U.S.-based big data cloud provider Snowflake has launched Korean operation to penetrate deeper into the IT and data powerhouse.

The new branch will be headed by Country Manager Kang Hyoung-jun, former head of data cloud platform operator Cloudera Korea, according to Snowflake on Wednesday. He will be leading Snowflake’s business development, sales and channels, and partnership engagements in Korea.

“Key industries in the Korean market such as automotive, financial services, manufacturing, retail and many more can benefit from Snowflake’s flexibility, concurrency, secure data sharing and leverage the platform as single source of truth for all of their data,” said Kang.

Snowflake, founded in 2012, enables corporate customers to mobilize their data with its Data Cloud. Customers use it to unite siloed data, discover and share data securely, and execute diverse analytic workloads. Snowflake can deliver a single data experience that spans multiple clouds and geographies.

Backed by its convenient, powerful platform, Snowflake debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last year with a market cap of approximately 130 trillion won ($109.6 billion).

Korea as one of the world’s leading technology innovators processes on a huge amount of new data.

With Snowflake’s Data Cloud, Korean businesses can have access to an entire data network to help them unlock deeper data insights and more business value from their data, the company said in its press release.

SK Inc. C&C is already among Snowflake customers. Under a strategic partnership, SK Inc. C&C combined its digital platform with Snowflake’s. Snowflake backs the service SK Inc. C&C provides to its customers, the first kind of strategic collaboration in Asia, according to Jon Robertson, president of Asia, Pacific and Japan region business at Snowflake.

“The powerful combined capabilities of Snowflake’s Data Cloud and the SK Inc. C&C digital platform enables customers to supercharge their use of data across their organizations – helping them to strategically align their cloud and data strategies with business priorities, improve accessibility of data insights, and build economic efficiencies over time,” said Lee Ki-yeol, general manager of digital platform business and executive vice president at SK Inc. C&C.

“Snowflake’s mission is to mobilize the world’s data, and we’re rapidly expanding globally to support that mission,” said Robertson. “By opening a Korean office and establishing strong leadership in the market, we’ll be able to best address the needs of local businesses and help the Korean market fully realize the benefits of Snowflake’s Data Cloud for their own business goals.”

By Lim Young-sin and Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]