Future Vietnamese Digital Economy (Part 4)

4. What is the digital economy?

All businesses and services that have a business model based primarily on selling or servicing digital goods and services or their supporting equipment and infrastructure. (G20 and Oxford Dictionary)

The digital economy includes emerging phenomena such as blockchain-based networks, digital platforms and social media, e-businesses (e.g. e-commerce, parts of traditional sectors which use digital-enabled technologies in Industry 4.0 or precision agriculture); businesses involved in the development of software, apps and other content and media creation, and associated training and services; and businesses engaged in creating and manufacturing ICT equipment.

5. Vietnam Policies supporting the digital economy

The Vietnam Government views digital transformation across the broader economy as critical to continued growth and prosperity. Its commitment is seen in the number of policies, master plans and directives published over the last 30 years that have stressed the need to invest in critical infrastructure, build the ICT industry, promote e-commerce, and adopt technology as a means of lifting productivity.

These directives and decisions address the need to dramatically expand Vietnam’s national information infrastructure, strengthen its human resource base (especially IT professionals), and liberalize its legal and regulatory environment to encourage greater foreign investment and in the ICT sector.

The Vietnam Government has also linked increased innovation (including the development of the digital economy) as a driver of economic growth, with increasing creativity and experimentation, and a culture of openness and freedom.

6. Supportive telecommunications infrastructure

6.1 Expanding digital infrastructure and coverage

Reliable telecommunications infrastructure is critical to the development and expansion of the digital economy in Vietnam. Existing infrastructure has so far accommodated the voracious demand for bandwidth, but issues are arising with dropouts from undersea cables, local congestion on the network, and mobile phone connectivity and coverage.

6.2 Backbone infrastructure

The backbone Internet network in Vietnam is built on fibre optic technology using dense wavelength division multiplexing and synchronous digital hierarchies. One overland and six submarine cables connect Vietnam to the rest of the world. The submarine cables include the Asia America Gateway (AAG) cable, which runs via Hawaii to the USA; the Intra Asia cable; the SMW3 cable (Southeast Asia, Middle East, Western Europe); and TVH cable (Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong). Most of the country’s connectivity relies on the AAG cable. Unfortunately, it seems to be the least reliable connection, and has already suffered serious outages.

The Vietnam National Internet Exchange (VNIX) was launched in 2003. It transfers domestic Internet traffic between service providers across three regions: the North (Hanoi), the South (Ho Chi Minh City) and the Middle (DaNang). In January 2018, the VNIX bandwidth was 211 Gbps with total network traffic reaching nearly 40 million gigabytes.

In 2008 Vietnam successfully launched its third satellite service, the Vinasat I satellite, to supplement terrestrial Internet connections and reach areas that are too expensive to connect via overland cables. However, while Vinasat I has high capacity and can transmit Internet services to all regions of the country, satellite signals tend to be weaker and less reliable in a range of weather conditions.

6.3 Mobile phone coverage and spectrum use

Terrestrial 3G mobile wireless services were launched in Vietnam in 2009 and 4G services were licensed in early 2016. In October 2016 four telecommunications companies were granted licenses to install 4G LTE networks, with a view to supporting Internet of Things applications and Smart City infrastructure. These networks are currently being rolled out.

In early 2018 the mobile network covered all 63 provinces of Vietnam: 43,000 4G stations have been deployed nationwide, covering 95% of the country’s population. Vietnam also has plans to introduce 5G networks by 2020. Viettel, VNPT and Mobifone are the dominant companies in the telecommunications market, together holding more than 90% of total market share.

Despite the improved Internet coverage, a substantial gap remains in access to mobile broadband services between remote rural or mountainous areas and urban areas.

6.4 Connection speeds and network security improving

With average download speeds of 9.5 Mbps, Vietnam is ranked ninth in the Asia Pacific region and 58th in the world in terms of average connection speed, above China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Vietnam has a growing number of secure Internet servers. These are critical to e-commerce as they encrypt online transactions, helping customers to trust and engage with online retail. However, at 19 secure Internet servers per 1 million people  Vietnam still has significantly less secure servers per capita than the world average (215), South Korea (2201) and Thailand (33). It is close to the number in China (21), and greater than Indonesia (10).

