[INTERVIEW] Glasses guru finds key for consumer trust from social outreach

Davich Group chairman envisions expansion beyond glasses

By Ko Dong-hwan

The head of Davich Group views social outreach as more than just a way to invest time, money and manpower for publicity. For him, it is a fundamental aspect of his role and, ideally, a responsibility shared by the franchisees of over 300 Davich Optical shops across the country.

Chairman Kim In-gyu’s targets for social outreach are not limited to Korea.

In April, he plans to visit Laos with 27 of his employees and partners from the company's franchise network for a prescribed glasses donation project. The planned journey is just one of the latest philanthropic projects he has committed to since the group’s establishment in 1986. Why he consistently invests such efforts for non-business activities is simple: building consumer trust for his company and brand.

The longest social outreach service Kim has been leading is a vision care service at public welfare facilities nationwide. Over 730 times so far, optometrists from the group visited the facilities, performed eye examinations for local residents and donated prescription glasses. The beneficiaries of the service now number over 42,000, according to the group.

That outreach’s international version is what Kim is planning for April. He and his crew will check the vision of local children in Laos and, after returning to Seoul, make glasses adjusted with the prescription for each of the children and send them back to Laos.

“This is much more sophisticated than donating a bunch of magnifying glasses. The latter, to me, is just formality,” Kim, 63, said in an interview with The Korea Times at Davich Group’s office in central Seoul. The interview came six days after he donated 3,000 pairs of sunglasses to members of the Republic of Korea Air Force with a charity fund of 100 million won ($70,000).

“In remote regions in countries like Laos, glasses are hard to come by, especially for children.”

Kim’s social outreach goes beyond his specialty of optometry. When he visited Vietnam in 2019, he provided funding for building fishing boats and hand pumps for drinking water for a cash-strapped local community by the Mekong River.

“We have not visited Africa yet (for social outreach). It is definitely in my agenda,” Kim said.

Light up your life

Helping socially vulnerable people has been Kim’s living practice since a child when he witnessed his father's activities. His father, a fruit orchard owner, was a generous man, once in a while taking all his employees for a vacation tour with their costs all covered. He had also slaughtered pigs for a village party, funded university tuition fees for students from poor families and built a community center for his village.

Now, that philanthropic value is one of the key business pillars for Davich and, according to the chairman, its employees and franchisees have accepted it. Acknowledging the value and voluntarily engaging in social outreach projects raise their self-esteem and give them pride in their work, Kim added.

“I started my glasses business in 1986 in Busan, visiting door-to-door local welfare centers for older adults to sell glasses. I had no business partner and I did everything on my own. Since then, social outreach has been part of my job,” Kim said.

“I learned that providing help can also make me feel as content and happy as those being helped out. That realization and the practices it had induced me to do kept growing on me over decades of career. Davich Optical franchisees share that sentiment. It comes out through their services for our customers.”

Kim started the glasses business based on advice from his older brother-in-law. The thought that he could bring a brighter vision to others and smiles to their faces made him determined to pursue the business. That initiation led him to choose Davich’s slogan that still stands: “Light up your life.”

Kim currently runs five glasses brands under Davich, all with different styles and purposes. The company, an original design manufacturer, produces selected designs supplied by some 100 firms mostly in Daegu.

One of the company’s signature brands is Bibiem, an acronym for “baeryeo” (caring others), “bongsa” (volunteer) and “mirae” (future), which is in line with his philanthropic view. The company spends part of the brand’s sales in providing free eye examinations and manufacturing prescribed glasses for the socially vulnerable.

The company also exports contact lenses to Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. It operates a manufacturing plant in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, jointly built with Dongkook Pharmaceutical in 2018.

“The plant is currently undergoing expansion,” Kim said. “I have never seen better color contact lenses made outside Korea. It has been popular in countries around Asia and the Middle East.”

The company each year also appoints optical officers who manage each Davich Optical shop on behalf of Kim and the company. Davich Group trains the officer appointees so that the shops operate in accordance with Kim’s key values dedicated to customers and the socially vulnerable.

With the belief that "teaching optical instructors is key to our future," Kim runs 10 different programs under the company's systematic curriculum to train optical officers. One program, for example, which is mandatory for all optical officers and Davich Optical franchisees, teaches the importance of the company's values and how to treat customers properly.

Marketing policies, proficiency in optometry and product knowledge are some of the key subjects the company makes sure the trainees know. The company also teaches how to analyze a local market in which a new Davich Optical store is set to open, how to manage products in stock and how to treat customers in various situations.

The group has been appointing over 1,880 optical officers each year for the past 16 years under strict selection standards. With rising sales and customers since 2020, addition of new officers has been necessary each year. Last year, sales logged over 328.5 billion won ($230 million), up from 267 billion won in 2020 when the figure plunged from the previous year’s 290 billion won due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers also peaked in 2024 at 5.47 million, up from 4.59 million in 2020 after dipping from 5.22 million in 2019.

Beyond glasses

Kim plans to grow Davich Group to become not just a glasses company but a multifaceted conglomerate. He said the new businesses would focus on the five human senses, with the glasses business taking care of the visual organ. On the first floor of the building the group’s office is located in is a chicken stew restaurant he runs.

Real estate and resorts is another direction the group is diversifying into. He has sold out all 170 suites from Davich Resort Village, a group of townhouses his company completed in 2018 in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, where he was born. Davich Group claims 10 percent of the resort business’ interests.

Kim is now yielding his control over the glasses business to his son who is currently the group’s CEO. It is the father's measure to focus more on other businesses and broaden the group’s scope.

“It is going to be a father-and-son business going global from now on,” Kim said. “While my son expands Davich’s glasses business to overseas, I will not only expand the group’s other businesses but also look for more opportunities for social outreach in not just Korea but other countries as well.”

Who is Kim In-gyu?

As the chairman of Davich Group, Kim led the company win the Customer’s Choice Brand Awards for 12 years in a row with the most recent win in 2023. In 2021, he won a recognition from the minister of SMEs and startups in the innovative business management category for the Korea Digital Management Innovation Awards.

Establishing Davich Holdings subsidiary in 2018, Kim launched the Davich Resort Village business the same year. In 2012, he was awarded by the head of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee in recognition of his social outreach record. The same year, he launched the group’s official vision care volunteer service crew.