During the recovery period after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to experts, digital transformation will help Vietnamese businesses, especially small and medium enterprises find a more flexible business model as a way of both reducing costs, and optimizing resources to overcome difficulties.

The world economy has witnessed many fluctuations after the global coronavirus outbreak with social distancing measures, unwanted choices becoming a temporary solution on an unprecedented scale. However, this is really an opportunity for people to realize the superiority of the digital economy towards accelerating digital transformation process.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Data Coperation had predicted that, by 2022, the value of digital transformation in the world will be estimated at US$2,000 billion and grow 4 times higher than the average growth of the information technology service market and after the pandemic, things are forecast to get even faster.

In Vietnam, according to 2019 reports on Southeast Asia’s Digital of Google, Tamesek and Bain & Company, the digital economy of Vietnam and Indonesia posted a leading growth rate of around 38% in Southeast Asia and is expected to reach the target of US$ 43 billion by 2025.

The COVID-19 epidemic has dealt a devastating blow to the economy, affecting every industry that is undeniable. However, according to experts judging from a positive perspective, the epidemic is promoting the development of infrastructure, technology and workflow in the direction of everything moving to the online model, technology is forcing businesses to conduct their digital transformation more strongly than before.

During the past time, many enterprises operating in different sectors have applied digital technology in production, particularly in sale service.

Experts recommend that when starting digital transformation, businesses need to anticipate difficulties they face. According to statistics, 9 out of every 10 business owners in the world commence a digital transformation strategy and among them 7 failed to deploy this new business model.

Ass.Pro.Dr Dinh Trong Thinh, senior lecturer of the Academy of Finance, said that in order to be successful in digital transformation, businesses must have hardware, software to conduct transactions based on digital technology platforms. In additional, the initial step requires a certain cost, but it is not too expensive.

Security is viewed as another major issue in this process so it is necessary to choose reliable partners who are able to map out a development vision with high confidentiality. Therefore, the association between businesses and digital technology subjects is very important.

Besides, businesses also need to modernize the production process and familiarize themselves with digital technology platforms while relevant agencies should revamp policies regarding e-business, security so that firms can apply appropriate business methods and use their cash flows in the most reasonable way, thereby boosting ecommerce development.

According to Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, former director of the Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR), any country that understands the role of digital space and transform, it successfully can get face lift. The digital transformation strategy is not an easy task but it needs to be done to keep abreast with the world trend.

One of the important pillars of digital transformation is cloud computing technology. Currently, Vietnam’s leading technology enterprises have taken steps to catch up with this trend and the demand for cloud computing technology is also growing strongly. The digital transformation by cloud computing platform helps build an ecosystem covering Vietnamese cloud computing enterprises who are able to master technology, provide standard cloud infrastructure and services as a means of promoting Vietnamese enterprises’ digital transformation and recover better during the post-COVID-19 period.

Vu Minh Tri, general director of VNG CLOUD, Chairman of Cloud Club and Vietnam Data Center highlighted the readiness of the Vietnamese engineering team, and the training for customers to use on-site applications as a dominant factor of domestic cloud computing technology enterprises compared to foreign suppliers. With these advantages, it is expected that cloud computing technology will be widely used, not only for service providers but also for service using businesses.

"Local firms must be ready to operate on a digital platform to ensure that each employee of a company is able to work and connect with each other. How to interact online with suppliers and partners is the trends that will greatly change the way Vietnamese businesses operate after the COVID-19 epidemic," he noted.