6.5 Spectrum use and allocation

Spectrum allocated for use by the mobile phone and broadband sector in Vietnam sits in the 630 MHz range. Economic returns are higher than for spectrum allocated for other purposes, such as radio and television. Some US$5021 million economic benefit was generated by the mobile network spectrum in 2015. This is expected to reach US$8211 million in 2020. The efficiency of the mobile spectrum has increased over time.

There is increasing demand for more spectrum to be allocated for mobile broadband use. Mobile subscriptions have grown by 2 million per year since 2012, and millions of new services are predicted to come online over the next decade. It is highly likely that most people connected to the Internet in the future in Vietnam will be connected through mobile devices alone. The expanding Internet of Things will create further traffic and congestion on the existing spectrum allocated for mobile use. It is estimated that around 75% of connections in 2020 will be to machine-to-machine devices via short-range wireless services.

Source: Vienam Today – Data61 - 2018

About TMA: TMA Solutions was established in 1997 to provide quality software outsourcing services to leading companies worldwide. We are one of the largest software outsourcing companies in Vietnam with 2,500 engineers.
Visit us at https://www.tmasolutions.com/

Read More

Future Vietnamese Digital Economy (Part 3)

3. ICT – the booming base of Vietnam’s digital economy

Information and communications technology (ICT) is one of the fastest-growing industry sectors in Vietnam. In 2016 total revenues from the ICT industry were US$67.7 billion, nearly ten times the figure in 2010 (US$7.6 billion). The hardware industry is the largest subsector of Vietnam’s ICT industry, contributing around 85% of total revenue.

ICT equipment accounted for around 25% of total exports from Vietnam in 2016, up from less than 10% as recently as five years ago. It is now the country’s largest export sector, with telephone and broadcasting equipment particularly important. Leading Vietnam-located manufacturers such as Samsung, Intel, Dell and LG are expanding their businesses and increasing investments in the country. Vietnam assembles electrical and electronic products, and increasingly exports sophisticated computing devices: half of Samsung’s high-end S8 and S8 Plus phones and more than 80% of Intel’s personal computer central processing units are produced in Vietnam. Over the last decade, Vietnam has surpassed most regional neighbours in terms of high-tech exports as a percentage of total manufactured exports.

Local companies in the ICT sector are experiencing remarkable growth, with share prices increasing more than three-fold since 2012.

The software industry is also growing steadily and starting to attract global attention as a significant regional hub. Local businesses account for the majority of the market, supplying low-cost software products.

In 2016, a total of 7,433 businesses in Vietnam created digital software for sectors such as finance, telecoms, smart agriculture and government. IT outsourcing services generated around US$3 billion. Vietnam become the Japan’s second-largest software outsourcing destination.

Source: Vienam Today – Data61 - 2018

About TMA: TMA Solutions was established in 1997 to provide quality software outsourcing services to leading companies worldwide. We are one of the largest software outsourcing companies in Vietnam with 2,500 engineers.

Visit us at https://www.tmasolutions.com/

Read More

The power of Vietnam’s software industry

(Mic.gov.vn) - Vietnam’s software industry has high capability, great development potential, and a bright future, experts say.

Vietnam’s software industry has high capability, great development potential, and a bright future

A deputy chair of Vinasa (Vietnam Software Association), reported that the total turnover of Vietnam’s software industry was $8.8 billion in 2017. About 600,000 workers are serving in the ITindustry. 

The latest survey of Hakathon, the world’s software development competition, showed that Vietnam ranks 23rd in the world in coders’ capability. India and the US had more members participating the competition, but their results were more modest than Vietnam.

  

Meanwhile, a consultant of a management consulting company in Australia said Vietnam’s applied software market gains estimated revenue of $500 million.

He cited important figures: 7 percent of app developers in Asia were from Vietnam in 2014 and the number of smartphones in Vietnam would be $38 million by 2020

A director of the IT Department under the Ministry of Information and Communication, commented that software is the ‘backbone’ of the IT industry in Vietnam. 

While the revenue from hardware comes from foreign invested manufacturers, Vietnamese software firms have become well known in the world.

