Vietnamese Businesses to Reach Global Standards

Vietnamese businesspeople have achieved great progress, brought vitality to the Vietnamese economy, created jobs, developed the community and built up the national economy. About 90,000 new enterprises were established in the first nine months of 2016, an increase of over 20 per cent from the same period of 2015.

 

Dr Vu Tien Loc, President of VCCI, said, in the past five years (2011-2015), businesses had to struggle with restructuring efforts to survive, although the nurturing of new potential businesses started. However, the Vietnamese business community still lacked the direction to create effective breakthroughs and enhance competitiveness to have successful integration.

 

Meanwhile, the synergy of integration with the fourth technology revolution will produce tremendous pressures on both the business community and entrepreneurs. The advantages of natural resources and labour costs will decline and international trade will likely drop. Labour-intensive and resource-intensive industries may return to states in Europe and North America where automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, new material, nanotechnology and 3D printing in use result in declining production costs.

 

These necessitate technological and governance renovations, forcing Vietnamese enterprises and entrepreneurs to change their mindsets, elevate their levels and raise competitiveness to survive.

 

Dr Loc said, businesspeople in Vietnam could previously grow and make success with their dedication and experience rather than knowledge, but they must now have knowledge. Business strategies must be methodical, clear and core-focused rather than rambling as before. Every business, irrespective of their size, needs to move towards global standards.

 

“In terms of total assets, some companies have relatively large scales and have high rankings in the region, but the overall effect and the quality has much to be discussed. Big companies in Vietnam are now mainly engaged in financial, banking and real estate sectors. An overwhelming majority of Vietnamese enterprises are small and medium and their professionalism is far below common global standards. Family-run economic entities are still popular economic actors in the agricultural sector and rural areas,” he said.

 

When family-run economy is still common, global benchmarks are almost out of reach. Moreover, concerns about the growth of a relation-based entrepreneur generation and the nouveau riche are largely obstructing the way Vietnamese entrepreneurs get to the world. Even the Vietnamese private sector is distorted by relation-based investment and interest groups.

 

Nevertheless, when the business environment becomes more transparent and equitable, there will be no “ground for the relationship,” he noted. Businesses and entrepreneurs will invest in technology, professional management and market focus instead of relationship.

 

With the Government’s attentions to create a fair, transparent and honest business environment, companies only need to focus resources for the market.

 

VCCI President Loc assessed that Resolution 19 and Resolution 35 of the Government can be considered vital to entrepreneurship. With its new thinking, the Government is trying to improve competitiveness rankings with ASEAN and global economies. The business community must also upgrade and make breakthroughs to adapt to the new business environment. The Government is determined to abandon the “give and take” regime and the business counteracts relation-based opportunities, which are becoming the main reform trend to shape a helping and serving government and an honest, competitive business community.

 

“Global integration and new trade and investment trend are new factors to promote growth, investment, market access, employment for workers and opportunities for businesspeople. Wisdom must be the core, creativity must be the motivation, professional business must be practised from the heart. Renovation and creativity are not only the work of entrepreneurs, but also of the whole economy. But, entrepreneurs must be at the forefront. Without changes to adapt to new developments, Vietnamese entrepreneurs will find no way to the world,” Dr Loc concluded.