|
IT industry faces challenges
Despite a significant growth rate of 20-25 per cent annually over the past decade, Viet Nam's IT industry still faces several challenges, according to the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications' IT Department.
Computer electronics and hardware, which made up a major contribution to the local IT industry, had low added value and mainly consisted of product assembly, said department spokesman Tran Quy Nam, adding that the majority of parts and components used for assembly were imported.
Although Viet Nam was among of the top ten software outsourcing destinations globally, he said, it had not yet attracted investment from leading international software groups in production and R&D (Research and development). North America and Japan remain major markets for Vietnamese software outsourcers.
Insufficient investment in marketing, R&D and human resources were also problems, Nam said.
The HCM City Computer Association's recent statistics revealed that of all software businesses in Viet Nam, only 27 per cent invested in marketing, and 33 per cent used only 5-10 per cent of their revenue on training and R&D.
IT firms currently accepted outsourcing work from foreign partners, and had not managed to properly invest in R&D, said TMA Solutions chairman Nguyen Huu Le. Only with sufficient R&D investment could businesses produce high value-added products and gain greater profits, he said.
Investing in R&D, however, was not an immediate solution as most IT firms remained small- and medium- sized businesses with limited financial capacity and lacked skilled personnel, said the association chairman Chu Tien Dung.
However, solving the problem was not an impossible task. Small outsourcing firms could invest in R&D by themselves after gaining enough experience and skilled personnel, Dung said.
TMA Solutions recently opened its first R&D centre in HCM City's Quang Trung Software Park after 12 years executing R&D projects under contracts with foreign partners.
They could also host R&D centres for foreign partners that could bring comprehensive technological improvements and increased profits, he added.
Establishing R&D centres in Viet Nam, however, needed more tax incentives from the Gov-ernment, Dung said.
In addition to R&D centres, long-term projects and cust-omers, skilled workers and professional administration processes were also necessary, said FPT Information System Corporation chairman Duong Dung Trieu.
Developing software prod-ucts while at the same time providing software services and developing a domestic software market as a way of improving competitiveness with foreign rivals were important, he said.
It was also necessary to promote the role of domestic EPC (Engineering, procurement, construction) partners, strengthening technology transfers, issuing policies that pave the way for software purchases, while improving workforce administration and training. Increased software and software service construction price norms, improved legal documents on public-private partnerships and the promotion of software and software service exports should also be considered.
Thu Tra
vietnamnews
|