Source: https://english.mic.gov.vn/Pages/TinTuc/137234/The-power-of-Vietnam-s-software-industry.html

About TMA: TMA Solutions was established in 1997 to provide quality software outsourcing services to leading companies worldwide. We are one of the largest software outsourcing companies in Vietnam with 2,500 engineers

Visit us at https://www.tmasolutions.com/

Read More

Vietnam boasts great ICT development potentials

Vietnam has a population of near 100 million and there are over 70 million handset and Internet users, providing a good foundation for stable development of the country's information and communications technology (ICT) industry, according to a deputy minister of Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC).

MIC statistics show that Vietnam's aggregate ICT industry production value amounted to US$91.59 billion in 2017, shooting up 35.3% from US$67.69 billion in 2016, with the growth numbers indicating a booming development of the country's electronics industry. Samsung Electronics' handset production base in Vietnam has been the major source of Vietnam's ICT exports, but the company has just unveiled its plant in India and is also likely to face growing competition. This has prompted Vietnam to show much interest in diversifying industrial production and cultivating tech startups.

Vietnam customs statistics also indicate that the country's exports of diverse electronics hardware devices including handsets came to US$81.60 billion in 2017, representing a sharp annual increase of 38%, much higher than the corresponding growth of 11% registered in 2016. Of the total exports, handsets commanded US$45.27 billion, up 13.2% on year; and exports of computers and peripherals soared 36.8% on year to US$26 billion. These electronics products alone had contributed a trade surplus of over US$20 billion in 2017.

More investments in IC design, 5G

The minister is well aware that Vietnam can hardly develop a solid footing in the market should its technologies fail to catch up with international standards. At the moment, Vietnam's electronics industry highly relies on export trade and contribution by Samsung. And therefore the MIC hopes for more investments in the development of IC design and 5G technologies to enhance industry diversity, and also shows great concerns about whether smart city applications can bring more opportunities for local industries.

On another front, MIC estimates the total annual production value of Vietnam's software industry at US$3.8 billion for 2017, up 24% from 2016. In terms of ICT applications, 60% of elementary schools and 80% of middle schools have provided computer and online teaching programs; all commercial banks have offered electronic payment services, and 96% of financial transactions can be done online, and mobile banking penetration rate stands at 34.5% while up to 99% of enterprises can pay taxes via electronic channels.

Vietnam's information service industry had managed to maintain a high annual export growth of 30-40% during 2013-2017 while also keen to provide business process outsourcing (BPO) services for software programs, with Japan being the largest export outlet and service recipient. Vietnam is now Japan's second-largest supplier of information services and also a favorite partner for Japanese enterprises. In recent years, Vietnam has been active in developing digital content and gaming industries, with the 2017 production value of the former rising 8% on year to US$800 million and the latter surging 27% to US$370 million.

Talent grooming

Talent is fundamental to ICT development. Vietnam now has a total of 250 universities and colleges, able to foster over 50,000 ICT personnel per year. The country's ICT sector now has around 900,000 employees, with the number increasing at an annual rate of 7-10%. Statistics show that the starting monthly pay for ICT employees in Vietnam now averages US$288, and their annual incomes average US$7,000.

Now in Vietnam, young people command a high portion of its population, and more young people are moving to urban areas, providing a major advantage for ICT development in the country. Vietnam will not rule out ICT talent exchanges with foreign countries, to allow its new generation to experience the latest tech and industry developments.

The minister pointed out that along with stable economic development in Vietnam, many business sectors have produced many successful private enterprises. However, this is not the case with the ICT sector, which has not seen many successful private firms. Vietnam holds Taiwan's ICT industry in high regard and is willing to learn from Taiwan about how to inspire the private sector to foray into the ICT industry.

Source: Digitimes

About us: TMA Solutions was established in 1997 to provide quality software outsourcing services to leading companies worldwide. We are one of the largest software outsourcing companies in Vietnam with 2,600 engineers.

Visit us at https://www.tmasolutions.com/

Read More

Vietnam is in Top 05 IT Outsourcing Location (A.T KEARNEY 2019)

With the fast-growing application of automation technology, automation and cybersecurity are increasingly becoming key factors in any outsourcing decision. In GSLI 2019, A.T. Kearney has made a significant change in its evaluation criteria to reflect the rapid shift of businesses to the digital era.

