As Vietnam enters into an economic recovery period in the new year, digitalisation will be key for the country’s people, government, businesses, and startup ecosystem.
At a recent conference, policymakers and business experts in Vietnam met to discuss the importance of digitalisation to Vietnam’s economic recovery. A push for digital adoption will not only bring value to businesses within the city, but also encourage competition and innovation. This push will especially be important within the country’s startup ecosystem, and with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
The Deputy Head of the Department for Enterprise Development under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Bui Thu Thuy, said that digitalisation is no longer an option for businesses, especially given that the planet has yet to recover from the ongoing pandemic. Business data, management, automation, reporting, and collaboration within enterprises should be digitised with the highest priority.
Spurred by the pandemic, the Vietnamese government has recently introduced various policies to facilitate digitalisation, the country’s digital economy experiencing a 10% growth rate since last year and US$135 billion in sales. Bui Thu Thuy added that the Ministry is willing to provide necessary support for businesses to digitise. The government portal has opened several tools to assist businesses and built a consultant network specialised in digital transformation, connecting over 100,000 clients already.
The General Director of V-startup, a support network for startups, explained that enterprises are at the core of Vietnam’s push for innovation. Creative organisational and management solutions will allow businesses to reduce transactional and operational costs whilst improving productivity and efficiency.
5,600 digital technology businesses were newly established in 2021 in Vietnam, most offering solutions for working selling, and communicating online in the wake of Covid-19. It is reported that Vietnam has about 64,000 digital technology enterprises at the moment, with over one million employees working in this field. This number is likely to increase given this digital push, and will be fundamental for the future of working and a distanced economy. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked global havoc, it has also created a space to foster digital innovation, that will likely continue in a post-pandemic world.
This also offers Vietnam the opportunity to also work towards green development, where sustainable goals may not have been an immediate priority outside of this quickly evolving digital bubble. Dr. Chu Duc Hoang, from the National Technology Innovation Fund, said that Vietnamese enterprises, especially SMEs, need financial resources to conduct research and development and create comprehensive legal and policy frameworks that will encourage the implementation of science and technology in the business sector. This integration will also open up more opportunities for sustainable innovation.
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