New environment & challenges

Entering the WTO, Vietnam takes another step on the path of world integration.

We need new skills, new ways of thinking, new business processes and habits that come with IT infrastructure, not the IT infrastructure itself. The winners in today's world are the ones who learn the fastest habits, processes and skills. Give up the old way of thinking when it is no longer relevant, capture the transformation of the world, the transformation of technology and find ways to adapt it faster than counteract that transformation.

New environment

From now on, we and the other 149 countries in the WTO will use the same code of conduct and trade dispute settlement mechanism, complying with the general rules on tax rates and goods quotas, removing them gradually. difference in economic environment . WTO turns all participating countries into a common market. But the WTO is only part of the globalization process. Along with WTO, the change of political factors in economic management, the strong development of IT and communication (ICT) and many other factors have made the world of today different from the world. yesterday very far.

In " The world is flat ", author Thomas L. Friedman describes the system in which individuals and small groups are facilitated, empowered and reached globally easily and smoothly is a flat world system . According to Friedman, the flat world system is a product of convergence between personal computers (allowing individuals to become authors of digital products) with fiber optic cable. (allows individuals to access digital products around the world almost for free) and software (PM) to handle work (allowing individuals around the world to collaborate on the same digital database , regardless of where and how far away it is. Together with individuals, large and small businesses are also given new powers. Of the 10 factors that flatten the world Friedman mentions, factors in the ICT sector make up the majority and have a significant impact on the remaining factors.

The role of IT enterprises is to help enterprises outside the IT sector integrate faster.This issue is larger than the integration of IT enterprises.Currently, Vietnamese enterprises lack the ability to innovate (innovation), the level of readiness to receive technology is not high.

These can be improved by IT applications. If improving the efficiency of IT application, it will improve competitiveness. Currently, our IT application is at the starting line. The cost of IT in Australia is now 8%, some European countries are 10%, while in Vietnam it is 2%.

Mr. Phan Thanh Son, technical - technology director, Cisco System Vietnam Company.

People continue to argue about Friedman's position, but it is clear that the ICT application has changed the face of the world, at a very fast pace. ICT is drawing the world map in its own way, in which the borders and distances between countries become fuzzy, even disappear. A Vietnamese can now work for a US company in real time without going to the US. Workflows are standardized, digitized and carried out wherever human resources and prices are available. That allows large companies to find and utilize talent from any corner of the world, as long as it is more cost effective. As a result, anyone, from anywhere, can participate in exploiting the world market, creating competitiveness on a global scale.

Previously, we were only competing with each other, but now it is possible that a person, a certain enterprise in Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, or even a Latin American country as far away as Mexico . is trying to edge. pictures to get our jobs, to dislodge our products or services, to make a person or some of our businesses unemployed and bankrupt. That is the challenge.

On the contrary, there are many opportunities. Whether it is a farmer or an enterprise, it can still find its opportunities globally. With personal computers, Internet lines and work-processing PMs, we can improve competitiveness, increase work efficiency, expand our reach around the world, take advantage of the additive method. decentralized work, exploiting many brains that normally cannot reach. Internet search tools help us quickly access information resources and bring information to the world. ICT also helps enterprises take advantage of the best thinking ability of the whole machine, release energy and wisdom of employees .

We have just " stepped from the highway to the global highway " and are in need of racing equipment. ICT is one of the powerful means. We have the disadvantage of starting later, but have the advantage of immediately applying the latest technologies, the latest solutions to work without worrying about switching from the "legacy" of a public generation. technology applied earlier.

However, how IT applications are worth mentioning. The statistics of the project " Improving Vietnam Competitiveness" (VNCI) and Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in the past year have not shown the positive in the awareness of small businesses. and both ICT and ICT application methods.

Don't let the opportunity slip away

At the 15th Vietnam Informatics Week (October 26-30, 2006), many ICT enterprises and some managers together identified opportunities and challenges when entering the WTO.

