Asti Electronics Corporation: Quality-competitive Key

After researching Asian countries, we chose Vietnam as an ideal business destination in the region. The investment environment in Vietnam in recent years is opening, with many positive changes such as speed of issuing investment licenses, and open and transparent procedures. Especially, Binh Duong is one of the leading provinces in Vietnam that has actively implemented administrative reform, simplified procedures and created favourable conditions for foreign investors. Based on these, Asti Electronics Corporation decided to establish our presence here in October 1998. Our key products include wire harnesses for cars and motorcycles, printed circuit boards for washing machines and television, air-conditioner and plastic injection parts. At first, we worked and did market research at the same time, employing about 100 workers. And we are proud that our number of workers now reaches 1,300 people. In 2001-2006, we reached a high sales volume and won the trust of many customers such as Canon, Toshiba, Sanyo, Yamaha, Suzuki, Panasonic and Sony.

 

At first, it was hard to find material suppliers for our production in Vietnam. To maintain production activities, we had to import 100 per cent of our input material from Japan. The price is a little high, but demand at that time was huge in Vietnam. To stabilize production activities, we have also imported materials from neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Our current prices are still high, but we are in the process of negotiating with our mother company in Japan to further localize input materials, cut product price, and improve competitiveness. Besides, we will continuously improve product quality to compete with imported products from China.

 

As I mentioned earlier, with such a fast economic growth rate, the demand for digital home electronic equipment in Vietnam is very high. We are now supplying electronic equipment to many manufacturers in Vietnam. To better serve in a more effective way, we are now investing in a new modern technology line. It is our plan to open up branches in Northern Vietnam. Specifically, AEC established a presence in Vinh Phuc Province (next to Noi Bai airport) in July 2006 with more than 330 employees. In the future, we will do more specific market research, putting forward specific business strategies and setting up our distribution network nationwide.

 

WTO membership means Vietnam will remove all tariff barriers except for technical ones. But Vietnam now does not have technical barriers strong and effective enough to protect electronic products and electric equipment. First, Vietnam does not have basic technical standards necessary for preventing poor quality imported products. Second, the country does not have enough equipment and measures monitoring electronic products. Third, for some kinds of products, Vietnam is still weak in market management. This results in counterfeit and smuggled products, so a great deal of poor quality electronic products have flooded the market.

 

In my view, Vietnam should have stronger management policies. For a company like us to continue stable and long-term development, we must have a thorough grasp of factors including competitive price, good quality, and on-time delivery. If these factors are well understood, WTO membership will create more opportunities. Of course, if a company works properly, using modern technology to create high quality products, it will have a competitive advantage.

 

At the beginning, we realized that human resources would determine our survival or failure. Apart from paying a satisfactory salary to our workers, we also pay attention to their health. We organize periodic medical examination programs. We often offer training activities (Japanese courses, driving license training) for our staff, 9 training courses are provided every year to improve their professional skills. Besides, we are involved in social activities, supporting poor families, giving assistance to people who suffer from natural disasters, etc.