Article at a GlanceCeragem recognized the growth potential of the home healthcare market as early as 1998 and was the first to introduce a spinal therapy bed featuring automatic thermal technology.
Since then, the company has prioritized global expansion, particularly in the United States and China, rather than focusing on Korea. This strategy has helped Ceragem grow into a company with annual revenues of approximately 300 billion KRW.
However, after realizing the limitations of relying solely on spinal thermal devices, Ceragem launched its “second founding” in 2018, re-entering the Korean market with a renewed focus on technology, design, and experiential marketing.
In particular, Ceragem introduced the ‘Ceragem Well Café,’ a space designed for customers to experience its products in a relaxed setting. This initiative quickly gained traction through its “experiential marketing” approach.
To further expand its customer touchpoints, the company implemented an omnichannel strategy that integrated offline stores like department stores and distribution points, online channels such as TV home shopping and online malls, and home experiences, where staff directly visit customers to assist in using the devices. As a result, Ceragem’s Korean revenue, which was only 67.6 billion KRW in 2018, grew ninefold to 604.8 billion KRW by 2022.
In 2017, Lee Kyung-soo, who was the Head of Sales Support at Ceragem at the time and is now the CEO, boldly submitted his resignation. Having joined Ceragem as a new recruit in 2004, he steadily advanced through key roles in public relations, marketing, overseas sales planning, and sales strategy.
After 12 years at the company, he was promoted to an executive position—but just a year later, he made the unexpected decision to resign. There were two reasons for his decision. One was his personal desire to run his own business when he reached his 40s. The other was his longing for field experience. Lee, who had joined the company when it was just growing, had done every job possible in a fast- growing company, but he realized that he lacked experience in field sales, which he saw as his own limitation.
He believed that to successfully run his own business in the future, he needed firsthand experience interacting with customers.
With this in mind, he left the company and moved to Sichuan Province in China to start a Ceragem dealership business. He decided to focus on Ceragem’s flagship product, the “Ceragem Master V3,” as his business item. Since this product was already popular in major Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai—as well as in over 70 countries—he saw strong potential for success.
