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Businesses practicing thrift to survive difficult period
Businesses have been trying to cut expenses in order to overcome the current difficulties, even refusing to pay for very small things.
A flower trading company decided not to spend VND2-3mil to hire a dais and microphone for the panel speakers during the opening ceremony of a new flower-arranging class.
The dais from which the company’s leaders and visitors delivered speeches at the ceremony was made from a cupboard with a table cloth draped over the top. Previously, the company had to hire furniture for the classroom, while it now uses the desks and chairs of the business division. The staffs of the division are not always present in the office because they have to go delivering flowers and meeting clients.
Explaining this, the company’s director said that the company is not too poor to hire furniture. He just thinks that it is necessary to practice thrift in the difficult period, while the dais is just used for a few minutes at the ceremony
Not only small-scale private companies, but state-owned big corporations and foreign-invested enterprises also have to practice thrift.
Nguyen Khanh Linh, Public Relations and Marketing Director of Tin Nghia Company, said that her company planned to kick-start the construction of a kindergarten worth several billion VND to give as a present to Long Thanh district in Dong Nai province. Linh said that she had to think hard about this and decided to ask the company to hold a small instead of a big ground-breaking ceremony.
In the last three months, all the internal bulletins of Tin Nghia Company carried articles in which the company’s leaders called for staffs to practice thrift. The articles clearly stipulated how much money the company could save a month and commended the behaviour of practicing thrift.
According to a director specialising in leasing 4-16-seat cars, the demand for leasing cars for business trips of companies has increased considerably. He said that he knows a foreign-invested enterprise which previously leased cars 1-2 times a month, while the frequency has increased by two- or three-fold. He has found out that the company has sold nearly all its cars, just keeping one car for the board of management. The staffs of the company have to use leased cars for their business trips.
Some companies have asked their staffs to book air tickets with budget airlines for their business trios, and the staffs have been asked to book tickets right after they learn about the trips, so they can get low-cost air tickets.
The director of a HCM City based company specialising in providing garment and textile equipment, said that at least 10 business trips of his staffs are made every month. If flying with budget airlines, the company can save some ten million VND a month.
Many companies have asked staffs to minimise electricity consumption, stationary, telephone and fax communications, encouraging staffs to chat via Internet instead of making phone calls. They have also been asked to practice thrift in printing documents.
Meanwhile, a lot of conferences and meetings of the ministries of industry and trade, agriculture and rural development recently have been carried out online, which is seen as the best way of practicing thrift.
TBKTSG
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