Rising Vietnam – Part II

This post is the second of two parts, sharing our trip to Vietnam. In Part I we started sharing our experiences with large enterprises and now we want to also talk about the Mid Market development related to Innovation and about our decision to open an office in Vietnam.

Vibrant Ho Chi Minh City

This week we traveled south and met with our business partners in Ho Chi Minh City, with 9 million citizens, the largest city in Vietnam. For us, Ho Chi Minh is where everything related to BlueCallom started. The intense questions about how we created four disruptive businesses and later how we can process thousands of idea pieces, research findings, market feedback, and conclusions. This eventually led to building our Innovation management Platform from scratch to tackle the enormous process length, its data, and KPIs. But there is something else. We found Vietnam one of the most inviting, friendly, and open-minded societies in Asia. The hospitality here is amazing and we had very quickly a circle of supporting people whom we can call friends by now. Ho Chi Minh has the vibe and the business dynamics that we can only compare to Silicon Valley. It’s a vibrant tech city and is sometimes compared to Shenzhen in Vietnam. Here we work with different teams now for four years and have a trusted base we really enjoy working with.

The next generation Steel Company

On Tuesday we met with the chairman and his management team from Dai Dung Corporation, a modern steel company. Small is beautiful. DDC is not only a tier-1 raw steel producer but produces complete systems. That allows much higher economic results and a better understanding of what the market may need in the future. And the future is also here the main topic. Innovation for what will be needed 10, 20, or 40 years from now. The future perspective that we see in almost all aspects of Asian development is very present, whether it is the 40-year city planning cycle in Singapore, the evolution of the steel industry, the possible development of AI or the most likely needs from an education system in 40 years. Steel is more than a currently irreplaceable material. It is seen as an opportunity to participate in and strengthen other innovations, by innovating around steel itself.

 

Accelerating Innovation in SMEs

This was the topic of a conference that SVF Saigon and iValue organized for us while in Vietnam. About 25 larger mid-market companies and their teams, from logistics, energy, construction, auto parts manufacturing, and other important industry segments participated. Also here, like in all previous meetings, mostly the CEO Chairman or at least some c-level executives attended the events. In Vietnam innovation is not a nice to have but the most important investment into the future of the company. We shared a preview of the new “Concept Innovations” initiative.  It is a co-production with the World Innovations Forum, our foundation that facilitates a global exchange for innovative minds. The concept innovation initiative will be launched end of March. The examples sparked a great interest in taking genuine innovation to the next level.

It was impressive to see the energy and willpower to create genuine innovation while keeping improvement of existing products as a separate management effort.

The two posts, Rising Vietnam – Part I and II is a reflection of what we experienced and quite a step up compared to 2017 when we were here for the first time. With a growth rate of between 6 and 10% per year, the country is on a significant trajectory in times where technology amplifies progress like never before.

Getting Started in Vietnam

A big thank you to Startup Vietnam Foundation (SVF), iValue, and Innovation Capital Management, our partners in Saigon for organizing this week and helping us get started in Vietnam. Our last act this week will be exploring locations and plans to start. That means hiring a team, educating, and training, and preparing all of us for enterprise-level innovation projects in Vietnam.

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