Local ‘gray matter’ plays important role in Samsung’s success in Vietnam: exec
Local ‘gray matter’ plays important role in Samsung’s success in Vietnam: exec
Samsung has developed strongly in Vietnam over the last few years and the local source of ‘gray matter,’ or talented personnel, is playing a significant role in its success, an executive of the Vietnamese arm of the South Korean electronics giant has said.
The giant smartphone maker has experienced growth superior to all other foreign-invested enterprises in the Southeast Asian country, Nguyen Van Dao, deputy general director of Samsung Vina, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper in an interview.
The South Korean conglomerate currently operates two major hi-tech production complexes in northern Vietnam, one each in Bac Ninh Province and Thai Nguyen Province.
There are other multibillion-dollar operations across the country, as the total investment Samsung has made in Vietnam is estimated at about US$11.2 billion.
Last year Samsung posted $32 billion in export revenue from its Vietnamese operations, beating all other foreign businesses in the country.
“Vietnamese ‘gray matter’ has made a considerable contribution to these impressive business results,” Dao said.
The Samsung Vina executive admitted that he does not have enough data to compare the skills of the Vietnamese workforce with those of other countries where Samsung also has operations.
“Samsung’s decision to invest heavily in Vietnam indicates how important the human resource issue is to the company,” he said.
In 2009, Samsung put its Samsung Electronics Vietnam production complex (SEV) in Bac Ninh into operation, and inaugurated the Thai Nguyen facility only a short time thereafter, which Dao said “illustrates what the Vietnamese business environment is like.”
“What’s most important is the skill, diligence and intelligence of Vietnamese employees,” he added.
Dao asserted that the Vietnamese managers, engineers and officials have indeed contributed greatly to the production and R&D activities, as well as the success of all projects Samsung has in the country.
“For instance, the Vietnamese managerial officials, trained by Samsung, have helped improve production capacity and ensure product quality,” Dao said.
“These officials have also helped the Thai Nguyen complex enter the production phase early and become effective after the first one.”
The R&D center in Hanoi, in the meantime, also plays a role in Samsung’s global value chain, he underlined.
“The center is where some 1,450 Vietnamese engineers are working around the clock to support and develop apps and software for Samsung mobile devices, including the latest and most modern products such as the Galaxy Note tablets,” he said.
Dao said Vietnamese engineers are proud of their considerable contribution to Samsung’s hi-end handsets that are being distributed globally.
“Vietnamese engineers have long participated in several production phases of mobile devices, such as designing several features of the S-Pen of the Galaxy Note series,” he added.
Dao said while Samsung Electronics has invested $11.2 billion in Vietnam, other units of the Samsung Group are also eying investment in different sectors in the country.
“But the detailed investment plans are up to each Samsung business unit and I cannot comment further.”
Asked to comment on Vietnam’s effort to simplify investment paperwork, Dao said the Vietnamese business environment has greatly changed, particularly in terms of legal frameworks, compared to that in the 1990s, when the country began calling for foreign investment.
“There are also many changes made since 2008, when Samsung started negotiating for the Bac Ninh SEV project, which proves that the government did listen to foreign investors and businesses to resolve their problems,” he said.
In 2014 Samsung announced that Vietnam will become the global production base for mobile phones and mobile products, and that the South Korean firm will continue cementing its foothold in the country into the future, according to Dao.
“Samsung Electronics Ho Chi Minh City [SEHC] is slated for opening in the second quarter of this year, which again indicates that Vietnam is an important part of Samsung’s global electronics production chain,” he said.
