Mr. Mai Duc Cuong, CEO of Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company: Success thanks to "breaking through" niche markets
In 2020, during the COVID-19 outbreak, Mai Duc Cuong had time to research the market for supporting industries for industrial park factories. And then Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company was born.
Start a business thanks to... too much free time
According to the report of the Department of Business Registration Management, Ministry of Planning and Investment, in 2023, Vietnam had 18,038 dissolved enterprises. This number shows a difficult year for Vietnamese enterprises. And one thing worth noting is that among these dissolved enterprises, there are many start-up and newly established enterprises.
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| Mr. Mai Duc Cuong, CEO of Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company. |
However, there are still businesses that, despite starting up during a difficult period for Vietnam's economy and being greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, still stand firm and grow strongly.
The story of Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company, a startup with auxiliary products for factories in industrial parks, is a story of growth and success.
Mr. Mai Duc Cuong, CEO of Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company , said that he was previously the Market Development Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) in Ho Chi Minh City , the world's oldest professional accounting organization headquartered in the UK.
“In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, work started to decrease, and I had more time at home. During this time, I started to research the market to sell more. At that time, with my existing relationships with transportation and construction companies, I chose to sell grease to the units I was close to. Also during this time, a partner suggested that I distribute additional Devcon brand industrial adhesive products from the US. This is a 2-component adhesive, when combined with metal powder, it creates a very good and hard material with the purpose of restoring damaged parts of machinery and equipment. So I started to research the market for auxiliary materials in the maintenance, repair and maintenance of industrial machinery. Seeing that this market has a lot of potential for development, plus the fact that the shift of the market when other countries move to Vietnam will be very large, I decided to set up a company to exploit this market. In March 2020, Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company was born," said Mr. Mai Duc Cuong.
To be able to approach the market, Mr. Cuong continued to explore. Initially, he had to establish his own website called www.Maianduc.vn, carefully optimizing the website to improve search engines as well as using professional resources to create articles sharing in-depth technical information about lubricants and greases. From there, Mai An Duc did not take too much time to be able to sell products to factories in industrial parks.
The company then divided into two main product segments: lubricants and industrial glue. However, the first problem appeared when Mr. Cuong redistributed products from other distributors, because this affected the distributor in Vietnam. Mr. Cuong decided to find sources of goods to import directly from partners outside of Vietnam. The first cooperation destination was Singapore.
“In 2020, revenue reached nearly 10 billion VND, the number of products at that time was still small, but the sales volume was quite stable and the company's website was also searched by other businesses. Therefore, foreign partners also came to us to cooperate in developing more products,” said Mr. Cuong.
The biggest turning point for Mr. Cuong's business was in 2022, when a German company specializing in developing adhesive products for all machinery in various industries came to the Company, and together with Mr. Cuong, they went to thermal power plants and manufacturing plants in many industrial parks to find cooperation opportunities.
From 2022, Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company officially became the exclusive distributor in Vietnam of German brand WEICON products with more than 80 years of experience in providing anti-abrasion coating solutions, material recovery compensation and quick adhesives. The WEICON brand (www.weicon.com.vn) has been present in Southeast Asia for quite a long time, but the Vietnamese market is very new.
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| Mai An Duc Joint Stock Company's products always put quality first. |
To date, the Company has sold more than 1,000 product lines, with revenue reaching 40 billion VND in 2022 and over 70 billion VND in 2023. This impressive growth figure comes from development thinking. Specifically, Mr. Cuong said that in the past, the lubricant product line was focused on and considered the main product by him, at that time the partner businesses were large enterprises and corporations in the manufacturing and construction industry of bridges and roads.
However, in the process of development, Mr. Cuong realized that oil is a very popular product line and there is too much competition among distributors. Therefore, the product line shift was proposed and implemented by Mr. Cuong, instead of selling popular products , he sells specialized product lines, such as special oils and greases that the market needs but is very difficult to buy, going straight into the niche market and taking this as his strength.
“To enter this market and sell this expensive product, I think that businesses must have a team of engineers with in-depth technical knowledge and understanding of machinery to be able to advise and provide optimal, comprehensive solutions. Selling products will become selling solutions to customers,” said Mr. Cuong.
