Shark Dũng: Flexibility is always paramount in any business; when everything shifts to digital, you must shift with it
“Digital transformation” may not be a new term, perhaps even a cliché, but for those involved, it’s a complex and truly urgent problem. Despite facing many risks from a potential third wave of the Covid-19 outbreak, many businesses have told us they will quickly reactivate their response systems.
Digital transformation has probably been a popular “keyword” in recent years, especially in 2020 amidst major upheavals from the Covid-19 pandemic to natural disasters, and more broadly, institutional, political, and trade changes on the international stage. In this 4.0 revolution, technology is gradually weaving into every aspect of life, from daily activities, consumer habits, and entertainment to utility services and healthcare. Notably, the digital economy has been consistently emphasized in talks and conferences since the beginning of the year. Under pressure and increasingly impacted by Covid-19, businesses are racing to transform their operational and production models to centralize information, enabling better control, faster decision-making, and increased operational efficiency.
With the risk of a third wave of the pandemic, especially in Ho Chi Minh City – considered Vietnam’s economic engine with millions of large and small businesses – digital transformation has never been more urgent! In reality, the processes at many companies, particularly small, medium, and micro-enterprises, are still quite manual and fragmented. Consequently, although the mindset recognizes the need for digital transformation, the implementation process still faces many challenges and requires more time.
The reality is that many businesses lack specific processes, and if they do, they are very manual!
Elaborating on this, a representative from 1Office explained at a recent conference: “Businesses sometimes lack specific processes, still operating manually without measuring for effectiveness. Furthermore, for businesses that do have processes, they are often just on paper, implemented inefficiently, and lack data to measure the applicability and effectiveness of the process. The consequence is that businesses waste time and money on operations and cannot measure the right metrics to know where to improve and make adjustments.”
As a platform providing business management solutions, 1Office states that process-related issues are mainly concentrated in SMEs with fewer than 300 employees. Consequently, when affected by Covid-19, their business indicators immediately declined. Without data for analysis, they couldn’t make accurate decisions, and worse, many had to dissolve. Thus, businesses need to digitize data and standardize their work environment and processes to optimize operating costs (~15-20%) and increase work efficiency (>30%), the representative emphasized.
When everything goes digital, you are forced to shift in any way possible!
Shark Nguyen Manh Dung.
Or, according to Shark Nguyen Manh Dung – Founder and CEO of Do Ventures: “I think in any business, flexibility is paramount. You have to change with the changing environment. When everything has to go digital, you are forced to shift in some way“.
For example, instead of building a sales platform, can you go on existing platforms to see if you can tap into the customer base already there? Or instead of developing a overly complex management system, you can buy a ready-made one that is quite affordable now, Shark Dung shared.
“Even many traditional companies are seeking out and making excellent use of the digital shift. They can sell cross-border on platforms like Amazon… or many young people in Vietnam are now leveraging platforms like Facebook to sell from Vietnam. I think it’s not just a traditional company or a tech company; everyone has to change with the times“, he emphasized.
Striving for the digital economy to account for 40% of GRDP by 2030
Understanding the importance of digital transformation, Ho Chi Minh City also planned early to promote the locality in its new strategy. In 2020, the City People’s Committee issued Decision No. 2393/QD-UBND approving the Ho Chi Minh City Digital Transformation Program with a vision to 2030. In it, the targets by 2025 are for annual GRDP to increase by about 8%, and the proportion of the service sector in GRDP to be over 60%. Notably, the digital economy is targeted to contribute 25% by 2025 and 40% by 2030 to the GRDP.
In this digital economy, digital payments are a crucial component, and reality shows a clear shift with the surge in online shopping, consumers preferring cashless methods, and numerous businesses making e-commerce channel development a core strategy since 2020.
“Speaking of the nature of payment intermediaries, this model is shaped to act as a bridge between banks, consumers, and the economic system, especially retail systems. In this role, payment intermediaries must solve the problem of how to become an extended arm of the bank while simultaneously creating convenience for users and diversifying the service system to promote the circulation of idle cash flow, or simplifying processes to serve the financial consumption needs of the people“, said Mr. Tran Dai Long, a representative from Moca.
Moca is known as a super-app within the Grab ecosystem. Participating in the discussion on digital transformation, the e-wallet representative also noted that the key issue for payment intermediaries is service innovation and changing people’s mindset about using payment tools. Instead of just facilitating payments for basic convenient spending, payment intermediaries must also create new products that meet more of people’s needs, such as access to financial strategies, concretizing credit scores, etc.
In summary, “digital transformation” may not be a new term, perhaps even a cliché, but for those involved, it’s a complex and truly urgent problem. Despite facing many risks from a potential third wave of the Covid-19 outbreak, many businesses have told us they will quickly reactivate their response systems. Alongside this, the online segment has been, is, and will continue to be strongly developed, with expectations of soon moving towards more sustainable development in these more volatile times!
Source: https://cafebiz.vn/
