With its strong local set up of nearly 20 years, Alcatel-Lucent Vietnam has all the ingredients to compete on the local market with the strength of a multinational. Alcatel-Lucent is positioned in Vietnam as a premier network integrator and solution provider.
Vietnam Business Forum reporter Anh Son interviewed Mr Olivier Lauras, Country Senior Officer of Alcatel-Lucent Vietnam, on its achievements and business prospects in the time to come.
Could you give a summary of the company’s performance over the past years?
Strong progress has been achieved in our transformation journey, highlighted with healthy sales and improved profitability this quarter. Our solutions have strong traction with our customers and a growing share of our next generation product sales. From a geographic standpoint, on top of the established strong dynamic in North America, we experienced good growth in India, China and Russia, fuelled by our recent contract wins and better market conditions. We improved our overall profitability sequentially and year over year.
What is your assessment of Vietnam’s investment environment?
Vietnam has been one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia in recent years, with GDP growth averaging 7.6 % annually between 2000 and 2007. The economic boom has lifted many Vietnamese out of poverty. WTO membership has given Vietnam access to both foreign markets and capital, while making Vietnamese enterprises stronger through increased competition.
Since our first joint-venture was established in Vietnam nearly 20 years ago, we’ve seen a freer and broader investment environment created for foreign enterprises in Vietnam. I’m happy to see that our business in Vietnam has grown from technology transfer and equipment provision into developing local capabilities and consultative solutions for better services delivery. I look forward to seeing new developments in regulations and macroeconomic infrastructure to make Vietnam a capability and innovation centre on its own right which can grow together with the world market and even become a trend-setter in services and technologies.
What is your business prospect and commitment in Vietnam?
Our ambition in Vietnam is to reinforce our position of network integrator, offering unique value – delivered through our combination of design experience and network expertise – that supports and transforms the most sophisticated multivendor wireline, wireless, and converged networks.
Alcatel-Lucent is in Vietnam for the long term. What we do is fundamental to the overall economy and we continue to see longer-term growth opportunities, as end-users become content creators, which will stimulate the development of new applications. This will result in driving more traffic on our customers’ networks and provide us with potential new revenue opportunities. To drive the business in a way that will enable us to take advantage of the market growth opportunities we see, we have developed a set of long-term goals to help us remain successful in Vietnam. We aspire to be the leader in our industry by creating, building and delivering integrated communications solutions and services that bring value to our customers. When a customer thinks about something they need, we want to be the first provider that comes to their mind.
What techniques would you recommend to operators for boosting their revenue?
Our customers perfectly understand the need to bridge between various business and technology approaches. To support them and guide their business and technology investment decisions early in the process, Alcatel-Lucent provides consulting services to prepare business models, assess business environment and sharpen visions. In many cases we assist our customers to discover innovative solutions to specific business problems and to succeed in their business. We also highlight key risk and success factors thanks to a unique Risk Assessment Service, and recommend strategies for turning risks into value. Finally, we help develop business plans capable of communicating a unique story, attracting investors and reducing the time-to-revenue ratio.
Alcatel-Lucent’s Services Transformation program allows operators to secure revenue from new markets, and increase network and customer value. Through our Service Delivery Environment, Operators become agile, able to quickly bring hundreds of personalized, enhanced, and blended services to enterprises and consumers. Alcatel-Lucent’s methodology for transforming service creation and delivery, based on worldwide best practices, offers the flexibility and effectiveness to accelerate time-to-market and reuse assets to generate new revenue. Alcatel-Lucent Services Transformation fosters service innovation while deriving new value from existing assets by integrating new and existing legacy Service Delivery Platforms (IMS, IPTV, IN, etc.) with partner platforms/ecosystems and supports the operator’s creation of sustainable and differentiated business models by providing a more enriched user-centric experience and a service ready network.
What do you think of the recent French Week in Vietnam?
The French Week in Vietnam was a perfect opportunity for us as French businesses to meet together and to be more exposed to the public in Vietnam. I would like to thank the French Embassy and the organizers for the various activities that increase our chance to network and showcase our cutting-edge solutions and technologies in transforming communications.
I believe this is a perfect and incredible boost to the trade and investment relations between the two countries. It’s been also a great opportunity for Vietnamese and French companies to build stronger relationships. I can’t wait to see this to become a regular gathering space for our businesses.
Vietnamese