Awareness of opportunities is quite consistent. Everyone sees that when Vietnam (Vietnam) complies with the game rules of the world, foreign investors will enter more, transfer technology more, domestic enterprises (enterprises) will expand their markets and study. ask for foreign work processes and knowledge; integration pressure makes us have to "run" faster and barriers are removed; reduced import taxes will limit smuggling, consumers benefit, etc.

Mr. Bui Quoc Viet, director of the Post and Telecommunication Information Center of Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), said that VNPT now accounts for 80% of the domestic market, large infrastructure and reaches many corners and brands. built and existed for many years, so integration still has many opportunities.

Mr. Than Trong Phuc, General Director of Intel Vietnam : Vietnamese enterprises are not focused on technology creation. If focusing on creating many new business models, new products will attract many venture capitalists.

The Government of Vietnam should pay attention to promoting creativity, turning intelligence into products.The more creative the more money will go and more money is spent promoting creativity.

However, "due to being a big enterprise, the pressure of transformation is also very large" - Mr. Viet worried. Due to the consequence of the old economic mechanism, VNPT currently has about 10,000 workers. Transferring such a bulky machine to a new environment is difficult. According to Mr. Viet, VNPT is still heavily bound by state management agencies and legal policies. Therefore, the corporation model was born but the operation charter has not been completed yet. Low labor productivity leads to low competitiveness. Equitization also faces difficulties in identifying intangible assets. Currently, VNPT has equitized 39 units, but only small units. The biggest challenge - Mr. Viet stated - is the cohesion, cooperation of low enterprises, especially in the weak law and law enforcement environment.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phuc, deputy director of the Institute of Post and Telecommunications Strategy and Information Technology, said that according to WTO regulations, Vietnam must form an independent and unrelated telecommunications management agency with any telecom service provider. any basic information. Therefore, the challenge for this sector is the separation of state management functions (state management) with the function of producing and exploiting business services, ensuring the law enforcement function is relatively independent of the established function. policy. In addition, Mr. Phuc said that the competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises is weak, lack of international qualified human resources, to ensure software copyright . are worrisome issues.

Mr. Nguyen Trung Chinh, general director of CMC Group also expressed concern: Vietnamese IT enterprises are "fragile before integration" because of lack of strategic thinking, small scale, weak financial and human resources competition. is technology and technical manpower. VN IT market is tight because of lack of output. Even in the domestic market, there is also discrimination among enterprises. Poor labor productivity. Large enterprises like VNPT have nearly 100,000 people. That is a burden, not an advantage. If integration, a foreign software company converted production to Vietnam (offshoring), strong Vietnamese enterprises like FPT are also great, because human resources can be absorbed. Foreign companies have standard processes, high quality, output, so the competitiveness is very high.

Mr. Vu Duc Dam, Deputy Minister of Post and Telematics : There are Vietnamese IT wallets like a boy who knows how to swim, now have to jump into the sea to swim with adults. I think that such comparison is not completely true.

I think Vietnamese IT is now a young man, has practiced swimming in AFTA, ASEAN, so when I go to the sea, I am not too surprised.

It seems that businesses are worried more than happy. Mr. Vu Duc Dam, Deputy Minister of Post and Telematics, reassured: " Actually, challenges are not only available when we join the WTO. Accessing the WTO is only an opportunity for us to look more closely at those challenges ." The challenges are many, but the opportunities for the IT industry are very big.On the WTO, all businesses and industries develop (or are forced to develop), thus promoting IT development. administrative must be transparent, is also a big market for IT, so many problems have not been removed before, so far there is pressure to remove them, after all, these are opportunities. That opportunity, we have to try harder, one of the things to do is to create technology, we have great potential, but national potential. If we are just a consumer market, we will not be able to compete when we join . " In my opinion, the biggest challenge is to exploit new opportunities now. If not exploited, those opportunities will pass away "- Mr. Dam concluded.