Future Office Driven by Digitalization

“The pandemic has changed us, making us more resilient and faster!” Richard Wu said that all things should be considered from a digital point of view. In the past, he focused on the digitization of the marketplace software and hardware. However, starting from this year, everything should be digitalized. Currently, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi is creating a future office for its employees.

As a heavy user of 3C products, Richard Wu has dozens of work-related groups and has involved the staff throughout Taiwan and Mainland China. During the pandemic, there were quite a lot of online conferences and the staff took turns working at the office. In fact, the headquarters office was optimized before the pandemic by organizing more meeting rooms, shared spaces and lounges in the hope of providing a better working environment for employees. Because of the pandemic, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has started to innovate its working methods and environment.

Richard Wu introduced his vision for the office of the future. The need for break and co-working will increase, so more space and more windows will be needed. Digitalization will require a lot of discussion and meetings if teams want to work digitally. In addition to creating a friendly digital working space, energy saving and carbon reduction are things that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi needs to think about.

In the first year of the pandemic outbreak, Richard Wu gathered all the department heads to form a COVID-19 prevention team because he understood that the coming challenges were not only his but also a department’s, but one that all departments would encounter. For more than two years, more than 150 prevention group meetings have been held. Even if the pandemic is properly controlled, the group meets once a week to discuss the international situation and the situation of each counter staff members, so that employees can concentrate on their work. When dealing with problems, the solution could be digitalized and carried out quickly.

Richard Wu also cited the parking lot and apps as an example. During the pandemic, guests requested as little contact as possible. The parking app function could solve the problem for customers, and became one of the top three app functions over the past three years. This optimization idea originated from the response of guests at the end of 2018. After several meetings, it was implemented as a new function in the app, which directly recognized the users by their mobile phones and therefore reached zero contact though online and skmpay payment. Parking may not be able to directly increase sales, but it can be a catalyst for guests to come back again.

Commercial Times
by Li Li-Man
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