Looking back, awareness about the role and importance of digital development has increased. A digital evolution has penetrated into all socioeconomic fields, and many consider this transformation a fundamental innovation method, helping improve the effectiveness and efficiency of management activities as well as the daily lives of individuals.

Vu Kiem Van, Vice chairman Secretary-general, Vietnam Digital Communication Association

From that awareness, many organisations and businesses have paid due attention to investing in this process in terms of both financial and human resources, contributing to the fast and strong national digital transformation process.

Nevertheless, there are many bottlenecks. Digital transformation is a process, not a goal. It is not a model and there is no common model to replicate and apply, so it cannot be mechanically moulded, but needs to be consistent with the culture of each organisation involved.

In fact, because many organisations do not clearly understand the nature of this change to working practices, and just do whatever they want. If you do not know the right way to act, you will do whatever you think.

When you do not understand what you really want, you will look around and blindly follow others. Those problems led to a situation where many units did not embrace change.

Having more than 70 million Internet users, with the number continuing to grow, Vietnam is a very favourable market for technology businesses to develop. In recent times, there has been a trend of large enterprises in industries such as telecommunications, banking, retail, and logistics having strategies to transform themselves into tech enterprises. Besides this, there are many Vietnamese technology startups taking shape. And among them, unicorn businesses have appeared.

With young human resources and high creativity, quickly grasping new trends, Vietnam’s digital tech market is on the radar of many investment funds. And the market has witnessed many successful deals.

However, currently due to more open startup support policies in some countries, some Vietnamese businesses prefer opening offices abroad such as Singapore, Dubai, Thailand, South Korea, and others, which offer better tax policies and more liberal licensing regulations, especially in new services such as AI and blockchain.

Accordingly, we have created a mechanism for member businesses to regularly exchange and connect to promote cooperation among parties, taking advantages of each other to develop together.

We also support businesses in training activities, developing technology human resources, promoting trade and connecting domestic and foreign investment funds to promote the development of businesses.

In addition, we also have a policy research group that regularly listens and analyses difficulties facing businesses to advise and propose state agencies on policies to promote the development of businesses in digital content and media.

Digital transformation in businesses is not simply about applying new tech, but changing the management model, processes, and operations towards improving performance and creating new products and services.

This is an innovation process for each organisation and business. More broadly, from a country’s perspective, it is the process of innovating development thinking, changing the way of working and living, promoting institutional reform, applying scientific and technological advances and innovation.

They are the prerequisite factors of building a digital economy and society, stimulating investment in large-scale infrastructure development, promoting domestic consumption, and solving economic problems, and creating jobs.

We need to continue to improve policies to promote startups and innovation in a way that is consistent with market mechanisms and international practices.

Also, we should synchronise regulations and policies; have a pilot mechanism; and remove bottlenecks, thus creating better conditions for startups and innovation, while creating trust in the market.

It is necessary to invest heavily in developing human resources, including experts, scientists, and human resources working in industries doing green transition, and offering additional training in digital skills and green skills necessary for workers for the green transition.

In addition, there is a need for mechanisms and solutions for digital finance and green finance, which are important financial mechanisms to support businesses in developing, while the minimising negative impacts of climate change, solving environmental challenges, and ensuring sustainable economic development.