Yuhan-Kimberlyy Kimberly Case Study

Problem Background
Yuhan-Kimberly is a joint venture company of Yuhan Corporation (Korea based) with Kimberly-Clark (US based). It was established in 1970 and is a leading company who manufactures health and hygiene products such as diapers, sanitary napkins, tissues, and wet wipes.
On March 2005, a crisis happened because of the baby wet wipes product. In other developed countries such as Europe and United States, wet wipes were categorized as cosmetic product. However Yuhan-Kimberly sold the wet wipes as a baby care product. One consumer activist organization did a research on the product and discovered the formaldehyde substance. According to NCI (National Cancer Institute) (2011), formaldehyde can cause severe allergic to eyes, skin, nose, and throat if used in short term, however it may caused cancer in the long run. Almost 50.000 consumers complaints, asked for refund, and the wet wipes market share declined from 50% to 26% in April and 21% in May.

Steps Yuhan-Kimberly Took
Yuhan-Kimberly immediately set up a crisis management plan (Fearn-Banks, 2011, pp. 238-242):
Step 1
The company created the crisis management team, which included the CEO, a spokesperson, and the business leader.

Step 2
The spokesperson (EunWook Lee)

It is common in South Korea, that people trying hard to maintain the condition of Kibun both in personal and professional business life. This is usually shown by respecting others’ opinion, feeling, be polite, be friendly, and do their best when doing something. One more thing, there is Nunchi in South Korea, which means the way people examining non-verbal, tone, and body language by using eye. The things spoken may not always be the true meaning, for example, they say “Are you sleepy?” And if you answer “No”, it might hurt their feeling, because by asking that, implicitly they want to tell you they were sleepy and wanted to go to bed. So it is essential to have the Nunchi ability as