Lee Ji-hong, president of Daiichi 

Makes the best baby’s car seat with “made in Korea”

Lee Ji-hong, president of Daiichi Co. says that she makes the safest car seat to make the best car seat. Daiichi is a baby’s car seat enterprise ranking 1st in market share with its unparalleled technology by combining the safety-first principle inherited from the ex-president and father Lee Wan-soo with incessant development of technology. 

Building up in the support of mothers based on its excellent safety obtaining safety certificate from home and abroad, Daiichi is currently delivering car seats of purely domestic technology to many countries including Japan, China, Russia, Hong Kong, Iran, etc. showing the power of a native brand. Daiichi achieved ‘the tower of 1 million-dollar exports’ in three years after launching overseas and proving its global competitiveness by being selected as a promising smaller enterprise for exports. The company has implemented business on the needs of the market through positive communication with customers showing the competitiveness proven by the 260% growth since this woman CEO’s inauguration in 2010. 

Car seat is a lifesaver. We make safety goods, not baby goods. 

“In a car accident, wearing a car seat will reduce the baby’s death rate 71%. While safety belt keeps an adult’s life, the baby’s car seat keeps the baby’s life.” Lee Ji-hong, president of Daiichi Co. says that ‘Car seat is safety goods, not baby goods.’ It is to maintain safety that Daiichi has adhered to 100% homegrown components and 100% domestic production since the beginning of the business. “Using homegrown components increases the cost of production but makes solidity much superior. Besides, since the whole processes of development and manufacture are done at home, it makes a thorough quality control possible not only for our manufacturing plant but also for our partners.” 

President Lee’s safety-first principle that the best car seat is the safest car seat is the principle of production held since his father and immediate predecessor Lee Wan-soo. This ex-president made a quality control manual departmentalized from raw material to delivery of finished products to be thoroughly applied for each step of production. When first preparing for exports to the Japanese market, he changed the company name into Japanese meaning ‘the best’ and invited a famous car seat engineer from Japan for a technical advisor. He was so determined to make the best baby car seat enough to pass Japan’s quality inspection which was known for strictness. 

“It was so tiring. There were so many documents and samples required that I wondered if this process should be really needed. Because at that time Daiichi already had such recognition for quality as to obtain a safety certificate from Europe for the first time in the nation and receive a citation from the prime minister. Getting the green light in the test after preparing for half a year I was able to understand why my father bothered to face difficulty. While going through the continued quality tests from Japan, we came to set the safety standards from more detailed and diverse viewpoints and complement the parts in want, which made us more confident in the quality. Finally, Daiichi succeeded in its first foreign exports by delivering its car seat to ‘Pigeon’, the biggest baby goods brand of Japan, while the record of passing Japan’s quality test has served to make a deal with many countries thereafter. 

‘Victory of a native brand made by mothers’ word of mouth as ‘the people’s car seat’ 

After taking the first place in stability evaluation for baby’s car seat conducted in a broadcasting program in 2011, Daiichi began to go viral as the ‘consumer’s accusation car seat.’ It is said that after the broadcast, they had difficulty with supply and demand of goods because of the unexpected orders combined with doubly increased volume of exports. 

“As president of the company, I felt both pressed and sorry for customers. Our products are made by hand to keep the quality and, especially in case of the line for important components, only experienced engineers are allowed to work, which is quite different from those produced in mass at an automation plant. However, it was impossible to make a production line hurriedly to meet the volume of orders. When it was certain to lower the quality, I was unable to sell imperfect products for an immediate gain. I asked the customers for understanding saying we would return their interest with an excellent product rather than fast production. Fortunately, they understood the long time of waiting in support of our faith.”

Daiichi’s consistent principle of management won confidence from customers and got over 52% of market share as a native brand in the baby goods market ruled by a striking phenomenon of preferred imported brands, drawing people’s attention as an unexampled success model in the baby’s car seat industry. 

President Li Ji-hong showing woman CEO’s competitiveness with an open communication 

Daiichi is providing the information on baby’s safety in life harder to obtain compared to the baby’s education or health and engaging in the ‘Safe mom’ campaign for increasing the wear of baby’s car seat, which is below 40% in our country while 90% in advanced countries. Besides, the company is communicating with customers through diverse channels including the homepage, Internet caf?, blog, mobile messenger, etc. 

“We are making efforts for an open communication with mothers who are our main customers. All products from Daiichi use functional fabric that absorbs and dries sweat fast. We also use organic whole cloth that obtained an organic certificate for the first time in Korea. It wouldn’t have been possible thinking of the unit price of production or difficulty at manufacture, but I dared to do because I knew concretely what mothers find inconvenient and what they want through communication with them. Daiichi car seat’s differentiation, such as ‘sun visor’ which protects a baby’s eyes and skin from UV rays, headrest specially designed to minimize the sway of the head and adjustment of sectionalized levels and angles, was made by the mothers’ direct voices. Their practical and reasonable ideas are the source of Daiichi’s development of products, too.”

‘First seven’ launched this February is Daiichi’s new model available for a newborn infant to age seven. It is a product capable of adjusting 7-phase levels of headrest suited for the pace of growth and 4-phase angles. This is a model fitting all techniques of Daiichi by minimizing the shaking with a low-center design meaning a low center of gravity and the triple-side protection system, and increasing the driving, which is already receiving a warm response from the market. By technofying the customer’s needs quickly and launching a new model each year, Daiichi car seat was selected for 2013 mothers’ most purchased baby car seat and 2014 grand prize for the best brand chosen by customers. For corporate responsibility Daiichi is participating in Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation, Holt Children’s Welfare and Happiness Share N Campaign, with a future dream about baby’s goods brand representing Korea by diversifying the product line and broadening markets overseas. We give a ready support to the ambition of President Li Ji-hong who wants to make a 100-year enterprise trusted by customers with a brand first used by a baby and then chosen again by him for the next generation.