The secret of "whale hunting" of Vietnamese technology enterprises

FPT's success in conquering major technology markets in the world in the US, Japan, Europe... with contracts worth millions of USD has inspired the "going offshore" spirit of many other technology enterprises, empowering them in the journey of creating and building "made in Vietnam" information technology products to compete with foreign enterprises.

Many experiences on the path to conquering the world have been shared by technology CEOs.

Like FPT, MISA is a Vietnamese technology company that was born after the renovation period and is known as the most popular company providing financial accounting software for small and medium-sized enterprises. After more than 20 years of "positioning" itself with software products serving the domestic market, MISA has just made a "late turn" to providing products to foreign markets (going global) with the desire to grow many times stronger.

Mr. Lu Thanh Long, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MISA Joint Stock Company, said that bringing accounting software abroad is not easy, because the financial and accounting laws of each country are different. Therefore, MISA designed another software, a strategic product "tailored" for the foreign market.

In 2017, MISA announced its entry into the international market with the CukCuk Restaurant Management Software product. This is a comprehensive restaurant management software, meeting all operations from basic to advanced of all restaurant culinary service models (F&B) such as reservations, ordering, payment, invoicing, real-time reporting, etc.

“At first, we thought it was simple: we could make good products, the world is now flat, we can easily promote and sell products to different countries. But when we actually put it into practice, this is not easy,” said Mr. Lu Thanh Long.

Restaurants are afraid that if they use management systems from suppliers without local partners, they will lose a lot of time and have their operations interrupted if there is a problem.

“After seriously re-evaluating the reality, we changed our strategy: Finding partners to distribute products in each country. Only then did we gradually have initial success,” said Mr. Long.

Mr. Lu Thanh Long compared, with the domestic market, he is here, directly in contact with customers, understands the culture and people here. His brand is quite familiar to users. Therefore, it is much more favorable than the international market.

The most difficult thing when going abroad is that each market has different local cultures. If you do not understand the differences in culture and laws, it will be very difficult to develop products and market share.

The European market is currently the fastest growing market for MISA. In particular, CukCuk has been present in many prestigious restaurant chains in Germany. In addition, MISA will expand further into the Australian market this year.

The most demanding market is probably the US market. US customers are willing to invest heavily in technology and software, but the US market is also a very competitive "playground". MISA has many US customers, and is starting to build a comprehensive network of partners in this market.

Another difficult market to enter is the Philippines. To enter this market, you need a license to sell products to restaurants.

In Africa, MISA also has many retail customers, but has not found a strong enough partner to be able to deploy widely.

After nearly 7 years of entering the international market, MISA CukCuk has been present in more than 22 countries around the world and achieved revenue of nearly 2 million USD.

“The “warrior” spirit, a unique cultural feature of MISA, is a key factor in realizing the aspiration of making MISA a prestigious Vietnamese brand in providing software products on the world information technology map,” MISA CEO expressed his determination.

After CukCuk, Mr. Long said that MISA will develop many other products that can enter the world market, such as products serving nail salons, grocery stores, fashion stores, etc.

Mr. Long expects that in the near future, CukCuk will bring in sales of 50 million USD. Equivalent to that sales will be an increase in the number of customers using this software in the international market. That means that MISA's products and services, of Vietnam, as commercial products, have begun to have a name on the world's information technology map.

Thanks to the experience of previous businesses, many "latecomers" have quickly reaped the sweet fruit when setting the goal of going global from the beginning. After 5 years of developing DrAid™, VinBrain has become a "giant" in the field of artificial intelligence and computer vision applications in the world, helping to screen for cancer with high accuracy of up to 95%.

Choosing to conquer the US market as a passport to other countries in the world is a perfect strategy for VinBrain. Before starting to build the product, Mr. Truong Quoc Hung, founder and CEO of VinBrain, set a big goal, to build an AI product "made in Vietnam" with international standards, to export to the world. Therefore, DrAid ^TM is a comprehensive digital platform product that meets many international standards.

Mr. Hung recounted that the path to conquering international markets was not easy at all. However, VinBrain has captured several large, key markets and is currently accelerating. This achievement is thanks to VinBrain's focused stance and strategy.

First, VinBrain chose early detection of cancer, especially liver cancer, as the focus of its AI product, by building features to detect tumors and cancers as small as 5mm from computed tomography (CT) scans.

To “pave the way” for the goal of selling products to the US market, FDA certification is required. VinBrain has done this early. VinBrain received certification from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just 3 years after the company was founded, which is considered extremely early, while its Korean competitor needed 7 years.

