Business Application Trends Seminar Hosted by Noonbisoft
IT Service Industry: Time to Find Fundamental Problems and Solutions

While talk of the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues, domestic software development is currently engaged in low-price competition. A venue was arranged to share opinions on the problems facing the domestic software industry and directions for its resurgence.

A seminar titled 'Domestic Business Application Trends and Activation Measures' hosted by Noonbisoft, a startup that creates business application platforms, was held at the Construction Mutual Aid Association on the 6th.

Professor Son Byeong-hee of Inha Technical College, who served as the moderator for the event, stated, “The core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is software. While hardware is visible, allowing us to understand its direction of evolution and trends, software is invisible, making that impossible.” He added, “Software can expand infinitely because it incorporates human thought. Now is the time to find out how to respond to the current situation.”

Professor Kim Deok-hyeon of Sejong Cyber University, who delivered the keynote speech, stated, “I believe software capability should be defined as the capability of leading companies,” adding, “Our country focuses too much on the surface.” "We need to look into the cause of the phenomenon," he pointed out.

“A global software market share of around 1%, a lack of core/source technologies, low profitability of software companies, and reliance on overseas products and services—these are the phenomena occurring domestically,” he said, pointing out our capabilities, problems, and causes. “Upon analyzing the causes, they can be summarized into four categories: inconsistent government policies, a lack of rational thinking and execution capabilities, errors in recognizing the meaning and scope of IT and SW, and weak social/cultural capital.”

Yoo Ho-seok, a researcher at the Software Policy Research Institute who gave a presentation on "Directions and Conditions for the Re-launch of the Korean IT Service Industry," suggested the direction for the domestic market by citing the United States, a front-runner, and India, a latecomer, as examples.

Researcher Yoo stated, “We need to examine whether the same prescriptions have been in place for over a decade and if they are fundamental solutions,” explaining that the domestic market structure is centered on large corporations, involves wrongful practices by clients, and is stuck in a stalemate as ecosystem participants shift responsibility to one another due to government regulations. In addition, IT service companies determined that it is difficult to transition to a cloud-native model with high profitability and scalability.

He continued by saying, “Now that 20 years have passed since starting the software business, the IT service industry is at the stage of India’s staffing agency,” and suggested that a digital transition is the way to make a leap forward, citing the need for IT service capabilities to operate the real world beyond the virtual world by developing BPO and SaaS businesses based on customer process optimization capabilities.

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution will create a tremendous number of jobs in the software industry. However, without competence, one cannot enter the workforce even if the number of jobs increases. In practical work, the capabilities of the workforce are crucial," said Moon Yong-jun, a manager at SK C&C. "We must cultivate talent capable of applying their skills in the field, rather than relying on rote memorization. Now is the time for companies, not universities, to nurture talent."

This was followed by an introduction to the Pinion platform by CEO Chae Gap-byeong of Nunbisoft, global software company management strategies by Lee Seon, Director of the Macro Management Research Institute, a presentation by Professor Kang Jang-mook of Korea University on "Is the Software Policy Acceptable as It Is?", and a panel discussion.