In Việt Nam, large enterprises and SMEs place significantly less emphasis on boosting their focus on innovation, SAP has revealed. — Photo theleader.vn

HÀ NỘI — According to a new study, large Vietnamese enterprises are likely to have strategic priorities focusing on growth (42 per cent) as companies respond to market volatility and widespread operational disruptions.

The findings were released as part of a new study of enterprises in Southeast Asia, uncovering the state of businesses and their strategic priorities, as well as challenges and opportunities for post-pandemic growth, by SAP SE.

The regional study “Digital, resilient, and experience-driven: How enterprises in Southeast Asia can prepare for the new economy”, reveals that enterprises in Southeast Asia are gaining steady momentum prioritising growth and customer experiences. However, they face significant challenges in the areas of talent attraction and retention, cloud adoption, and gaining insights from data. 

Conducted in collaboration with Oxford Economics, the study surveyed 600 senior executives - including 400 from small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) with less than US$500 million in revenue - across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Việt Nam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

In Việt Nam, larger firms also recognise that the experience economy is about more than customers - employees matter, too. They are somewhat more likely than smaller firms to cite improving the employee experience and attracting and retaining top talent as strategic priorities (27 per cent). 

This will likely become an even greater focus as companies seek to quickly adapt their workforces to fit the changing market by increasing organisational agility (27 per cent). While building trust with customers - which smaller firms tend to see as their inherent competitive advantage - can ultimately support resiliency and give SMEs the strong foundation they need, almost half of SMEs’ strategic top priorities are improving the customer experience (44 per cent), followed by increasing profits and reducing costs (30 per cent).

The overwhelming focus on experiences and service excellence so far is cited as the primary source of value and differentiation for large enterprises and SMEs in Việt Nam. Among survey respondents in Việt Nam, large enterprises and SMEs place significantly less emphasis on boosting their focus on innovation.

Larger organisations and SMEs in Việt Nam are less fluent in the use of technological solutions to transform the organisation. Instead, larger firms and SMEs in Việt Nam are focused on cutting prices on their goods and services and increased focus on ethics and sustainability issues are become second priority to improve customer experiences.

“Digital, resilient and experience driven are part of today’s business,” said Nguyễn Hồng Việt, SAP Vietnam Managing Director. “Technologies are changing how we live and work, and the pandemic exposed how fragile our world is. Only companies that can adapt quickly will thrive. We need to be more agile, more intelligent, more efficient to point out new ways. RISE with SAP initiative will help business transform holistically by changing the whole culture and mindset of an enterprise and redesigning your business processes to unlock new ways of running your business and stay ahead of your industry.” — VNS