With a domestic market of nearly 100 million people, 72% of the population is using smartphones, Vietnam is considered one of the countries with a good digital economy development rate in the ASEAN region. 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.

It is expected that Vietnam's digital economy will reach $57 billion by 2025, ranking second in Southeast Asia with a growth rate of 29% per year.

However, the fact that the Vietnamese economy can take advantage and seize this opportunity depends much on the digitization and digital transformation process of businesses.

Sharing at the forum "Accompanying small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in digital transformation" organized by the Vietnam Chamber of Commercial and Industry (VCCI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and Meta Group, Mr. Tran Duy Dong, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment said: “Following the guidelines and orientations of the Party and State, in 2021 the Ministry of Planning and Investment proactively issued a program to support businesses in digital transformation in the 2021-2025 period with the goal of 100% Vietnamese enterprises. All are raised awareness about digital transformation, supporting typical digital transformation businesses to succeed.”

After nearly two years of implementation, the program has coordinated with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), ministries, sectors, localities, and business associations to implement many activities and achieve initial positive results. 

However, a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Planning and Investment in collaboration with USAID shows that many businesses are still facing difficulties and barriers when conducting digital transformation. 60.1% of enterprises are concerned that the cost of investment and application of technology is still high; 52.3% of enterprises lack internal human resources to apply digital technology, change the habits of enterprises and employees...

Therefore, in the coming time, the Ministry of Planning and Investment will continue to coordinate with domestic and foreign partner agencies to mobilize resources to support businesses to overcome difficulties, improve innovation capacity and successful digital transformation.

"For innovation and digital transformation to be practical, effective and pervasive, apart from the participation of ministries, branches and localities, the efforts and contributions of businesses and organizations, requires the cooperation of the whole society. The Ministry of Planning and Investment is committed to continuing to coordinate with ministries, sectors and businesses to strongly implement programs and projects to support businesses in innovation and digital transformation", emphasized Deputy Minister Tran Duy Dong.

Also at the event, Mr. Bui Trung Nghia, Vice Chairman of VCCI affirmed that the digital transformation took place overnight and there were many difficulties in the implementation process, especially for small and medium enterprises. 

Overall, the common challenges faced by this group of businesses in the digital transformation process remain issues of: leadership awareness and commitment to digital transformation, technology choice and required digital ecosystem availability, people and organizational capabilities, along with resource challenges.

"In order to succeed, businesses need to be provided with enough information to properly understand and choose for themselves an effective digital transformation strategy and roadmap. In terms of orientation, it is necessary to affirm that the business strategy of the enterprise is the most important. A digital transformation strategy is part of a business strategy. Digital transformation must be carried out based on the capacity and reality of the enterprise and must aim at the ultimate goal of improving the efficiency of the business operation of the enterprise”.

"If implementing digital transformation, but businesses are more difficult to operate, business results are slow to improve, it cannot be considered a success," a VCCI representative affirmed.