In 2022, VinBrain will be the first unit in Southeast Asia and Vietnam to be granted FDA certification for the product DrAid™ Chest X-ray - Pneumothorax diagnosis. This product also has ISO certification for quality. VinBrain has also signed agreements with Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Stanford. "With this solid "tripod", the application platform will go very far," Mr. Hung shared.

Mr. Truong Quoc Hung said that VinBrain has also submitted documents and applied for a second FDA certification for the product DrAid™ CT Liver Cancer, hoping to have good news in the third quarter of 2024.

VinBrain has a global marketing program to spread its products. Mr. Hung proposed a strategy: “Once Vietnam’s AI products are accepted by the US market, it will be easier to enter other markets. Our focus is to cover the Southeast Asian market of nearly 1 billion people and then expand further.”

DrAid™ is currently used in more than 182 hospitals domestically and internationally. To date, DrAid™ owns the largest AI-database platform in Vietnam with 4.26 million diverse medical data from Asian, European and American countries. “We have achieved a revenue of 3 million USD since launching the product to the market,” Mr. Hung proudly shared.

VinBrain has signed cooperation agreements with many hospital chains and large corporations in the healthcare sector in Thailand and Malaysia. Notably, we can mention the Implementation Cooperation Agreement (MOA) with Samitivej Hospitals - a large hospital chain in Thailand; signed a cooperation agreement with a large corporation in Malaysia to penetrate and deploy DrAid distribution in the healthcare system in your country. Some partners in Singapore have also researched and worked in detail with VinBrain on the roadmap.

With VinGroup's support, CEO Truong Quoc Hung, who has worked at Microsoft for 12 years, holding the position of Technical Director and AI Incubator, VinBrain is like a "tiger with wings" on the journey to bring Vietnamese digital technology products to the world, marking another important milestone in the application of AI in healthcare, which is still lacking a leading position.

With the same mindset of attacking the US market as a launching pad for the business, VMO Holdings has really made a big splash in the Vietnamese software industry with its rapid growth. From 3 founders and a few dozen initial members, after 12 years, VMO reached 1,200 members.

Ms. Nguyen Khanh Diep, Deputy General Director of VMO Holdings, said that to make a difference as a young company, VMO decided to start with contracts from the US. “At this time, most Vietnamese outsourcing companies mainly work with Japanese customers,” Ms. Diep analyzed.

Over the past 12 years, VMO has deployed digital transformation tasks and services to many major partners around the world, solving many and diverse difficult problems for customers. Some of the typical fields that the unit has deployed include Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Logistics, etc.

After the US market, VMO Holdings saw an opportunity to develop in the Japanese market and established VMO Japan in 2019. Overcoming the difficulties of the Covid-19 pandemic, when it seemed like it would have to temporarily stop investing, VMO had a new business strategy. VMO Japan has succeeded in convincing many customers to use VMO's services and bring jobs to Vietnam. VMO selected target customers and proposed suitable solutions for them and quickly achieved unexpected results. Since then, VMO Japan has increased from a few employees to 300 employees in just over 2 years of the pandemic.

"Currently, VMO Global has two core markets: America and Asia. We started from the US market and are asserting ourselves here. Previously, people may only know about Indian outsourcing companies, but now, the position of Vietnamese software companies is gradually improving on the global technology map," said Ms. Diep.

VMO Japan's revenue grows an average of 250% per year. 80% of VMO Japan's revenue comes from large Japanese technology and consulting group clients. VMO has consulting projects for very large telecommunications groups with very high unit prices, equivalent to Japanese consulting companies.

After more than 14 years of conquering the Japanese market, NTQ Solution, a software and IT consulting company, has been affirming its position as a prestigious technology company in software production and providing digital transformation solutions, and is a trusted partner of many large companies and corporations in Japan and internationally.

NTQ Solution was established in 2011 with only 5 members - all of whom are experts and managers with experience working at large IT corporations in Vietnam and abroad. Mr. Pham Thai Son, CEO of NTQ Solution, said that NTQ was established with the determination that, with the belief and intelligence of Vietnamese people, it is possible to create "Make in Vietnam" technology products and services that are welcomed and trusted around the world.

NTQ's great expectation at that time was to bring the brand to international markets by all means, learn the most advanced modern technologies in the world, thereby creating technology products and services that meet international standards, and above all, elevate Vietnamese people on the world digital map. Japan was chosen as one of the first countries that NTQ Solution aimed at for this strategy. NTQ Solution focused on software development services as the main service sector to develop the platform for NTQ.

“Right after getting the initial orientation, we immediately took steps to research the market, ready to send some of our brothers to the Japanese market to learn, gain more experience, knowledge and skills to implement international projects and understand more about the local culture.