The report focuses on lower-cost countries that are taking the large market shares of the current global outsourcing market. The report, however, includes some higher-cost countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany as the benchmarks for demand markets, other higher-cost countries such as South Korea and Japan are not included.

This year GSLI report reflects the rising impact of automation and security, A.T. Kearney added new evaluation category digital resonance, which has following factors:

• Digital skills of the country’s workforce
• Legal and cybersecurity, meaning how the legal framework takes digital business models into account
• Corporate activity, defined as the amount of capital invested in start-ups and the number of deals by venture capitals (VC) in 2018
• Digital outputs including creative products, as well as knowledge and technology outputs
• In this year's report, Vietnam remains very attractive in terms of cost with its sizable digital workforce pool available for the IT outsourcing and BPO. In general, Vietnam was ranked number five (05) moving up one position since the last report. Vietnam had the third-largest increase in the business environment score, driven by a large score increase in the country's infrastructure component, thanks to the action of the new leadership team who are emphasizing on startup and digital transformation. Big foreign companies in the world continue to invest in Vietnam, showing continued momentum for the ICT industry. Japanese IT companies are increasingly using offshore outsourcing services in Vietnam for ITO and BPO. The report indicates that Vietnam currently has over 20,000 employees working for Japanese companies in both offshore software development and business process outsourcing. Since the year 2000, Japanese IT companies see Vietnam as the offshore outsourcing solution for their shortage of labor force. Vietnam is seen as an attractive alternative to China thanks to its low cost, a large pool of skilled software engineers and cultural similarity.
• The Vietnamese government is executing an aggressive plan to develop a more highly skilled workforce, and the country is dedicated to higher education and to fostering English and Japanese proficiency. English is taught as a foreign language since elementary school. Japanese, French, and German are also taught as a foreign language in some junior high schools. Also in Vietnam, there is a large community of Chinese people. This makes Vietnam a promising location in providing language support services such as call center, contact center in Japanese, Chinese, English, French, and German.
• In Digital resonance criteria, Vietnam was ranked #37 with a score of 3.72 due to its lower score in Corporate activity. In the last few years, more and more investments are coming to Vietnam startups.
• In Cybersecurity investment, Vietnam was grouped in the Nascent group, in the same group with India, China, Phillipe’s, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, and Russia. 

In summary, Vietnam remains cost attractive with its large outsourcing worker pool, while the legal framework and cybersecurity investment are on the same group with other top outsourcing locations such as India or Indonesia.

                                         

Source: https://www.imt-soft.com/Blogs/Offshore-Outsourcing/Vietnam-moved-up-to-Top-05-in-A-T-Kearney-Outsourcing-Location-Report-2019

About us: TMA Solutions was established in 1997 to provide quality software outsourcing services to leading companies worldwide. We are one of the largest software outsourcing companies in Vietnam with 2,600 engineers. Our engineering team was selected from a large pool of Vietnam IT resources; they are well-trained and have successfully completed many large and complex projects.

Visit us at: https://www.tmasolutions.com/

Read More

Silicon on Thin Box (SOTB) – a technology breakthrough for smart cities

As the number of IoTdevices increases, low-power chips manufactured with SOTB technology (Silicon on Thin BOX) will become a key to IC (integrated circuit) industry development.

The development of smart cities and smart production has led to a sharp demand for sensors. It was estimated that 10 million sensors were used in 2007, while the figure has soared to 10 billion.

“The number of sensors to be used will be increasing. It is expected that by 2027, the world will use 10,000 billion sensing devices,” said Prof Koichiro Ishibashi from the University of Electro-Communications (UEC) in Japan.

Chips tend to have increased complexity and integration, resulting in increased power consumption. With the growing number of sensors and microchips, SOTB will play an important role in the IC development.

Dr Le Duc Hung from HCMC University of Natural Sciences said the chips designed in old ways have high heat radiating capacity.

With higher temperature, the longevity and usable time of devices is lowered. Low-power chips will not only help save energy, but also help prolong the life span of devices.

The chips will be especially useful for battery-run devices which don’t use electricity directly. The new technology has been developed and used in Japan, the US, France and China.

