On November 9, in Hanoi, Vietnam Chamber of Commercial and Industry (VCCI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Meta Group held a forum: “Accompanying small and medium enterprises with digital transformation".

Forum on: “Accompanying small and medium enterprises with digital transformation". Photo: H.Diu.

At the forum, Mr. Bui Trung Nghia, Vice Chairman of VCCI said that digital transformation opens up opportunities for all countries, especially developing countries, to have the opportunity to grow faster, to rise to the top, change the development ranking of the country. Therefore, the Party, State and Government have issued many policies to support digital transformation, and ministries, branches and localities have also been developing their strategies and action plans with many programs, policies to support small and medium enterprises in digital transformation to enhance their competitiveness.

Besides advantages in policies, according to Mr. Bui Trung Nghia, with a domestic market of nearly 100 million people, a young population, etc., Vietnam is considered as one of the countries with a good digital economy development rate in the ASEAN region.

According to data from VCCI, Vietnam's digital economy in 2021 will reach 21 billion USD, up 31% over the same period last year, contributing more than 5% of the country's GDP. Vietnam's economy is changing rapidly through the application of digital technology. It is expected that Vietnam's digital economy will reach 57 billion USD in 2025, ranking second in Southeast Asia, with a growth rate of 29% per year.

On the business side, a report released recently by Meta Group in cooperation with BCG said that 73% of consumers in Vietnam use messaging to communicate with businesses, the highest among the surveyed countries.

Currently, the whole country has about 900,000 enterprises operating with more than 97% of private enterprises in small and medium scale, playing an important role in the socio-economic development of the country, contributing to 45 % of GDP, 31% of total budget revenue and attracted more than 5 million employees.

Small and medium-sized businesses have applied software solutions, used digital platforms in accounting and financial management activities, and used e-commerce platforms to serve sales and direct and online marketing, import and export…

However, the need for digital transformation in businesses is still very large. According to VCCI, businesses are eager to promote digital transformation in sales, marketing, administration and participate in digital transformation training programs...

The reality is that digital transformation in small and medium enterprises is full of challenges as well as barriers and concerns.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Duy Dong said that a recent survey on digital transformation showed that 60.1% of enterprises were concerned that investment and technology application costs were still high; 52.3% of enterprises reflected the difficulty of the lack of internal human resources to apply digital technology and change the habits of enterprises and employees.

Therefore, Deputy Minister Tran Duy Dong said that many programs to support businesses in digital transformation have been issued. As a result, a portal on enterprise digital transformation has been built with more than 400,000 accesses and uses; perform one-on-one in-depth consulting for more than 100 businesses; direct basic training for about 6,500 enterprises in 15 provinces and cities; establish a network of experts in digital transformation...

In addition, small and medium-sized enterprises also receive support in digital transformation from large domestic and foreign enterprises. Mr. Ruici Tio, Policy Program Manager, Meta Asia Pacific has made a commitment to support SMEs to bring their business presence online and benefit from participating in the digital economy, cross-border sales. Through its partnership with VCCI, Meta has supported more than 32,000 SMEs nationwide.

Therefore, the forum has introduced an electronic handbook to 100 small and medium-sized businesses on a digital platform with the aim of providing useful information for consumers when shopping and for businesses looking for partners and customers. This electronic handbook also encourages small and medium-sized businesses to digitally transform and use online platforms to communicate and reach customers across borders.

In addition to the support of authorities, Vice Chairman of VCCI said that the business community needs to consider digital transformation as part of its business strategy. Along with that, digital transformation must be done based on the capacity and reality of the business and must aim at the ultimate goal of improving business performance.