It is our determination to achieve our goals that has helped us overcome all obstacles and difficulties to gradually achieve our goals. After only 5 years, we have built a wide network of customers and partners in Japan, and officially marked the establishment of the first international office here. NTQ Japan maintains a growth rate of 40% annually in both revenue and human resources," said Mr. Son.

That milestone also helped NTQ have a stepping stone to continue its journey to reach the global market later. NTQ packaged the successful model of NTQ Japan, from which it established NTQ Korea, NTQ Hong Kong (China) (currently expanded to NTQ APAC), NTQ Europe, and NTQ America . Whether it is Korea, Hong Kong (China) or Europe and America, NTQ always aims to not only establish a presence but also always cultivate knowledge, have an understanding of the market to thereby offer specialized product and service models for each country, build a solid reputation and brand in these markets.

Revealing his successful strategy, Mr. Pham Thai Son said that NTQ Solution uses a bait strategy and a technology strategy as a lever to create great value for customers in the digital transformation process.

One of the strategies that NTQ Solution has successfully utilized is the "bait for the Vietnamese market" method. This market is considered a vibrant development environment with a large population, rapid economic growth and many attractive advantages for foreign businesses. NTQ Solution has cleverly utilized these advantages to build cooperative relationships with customers.

In addition, when NTQ Solution has consolidated its position in other international markets. NTQ also takes full advantage of more opportunities and diversifies cooperation methods as "bait" to cooperate with new partners, adding value to existing relationships. Thanks to that, NTQ Solution can continuously expand cooperation with customers, while continuously strengthening the quality of its solutions and services, bringing practical values to customers' business activities and business development.

Along with the aspects of increasing the value of cooperation with customers, NTQ also focuses on building a comprehensive 4P partner system. NTQ's 4P partner system includes: Sales partners, technology partners, consulting partners and alliance partners. The systematic and methodical organization of partners helps NTQ quickly develop the values that can be brought to customers.

In terms of human resources, NTQ focuses on building and strengthening appropriate operations to meet the high standards of the international market. “We try to create conditions to achieve a frequency of 10-20% of NTQ personnel being sent to work abroad, while maintaining a 5-10% ratio of foreign personnel working at the company,” Mr. Son shared.

In addition, research and application of technology is always a key priority of NTQ. Oriented towards developing technology service solutions and using new technologies such as AI as a lever in creating value for customers in digital transformation, NTQ focuses on creating 3 core values in digital transformation services and solutions for customers, including: Creating excellent customer experiences, optimizing operations and contributing to the formation of new business models.

Thanks to these practical values, NTQ has positioned itself as a global IT service provider and gained the trust of customers, who have long-term, good relationships with NTQ in many international markets.

Choosing the Japanese market to lay the first bricks of success, Rikkei CEO, Mr. Ta Son Tung, after 3 years of studying in Japan, dreamed of returning to conquer this market. The person who had the biggest impact on Tung in 2015 was Mr. Truong Gia Binh. “He told me that if I wanted to succeed in the Japanese market, I had to not be scattered, I had to focus on the target customers. So, Tung had to go to Japan to work and have direct contact with the Japanese people.”

In early 2016, Ta Son Tung took his whole family to Japan. That was also the year Rikkei Soft established a legal entity in Japan, Rikkei Japan.

From a few dozen employees 8 years ago, as of May 2023, Rikkei Soft has over 1,600 employees, 100% of whom speak foreign languages, 94% are university graduates, the rest are post-graduates. 43% are employees with less than 3 years of seniority. Currently, Rikkei Soft has 4 branches in Vietnam, 4 branches in Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya).

With the mindset of “Rikkei goes global from Japan”, in 2023, Rikkei Japan established a branch in Thailand, then moved to the Korean market and some other countries. The company's view is that coming from a developed country like Japan will make it easier to access other markets.

Rikkei Soft's ecosystem includes many member businesses, products and solutions such as: Rikkei Digital specializes in digital transformation and the Southeast Asian market; Rikkei Academy provides Japanese language and IT training for former international students and interns so that they can return or stay in Japan as IT engineers (focusing on international students who studied in Japan), and also trains international students in Japan with the goal of having 1,000 students; Rikkei Incubator provides funding for startups; Rikkei AI provides AI-based solutions; Rikkei IT Service provides software services. One of Rikkei Soft's strengths is providing digital transformation solutions for Japanese banks.

There are many Vietnamese technology companies operating in Japan, but not many Vietnamese businesses are present in the US market. By opening a subsidiary in the US, Rikkeisoft revealed its plan to gradually realize its ambition of becoming a billion-dollar enterprise in the future.

The spirit of being ready to go out to sea, "hunting whales" with unique tricks, not only demonstrates the creative and innovative spirit of Vietnamese people but also inspires the work together to build and develop a sustainable Vietnamese technology business community abroad.