According to Mr. Cuong, the story of starting a business during the pandemic as well as taking the path that many businesses had taken before was carefully researched by him. That is, when he was researching products to sell himself, he learned a lot from engineers managing factories in industrial parks. He realized that the industry still had too many weaknesses, many engineers had skills and experience but did not know about cold welding methods...
In addition, the fact that suppliers always break the supply of products to customers is a weakness of rival brands in the market. Mr. Cuong believes that this is an opportunity for him, by ordering from warehouses in Vietnam, Singapore and Germany to provide the best for the market. In addition, building a team of expert engineers from Dubai and Germany to support customers when the factory needs major repairs, taking service as the core to create core values as well as taking the weaknesses of other businesses as strengths for his own business.
“When customers ask what our strengths are, the answer is always immediate. In addition to the quality of German products, service and supply are our two vital factors. There are customers who we have to accept losses because the customer is too urgent. We have to import goods by air freight instead of by sea. It will take too much time and cannot meet the repair schedule. If the customer stops the machine for a day, the cost is very high,” said Mr. Cuong.
Extended Arm Business Strategy
Recalling the early stages of his business, Mr. Cuong said that when he opened his business in the year of the pandemic, the economy was in difficulty, and financial costs were the biggest headache for him, with less than 5 employees at the time. However, the only strength he had at that time was his existing relationships when he worked for a British company. In addition, he relied on his friends to introduce him to factories and transportation companies in need of goods to sell.
However, this is also the stage when Mr. Cuong both works and recognizes the problems in business. That is, a newly established enterprise cannot have customers like the enterprises that have been operating before. Therefore, it is necessary to go for something new, something different.
“That was setting up the company’s website, at that time asking brothers and friends to sit down and write articles to share knowledge and promote the product lines that the company was selling, at the same time promoting product development online, attracting customers with search keywords that customers always use to promote on the sales website. By the time the epidemic was under control, the company’s sales website had reached the top 1 in product search results,” said Mr. Cuong.
After 3 years of development, Mr. Cuong believes that the opportunities for the supporting industry are huge. However, to grasp this opportunity is not easy and requires professional, methodical implementation as well as having its own core values.
A specific example given by Mr. Cuong was in 2022, when a Japanese company specializing in the production of iron balls for cement grinding plants with a 40-year history in the Chinese market moved to build a factory in Hai Phong. When returning to Vietnam, the company encountered difficulties because the heat treatment oil for quenching iron was not available on the Vietnamese market, nor was there a function to import this type of oil to Vietnam. At that time, Japanese customers wanted a unit to supply this type of oil.
Seizing this opportunity, Mr. Cuong went to China, took oil samples, then returned to the factory at Cat Lai port, Ho Chi Minh City to test the standards and technical indicators. After that, Mr. Cuong started looking for ways to produce, after many times of testing samples at domestic and foreign quality control centers, as well as meeting the requirements of the customer factory in China, and at the end of 2022, he started selling the first batch to the Japanese factory.
“Partners moving to Vietnam will obviously need to find reputable partners who can use English, and at all costs must not be afraid of difficulties to get the job done. Foreign businesses really like this working style and they will come to cooperate,” said Mr. Mai Duc Cuong.
Talking about his development plan in 2024, Mr. Cuong said that the most important thing is to choose which products to focus on for sale based on factors such as actual demand, relationships, financial capacity, and human resources to bring the best sales and optimize profits.
In addition, determining that his business will continue to compete fiercely in 2024 when competition between businesses in the same industry will be greater due to economic difficulties, in order to sell products, businesses will be forced to reduce prices and promote to find customers. That is why Mr. Cuong decided to build a business model by building relationships with businesses with many years of experience in maintenance and repair, as well as having existing contracts with large factories to sign cooperation to supply materials to these businesses.
Currently, Mr. Cuong has worked and signed contracts with many partners in major provinces and cities such as Da Nang, Hai Phong, Hanoi, Vung Tau, etc. Mr. Cuong also eagerly shared: “The road is still very long, myself and the company's brothers have built very specific strategies from marketing, business strategy to customer care services. Starting 2024 with quite good signals, we hope to have a booming year in customers and sales”.
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