moving on to the next question, it’s been less than a year since I signed a contract with Microsoft, and that you’ve been investing and working intensively with Microsoft. But I think there are difficulties as well. This time, I’d like you to tell us about the difficulties you had while working with Microsoft and how you overcame them.
Jeon Seung-rok:
Yes, the biggest difficulty was the operation. It was too short a time for KT to do Microsoft’s operation quickly. When I experienced Microsoft’s partner operation, there were quite a few parts that were not smooth. So I remember that the process of adjusting those parts was actually a long time. They are giving us a lot of guidance, but I think the system and services and tools should be more secure. Secondly, there were quite a few conflicts between existing business owners when KT was running a business as a partner. It’s been going on for a long time, and there’s been a lot of conflict with the existence of an alliance with a partner that the existing sales lines and sales account managers are looking at. In reality, there were a lot of difficulties, and they are still happening. But I think our mission is to open up a larger market together, and if it is based on trust, I think we can overcome all these challenges.
Ungse Lee:
Thank you for sharing a good lesson. Now, I think we should move on to the last question.
If there is a message that you want to leave to many people watching this video, please leave it at the end.
Jeon Seung-rok:
Yes, we are making many things that we have never imagined before based on trust.
First of all, I’d like to say thank you so much. If I were to give you the last message that I can do better, the great achievement that Microsoft is doing business with its partners is an echo that has been going on for decades. But if you look at the Asian market, I don’t think the momentum of growth through major playing partners was that big, except for a few countries. So the markets that were not advanced were actually small and medium-sized partners. I think there was a limit to the speed at which the market grew. So my last message is KT is the most reliable partner and customer, but I think the market that we open together is a little wider and bigger. If you pay attention to various departments so that this can be done successfully, and if you support them fully like you do now, I think a new momentum will come out and a larger market will be able to be created with Microsoft. In addition, I hope that one partner or meaningful partnership in one country will be created in more countries, so that it can contribute to the development of AI in that country.
Ungse Lee:
Yes, that’s very important. Let’s make that journey together with Microsoft and KT. Thank you for today’s interview.
Jeon Seung-rok:
Thank you.