It is expected that Vietnam should prepare itself for this great opportunity as well as challenge.
Clear Objectives
Questions ‘Where is Vietnam now in the process of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?’, ‘What are other nations doing in this process?’, and ‘What should Vietnam do to successfully develop its digital economy as well as smart industry?’ were raised by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the international exhibition ‘Smart Industry World 2017’ in Hanoi at the end of 2017.
By raising these questions, the Prime Minister wished that there would be not only a detailed report on Vietnam’s current position in implementing new technologies and developing smart industry but also an analysis of strengths and weaknesses, especially on human resources, the innovation and activeness of the private business sector.
Up till now, most of the major businesses with great potential on technology such as Viettel, VNPT, FPT, CMC, VNG have already announced that they are ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
According to VNPT’s representative, being one of the founding members of the World Economic Forum (WEF), VNPT has had access to the content of this revolution since its early time (the first version in January of 2016).
According to VNPT’s representative, being one of the founding members of the World Economic Forum (WEF), VNPT has had access to the content of this revolution since its early time (the first version in January of 2016).
The company has also had a chance to follow its every footstep through many meetings and forums of WEF. This helps VNPT to build its own general and human resources development strategies very early.
VNPT has already finished its development strategy for the period from 2017-2020, vision for 2030, in which it mentioned in details aims and specific necessary actions in this Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Viettel’s Deputy General Director Hoang Son said that in the last 13 years, Viettel has always concerned about how the Vietnamese people are able to conduct their own research and develop technology so as to keep up with other developed nations in the world.
With this in mind, the company has invested much into high-quality human resources and state-of-the-art facilities to be later awarded with many international-level products from its research, he said.
“The on-going development and non-stop evolution of technology can make any sluggish nation lag far behind other nations in Industry 4.0. At the moment, Viettel is ready to join in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” confirmed Mr. Hoang Son.
Interdisciplinary Cooperation
According to president of country’s leading digital group FPT Truong Gia Binh, the company is in the process of digitalizing its businesses and administration in order to boost its effectiveness. Until now, FPT has formed partnership with leading international companies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution like IBM, Microsoft, AWS, Siemens.
Together with these enterprises, FPT is building new technological platforms. It not only creates applications on existing platforms but also receives orders to make 4.0-technology platforms from international giants of banking, automobile, aviation, and telecommunication industries.
Mr. Binh said that since this 4.0 technology is quite new, many people are frustrated when identifying what to do, whom to do with, or how to do.
It is important, therefore, to build a clear national strategy based on this revolution as soon as possible because it can affect both businesses and the competitiveness advantage of Vietnam.
At the end of 2017, leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology, along with the Ministry of Information and Communications, held a meeting on the implementation of Directive No.16 issued by the Prime Minister on the strengthening of the ability to access the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
In the event, those leaders agreed that in the previous industrial revolutions, Vietnam had played the role of customer only. However, in this revolution, the country needs a clear development strategy to become a supplier.
According to Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Dai Duong, the Fourth Industrial Revolution means IoT, big data, robot, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, all of which can never be implemented individually but cooperatively among various industries.
Therefore, three ministries considered the foundation of Industry 4.0 including Science and Technology, Information and Communications, and Education and Training have to work closely with other ministries to create a good scenario and national strategy in order to take advantage of this Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The Directive No.16 firmly says that if Vietnam cannot keep up with the development speed of the local area as well as the world, it will have to face severe challenges and undesirable results such as technological lag, decreasing production and business, surplus of low-level human resources which can easily destroy the traditional labor market and can negatively affect economic as well as social status, information unsafety, copyright breach, and lack of high-quality workers.
In other words, without a suitable strategy, Vietnam, especially its enterprises, finds it difficult to keep pace with or adapt to the industry when it reaches the peak of its path.
