FPT changes 2 CEOs within 4 years – strategy or personnel crisis?
FPT changes 2 CEOs within 4 years – strategy or personnel crisis?
After two times of “swapping horses in midstream” within 3.5 years, the Vietnamese leading information technology Corporation of Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT) has been once again, led by an old portrait – Truong Gia Binh, the founder and the manager of FPT until 2009.
Nineteen months ago, when Truong Dinh Anh was appointed as the CEO of FPT to replace Dr Nguyen Thanh Nam, managers of FPT’s subsidiaries felt delighted about the appointment, believing that Nam is a suitable and brilliant portrait to lead FPT to success. Nam, who took the office at the age of 41, was believed to have all necessary characters of a typical business manager in the modern times: he was young, dynamic and decisive.
New strategy needs new face
The 41-year old CEO belongs to the “second generation” of FPT, while Dr Nguyen Thanh Nam managed FPT in the “transitional period” which came after the first generation which was associated with the big name Truong Gia Binh.
Also in 2011, FPT released a very ambitious development strategy – OneFPT, under which FPT would not only target the domestic market, but reach out to the world market. Especially, it strives to list its name in Forbes’ top 500 by 2024.
FPT has every reason to set up such an ambitious plan and get determined to implement it. Some years ago, Vietnam officially joined the World Trade Organization, which its businesses believe would bring more opportunities to develop. At that time, FPT’s shares, right after hitting the bourse, kept increasing sharply in prices, once reaching the peak level which was 60 times higher than the face value.
The smooth business performance then prompted FPT, like many other economic groups, to make investment in many different business fields. The group then set up a commercial bank, established a securities company and injected money in real estate projects.
Some months before the new strategy was released on chungta.vn, an inner website for FPT’s staff, the then President Truong Gia Binh said the new strategy would be a “big dream” of FPT to overcome the big challenges to be brought about by the regular technology changes, and that FPT would change its face to become a conglomerate.
However, Binh admitted the blunders in making investment in non-core business fields, saying that the decision to focus on the core business field later has created the opportunities for the group to reach out to the telecom market.
Truong Dinh Anh, who then became the CEO of FPT, was assigned to implement the OneFPT strategy.
Strategy or personnel?
An executive, who worked under Anh when Anh was Director of FPT Telecom, noted that Anh was so decisive and steadfast in his way that he would go ahead despite the big obstacles on his way.
Meanwhile, Anh wrote on chungta.vn that he inclines towards the personnel and legal measures in governing the corporate.
Truong Gia Binh, President of FPT, who has to return to the post of CEO after the leave of Anh, noted that Truong Dinh Anh succeeded in the companies and the projects he developed himself from the beginning. However, Anh met a lot of difficulties when at the post of CEO, when he had to take care about the fields he does not have much experience as well.
FPT has affirmed that OneFPT would be the target of FPT in the post-Anh period. The thing that Anh has left is a “reform carriage which has departed.”
vietnamnet