The HCMC University of Natural Sciences, a member of HCMC National University, is a pioneer in the field with research on SOTB for low-power chips.

SOTB is specter to make a breakthrough in many fields such as IoT, signal and data processing, and data fast searching in smart cities.

Most recently, a team of researchers at the HCMC University of Natural Sciences headed by Dr Le Duc Hung has worked with UEC specialists to build up the process of low-power digital chips. They have designed 65nm chips based on SOTB technology.

This is a project under the FIRST Program on promoting innovation through scientific and technological research initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST).

The chip can operate at a low 0.4-0.5V voltage, while 180nm chip needs 1.8V power. The current leakage of the chip in operation is significantly lower than that of currently used chips.

The scientists are seeking partners to transfer technology and act as a bridge to connect those who have demand and to experts to bring the invention to life.

Developing the IC industry is a top priority on the HCMC development agenda.

HCMC Mayor Nguyen Thanh Phong has repeatedly said that the local authorities will apply reasonable policies to set up a platform for the IC industry, and attract highly qualified workers in Vietnam and overseas, especially overseas Vietnamese.

Source: Vietnamnet

Read More

6 Ecommerce Platforms You Might Not Know About

Often, when businesses choose to start an eCommerce strategy online, they find themselves under the impression that they only have a handful of options to choose from. Although a few years ago, you may have struggled to find many reputable, and reliable platforms to launch your online business through, today there are more solutions available than ever before – and many of these options simply don’t get the attention that they deserve.

If you want to get the best results out of your online selling potential, then you can’t afford to compromise when it comes to incredible eCommerce solutions. With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of 6 platforms you might not know about, but need to consider for your online strategy.

Symphony Commerce

Symphony Commerce is a type of SaaS solution for online companies. Since not all companies have the know-how to transform their physical store into a digital one, starting an eCommerce endeavor can be a complicated process. Fortunately, Symphony Commerce lets you offload the backend and architecture duties onto professionals, so you can keep your focus elsewhere.

While the pay-as-you-go nature of Symphony Commerce makes it perfect for smaller companies, if you’re still in the do-it-yourself route for getting your online business sorted, you might find it easier to use other platform solutions.

Drupal Commerce

While most people know Drupal as a website hosting platform, they don’t realize that they can also run an online store through the same technology. Drupal Commerce is currently the only eCommerce solution that comes packaged with a full content management system, which makes it ideal for marketers who don’t have a lot of experience in store back-ends.

Drupal is very modular and configurable too, which means that it can scale easily with your business. However, you’ll probably need to hire an inhouse developer to help you get the most out of Drupal’s potential.

GumRoad

If you’re looking for an eCommerce solution that allows you to sell products with ease and speed, then GumRoad could be perfect for you. All you need to do is drag and drop a picture of the product you want to sell into the product editor feature on GumRoad, and add a quick price and description, along with extras like shipping fields, or files for digital products.

When you’re selling digital products, you can set it up so that GumRoad automatically adds a customer name to a PDF file, or automatically generates license keys for software. Customers should be able to see a complete list of your products, and they can tap on those items to find out more about whatever you’re selling.

Storenvy

One of the toughest elements of running an online store is making sure that people can actually find what you’re selling. Because so many people use marketplaces like eBay and Amazon to help them find products in the first place, these options can often help with discovery, but they also don’t give you much opportunity when it comes to creating and customizing your own store.

Storenvy could be the eCommerce solution that helps you to get the best of both worlds, by placing a personalized store within a marketplace. You get a customized domain and theme, along with Facebook integration opportunities, and all the tools you could need in an eCommerce app.

PrestaShop

If you’re looking for an opportunity that will allow you to host your own store someday, but ensure that you can start off without the need for a server, then PrestaShop could be the perfect eCommerce tool. Similar to WordPress, PrestaShop allows you to use the same tools either on your own, or in the cloud.

You can launch your eCommerce strategy using PrestaShop’s fundamental features, which includes the ability to list your products using pop-over descriptions which make it easier for customers to browse your selection quickly. PrestaShop also allows for the running of multiple stores through the same admin account. There are plenty of modules and themes that you can install to customize your experience too!

