The KCSC is active in expanding the spatial information business, a new growth engine for the future.
The KCSC (Korea Cadastral Survey Corpora-tion) was founded to survey land on behalf of the Korean government in 1930. These days, KCSC is turning its business structure from a labor-intensive, low-value-added one to a technology-intensive, high-value-added one. The company celebrates its 82nd anniversary next year. At the heart of the change is the spatial information business. Without the power of IT, the spatial information business of the KCSC would be impossible. This is why vice president Lee Min-seok, who is in charge of KCSC’s IT division, feels a big sense of responsibility.
In the past, land surveys were not accurate as most of the work was performed manually. As there was no standard, the government quickly recognized KCSC as the only measuring organization in Korea. This was done in order to prevent rash land surveys, however, such a role will become meaningless with the enactment of the Special Act on Land Surveys.
The enactment of the Special Act on Land Surveys will realize standardization by registering bordering points for land surveys. This means that regardless of who surveys land, the results will be the same. Therefore, there will be no reason why only the KCSC can survey land.
“It will be difficult to maintain the KCSC with only land survey services in the future. Therefore, we need to expand the spatial information business, a new growth engine for us,” emphasized the vice president Lee. He insisted that the KCSC will strengthen the spatial information business in order to ensure its sustainable growth.
As a result, the KCSC will participate in the SOPC (Spatial Open Platform Center) project led by the Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs. Through this project, the KCSC will calculate and supply data related to nationwide land surveys and data. “The geographical information service of Google Earth offers pictures taken by satellite,” said Lee, adding, “The SOPC will offer not only satellite pictures but also information on land and buildings, such as addresses, size and uses,” Lee explained.
The company will turn its service into an alternative to the Google Earth Service that is becoming a pay service, by offering geographical information at lower prices. With the rapid expansion of social networks, the company is preparing a service that combines geographical information with videos.
The company is planning to offer the service on a Web site in order to increase opportunities for people to use it. The KCSC recently completed development of the system for tentative service this year, with it developing content and a mobile service next year. In 2013, the company will finish system stabilization and a supplementation service, with full-scale web services beginning in 2014.
The KCSC will also strengthen its overseas spatial information business. The company is already carrying out a land registration project worth six billion won in Jamaica. The company is also expected to sign a contract worth five billion won to carry out a spatial information project in Turkmenistan. It is highly likely that the KCSC will receive an order to conduct a 30 billion won spatial information project from Haiti in the first half of next year.
“The spatial information projects in Jamaica and Turkmenistan are not ODA (overseas development assistance) projects through which Korea gives financial support to other countries,” Lee added. “The Jamaican and Turkmenistan governments will be investing their own money in the projects. Therefore, these projects are quite meaningful for us.” The KCSC is planning to make proposals for large-scale spatial information projects funded by loans from IDB and the World Bank in the future.
KCSC will conduct land surveys for the nation’s entire landmass with the enactment of the Special Act on Land Surveys. This survey will be conducted on the base of network RTK. Network RTK is an advanced land surveying method in which people calculate locations in real time through the use of global positioning satellites.
Meanwhile, the KCSC is also pushing for the introduction of mobile office and cloud computing, which have been adopted by many companies these days. Before the introduction of cloud computing, the company has been engaged in integrating virtualization-based servers. The company will push forward with the virtualization of 4,000 desk-top PCs in the long-term. Lee said that the company needs more IT-specialized human resources to carry out large-scale projects in the future. KCSC began to reinforce its IT sector in 2006.
At present, KSCS has approximately 40 IT staff members. However, this number is insufficient for surveying land and conducting spatial information projects. “We will map out a plan to expand our IT-specialized human resources,” said Lee, adding, “In the future, we will increase the number of IT specialists to more than 100.”