Digital Transformation in Businesses for a Sustainable Digital Economy

Integrating digital transformation with green transformation not only helps companies reach their business goals but also contributes to achieving sustainable development goals for both the economy and society. 

Speaking at the workshop "Digital transformation in businesses for a sustainable digital economy" hosted by the Agency for Enterprise Development (AED), the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in coordination with GIZ, Mr. Nguyen Duc Trung, Deputy Director of AED, said: The booming digital technology and new technologies such as the internet of things, cloud computing and big data have been increasingly applied to different fields. In 2020, the Prime Minister approved the National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with a vision to 2030, which emphasized "Promoting digital transformation in businesses to sharpen corporate and economic competitiveness to make the digital economy account for 20% of GDP by 2025 and 30% by 2030. The Prime Minister also assigned October 10 as National Digital Transformation Day.

Vietnam's digital economy has developed strongly in recent years, he said. According to Google, Vietnam has had the fastest digital economic growth in Southeast Asia for two consecutive years (28% in 2022 and 19% in 2023). The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) estimated that the share of the digital economy in Vietnam's GDP was 16.5% in 2023. Currently, the country has 50,350 digital technology companies, an increase of 8% over the same period in 2023, and the number is estimated to reach 106% of the plan in 2024.

In the past four years, AED has focused on popularizing and raising awareness of digital transformation for enterprises in 63 provinces and cities across the country. In addition, MPI has offered in-depth digital transformation support like technological consulting and training. Enterprises have markedly raised their awareness of the necessity of digital transformation. Many have entered the stage of digitizing data, standardizing processes, applying digital technology and moving towards digital transformation on a wider and more synchronous scale.

In particular, in addition to basic digital transformation, the trending integration of digital transformation with green transformation towards a sustainable digital economy has also increased. Many pilot programs and projects have been implemented by AED to guide businesses.

Regarding the benefits of digital transformation and green transformation, Mr. Dennis Quennet, Director of Sustainable Economic Development, GIZ said: Digital transformation will contribute positively to the effort to reduce emissions. Currently, dual transformation has become a new global trend, in which digital solutions will be applied to better manage environmental issues towards green growth and sustainable development. Moreover, digital transformation helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) improve productivity and find new markets more easily. However, Vietnam needs good management solutions to optimize digital benefits and minimize risks.

Also at the workshop, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by five tech companies with a total value of more than VND33 billion. The signing parties – namely MobiFone Corporation, MISA Joint Stock Company, FPT Smart Cloud Company, 1C Vietnam Company, and CMC Technology & Solutions Corporation - agreed and committed to building support packages on consulting and technology solutions to foster digital transformation in businesses.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Mr. Tran Quoc Phuong, Deputy Minister of MPI, said that the above cooperation has successfully built preferential solution packages specifically tailored for SMEs, enabling them to minimize consulting costs or digital solutions for business performance improvement.

Mr. Le Minh, Technology Director of CMC Technology & Solutions Corporation (CMC TS), said that with the cooperation to carry out this program, CMC TS hoped to assist in promoting digital transformation in Vietnamese companies and helping them gradually improve their competitive advantages to reach the regional level.

By Thu Ha, Vietnam Business Forum