X-Cart

Finally, if you’re looking to build a self-hosted eCommerce experience that also assists with selling products on eBay, or in person, then X-Cart has plenty to offer. In an ideal world, you’ll sell products to the same customer multiple times. With X-Cart, your customers can create an account with your business when they first order a product, then log into their account with a click using social network accounts.

If you want to sell products in a real-world store too, the mobile interface for X-Cart works alongside PayPal Here, so you can use it to process in-person orders, credit card purchases, and more on your phone.

Source : beautifulpixels

Read More

The Promise Of Outsourcing To Vietnam

It’s no surprise that Vietnam is being talked about as an alternative, amid rising costs and attrition rates in popular offshoring destinations like China and India. The General Statistics Office of Vietnam reports growth of almost 6 percent in GDP during 2014. Tech giants like Samsung, Microsoft, LG and Intel have invested in large operations in Vietnam, and a growing number of technology startups have secured investment. The entrepreneurial spirit on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City is palpable.

Vietnam has a lot going for it, and it’s a great outsourcing destination for some companies looking to build teams up to a couple of hundred resources, but it doesn’t have the scale for prime time right now for multi-national corporations to set up large-scale development centers.

What’s the attraction?

Vietnam first achieved a “good” rating from Gartner back in 2010 when it was named one of the top 30 countries for offshore services. There has been steady improvement since then with continued maturity of the existing industry, a wave of new graduates, foreign investment and startups. A Gartner report from January this year named Vietnam in the top tier of emerging market locations, alongside China and India.

Speaking from our past operations in India, we find modern IT skills in Vietnam equal to and in some cases exceed what India offers. English skills in Vietnam are also excellent. Schools teach English and it’s well-understood that proficiency in the language allows progress in the IT industry. You can secure an articulate and consultative workforce with good verbal and written English if you know where to look.

The country is undergoing a transformation. The rise of tech business and the increase in opportunities is driving an entrepreneurial spirit that can be seen in the success of developers like Dong Nguyen, the Vietnamese creator of the mobile sensation, Flappy Birds. Designed, created, and distributed for free in a matter of days from Ho Chi Minh City, within a year it had millions of players and was earning $50,000 per day from in-game advertising. It has served as an inspiration for others.

We also have to talk about the culture of working in Vietnam where loyalty is highly prized. We’ve been working in Vietnam for over 20 years, and the level of commitment, focus and loyalty continues to be strong. The expectations on service level are generally high in that part of the world and particularly so in Vietnam. Our attrition rate sits at between 6 and 8 percent. For IT and outsourcing in India, attrition rates regularly climb beyond 20 percent, and the trend is driving wages higher.

Source : Josh Lieberman

Fostering loyalty like this isn’t just down to external cultural factors. You need to create an attractive internal company culture. We’ve done this by ensuring opportunities for employee growth through training, maintaining an open door policy with upper management, and encouraging a social atmosphere with clubs and weekend parties. You have to go beyond paying lip service to these things and actually show your employees that you care.

What’s the catch?

But there is still a definite skills gap. The Global Talent Index for 2015 suggested that Vietnam has gone from being number 52 in the world in 2011 to number 53 this year. The scale required for a really large operation simply isn’t here. We need another five to ten years of graduates coming through before it will be realistic to, for example, set up a 5,000-person center for IT outsourcing.

You also have to remember that the technology industry didn’t take off until relatively recently in Vietnam, so you won’t find support for maintenance and legacy platforms, like mainframe or AS400.

There are complications to negotiate when you set up a business in Vietnam. You can’t just parachute an operation into the country. We have a local team that we have worked with for years that had the experience to get up and running quickly. We were able to build strong ties with local universities and the government. That enabled us to optimize recruitment, understand tax implications and secure the appropriate licensing.

If you can understand the local hiring market and can afford to be selective and methodical, then the talent is there, but Vietnam currently still lacks the volume needed to drive the kind of growth we’ve seen in India.

A bright future

It may still be early days for Vietnam, but there’s a whole new generation of talent coming through and a strong focus on computer science in the school system. That investment will pay off as the technology sector matures and more companies see the appeal of locating here. We expect great things within the next decade, and we intend to be at the heart of it.

Source : techcrunch

Read More