1Office helps automate business processes

1Office Joint Stock Company just launched its business process automation solution – 1Office Business Process Automation (BPA) – on June 7. According to CEO Le Viet Thang, this is an effective “key” to help businesses solve difficulties in process operations, free up human resources, optimize efficiency, and save costs and time. He shared with VnExpress about the product research and development process.

– What preparations did 1Office have to make for the launch of BPA, sir?

– When developing a product, the most important thing is that it must be launched, so we spent nearly two years on research and testing. One of the difficulties was developing the UX (user experience), as the underlying layers had to be implemented long before. Even now, we haven’t finished it completely, meaning users can use it, but we can’t start charging for it yet.

The product launch event was also an important milestone and took a lot of time to prepare. The hardest part of organizing it was that when you talk about processes, customers immediately think of movement. Therefore, we invested a great deal of effort into designing the slides in the most intuitive way. In the last 10 days before the event, the entire staff and I had to stay up all night to handle every small detail. Three days before the launch, there was an issue with corrupted images, so we had to redo everything from scratch. Everyone ate and slept at the company to finish on schedule.

– What was the company’s biggest challenge in developing this product?

– My biggest concern was creating a toolset that a recent graduate with little tech knowledge could still set up. From designing a user-friendly interface to selecting the right features, everything was carefully calculated. I want 1Office BPA to be more than just a tool; I want it to be a companion for every customer.

– How would you rate the product’s level of completion?

– If I were to evaluate the product, I’d say it’s about 65-70% complete, with special features like a form builder, digital signatures, and automation for HR, administrative, accounting, asset, and work processes… We also have many more things to develop in the future. In the coming month, the team will bring it up to 80-85% completion, adding a billing feature and fixing minor bugs that have arisen.

– How do you assess the product’s potential in the market?

– Small businesses need a user-friendly toolset that allows them to connect their individual rules into a large, smooth, and flexible process. Our product is different, so its market potential is huge.

I believe this is just the beginning of 1Office BPA’s power. The more businesses use it, the more feedback we’ll receive, allowing us to perfect the product to solve even bigger problems.

– In your opinion, what is the future development trend for BPA solutions?

– In the near future, other companies might also develop models similar to BPA. However, to create such a product, you need an all-in-one solution, data to connect into processes, and a platform to leverage it. That is a tough problem.

It’s difficult because their initial starting point is only aimed at solving a small problem. Therefore, when they need to create records or documents, they have to pull information from other software, which complicates the setup.

Meanwhile, 1Office is an all-in-one technology platform that can solve every problem on a single tool, making it easier to gather customer feedback. The digitized data from customers will be the foundation on which 1Office BPA operates.

– What gave you the idea to develop a product suite for business process automation?

– Two years ago was a very difficult time for us. Whenever we worked with investors, they would ask about the next month’s plan before the current month was even over. Sometimes, even with money in hand, we didn’t know how to spend it because before we could even have a beer to celebrate the previous month’s sales, we had to rack our brains thinking about how to make the next month even better.

That’s why I came up with the idea of creating a toolset for process automation to solve the pain points that businesses are facing. With it, employees at all levels no longer forget or miss tasks or blame each other, departments coordinate smoothly, and managers are transparent in employee evaluations, creating a decent and desirable work environment.

Decency is truly the driving force behind all activities. A product that is decent to customers, colleagues who are decent to each other, and a company that is decent to its employees—that is the core principle for me and 1Office.

– What are the company’s plans for the near future?

– 1Office continues to strive for the leading position in the enterprise management sector. Furthermore, we will soon spin off a separate product suite to go global, concentrating exclusively on work management.