LG BECOMES FIRST ASIAN COMPANY TO RECEIVE ISM R. GENE RICHTER AWARD

LG Electronics (LG) made history by becoming the first Asian company to be honored with the ISM R. Gene Richter Award for Leadership and Innovation in Supply Management. This is also the first time the award has gone to only one winner since the award was first established in 2006.

The Institute for Supply Managementâ„¢ (ISM), the largest supply management institute in the world, has been honoring excellence in innovative supply management since 2006. The Richter Awards recognizes organizations for best practice in the categories of People, Process, Technology, Sustainability, and Organization/Structure Category.

“To be recognized by ISM is a great honor for both LG and the team members who worked tirelessly to turn LG into a benchmark in the industry,” said Mr. Ki Wan Kim, CEO of LG Electronics Middle East and Africa. “This award is testament that the efforts of procurement departments are without question a strategic contributor to an organization’s business success, most notably during times of economic downturns.”

LG, nominate in the Organization/Structure category, was recognized by the ISM for reinventing its global procurement organization from a highly decentralized sourcing system to a center-led supply management organization. Since its first Chief Procurement Officer was brought on board in early 2008, LG has been actively and swiftly transforming its supply management operation. Under the leadership of IBM veteran Linton, LG created a global procurement strategy, established cross-company commodity councils and installed a general procurement team, among other initiatives. These changes resulted in more than a billion dollars in savings in 2009, helping to better leverage procurement resources and link key commodities across all five LG companies.