International business environment: Basic issues, opportunities and challenges for Vietnamese enterprises

Although Vietnam has recently established the Trade Promotion Agency, the effectiveness of international marketing activities is still limited, in which the role of Vietnamese trade offices abroad is not high compared to countries such as China and Thailand. The capacity of enterprises to research foreign markets to promote exports is still low. In the context of international integration, when participating in the international business environment, some Vietnamese enterprises still do not know or realize the advantages and disadvantages of trade liberalization and therefore lack a long-term business and competitive strategy for themselves.

Marketing in Vietnam has begun to develop in recent years, mainly through foreign direct investment. However, up to now, there has been little investment or a lack of full awareness of its importance. Due to financial constraints, most Vietnamese enterprises do not have a specific program or initial preparation for advertising their products through external advertising, researching fields, opportunities and investment partners. Specifically, up to 83.5% of enterprises have to contact customers themselves, only about 11% find customers through commercial intermediaries and organizations, and about 30% of enterprises have regular expenses for advertising and marketing. Of the 30% of enterprises with regular expenses for advertising and marketing mentioned above, 20% of enterprises spend less than 1% of total expenses, 31% of enterprises spend from 1 to 5% of total expenses; 9% of businesses spend more than 5% of their total expenses on advertising. Foreign customer-oriented activities of foreign businesses are still limited.

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3.1.4.2. Brand building and promotion.

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32 Lan Huong, “Investment in advertising and marketing of Vietnamese enterprises is still limited”, Economics and Forecast magazine No. 60, February 1, 2010

In the era of economic opening, international business enterprises are clearly aware of the value of brand. The phrase “brand” is used as a catchphrase when referring to the success of a series of products, services or a certain business. Even a famous singer who is invited to perform continuously in many places, an actor who is invited to act in many movies, people also think that it is because of “having a brand”.

The importance of branding is almost no longer debated. But in reality, the status of brand building and promotion in Vietnamese international business enterprises is still weak and does not meet the requirements when participating in the international business environment. Enterprises do not fully understand the brand. The reality shows that most international business enterprises have the opinion that the brand is synonymous with the reputation of the enterprise, the quality of the product. Very few enterprises think that the brand is the product label, the trading name. The reality shows that such awareness is incorrect, not enough about the brand.

Due to incorrect and insufficient awareness of trademarks, international businesses still do not pay attention to registering for protection abroad. In fact, although the growth rate of trademark registration is quite good, because of the low starting point, the absolute number is still very small compared to the amount of products being produced and consumed in the domestic and export markets.

Because the number of registered trademarks abroad is still very small, importers and distributors abroad are almost unaware of Vietnamese brands. Vietnamese enterprises themselves mainly import, process and export under foreign labels and brands. As a result, Vietnamese goods suffer many disadvantages and have low added value. It can be said that most Vietnamese enterprises still do not fully appreciate and realize the importance and have not invested adequately in labels and copyrights, and have registered to protect brands in the international market. This is reflected in the fact that enterprises still operate under the brands of other enterprises or

Many Vietnamese enterprises have lost their brands in the international market. This is a worrying situation for the international competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises. Therefore, what Vietnamese international business enterprises need to do now is to have a more correct and accurate view of brands. At the same time, prioritize brand development with measures such as:

* Early establishment of positioning strategy: each business operating in international business needs to establish a positioning strategy, build and develop its brand to comply with the legal framework and affirm its position in the domestic and international markets. To do that, businesses need to increase their intelligence in products by focusing on research to improve product quality, innovate designs, enhance marketing skills, research and have plans to approach new markets with great potential. On the other hand, it is necessary to increase investment in promoting and developing the brand.

* Apply many protection measures: when exporting or importing goods, businesses need to apply "anti-counterfeit stamps" so that when a dispute occurs, using specialized equipment, the company can determine the origin of the product through the secret content on the "anti-counterfeit stamps". This is one of the effective measures to protect the rights of consumers.

* Always respect customers: Customers are the ones who decide the existence and development of the company, so researching customer requirements and satisfaction is always the focus that international business enterprises need to pay close attention to. Enterprises need to take the motto of serving wholeheartedly - thoughtfully - for the benefit of consumers, the company builds standards, registers and publishes standards for each type of product as well as commits to selling products that meet the requirements according to the standards.

3.2. Solutions to overcome challenges

Besides the opportunities that the international business environment brings to Vietnamese enterprises, it is also impossible not to mention the challenges that these enterprises face such as the risk of losing market share, losing market, the risk of shrinking production, and fiercer competition... So how can Vietnamese international business enterprises overcome these inevitable challenges is also a difficult problem. This thesis would like to propose some solutions for enterprises to limit difficulties.

3.2.1. It is necessary to organize forums and seminars on the international business environment to help businesses have a correct and complete understanding of international business activities.

We need to take advantage of the power of forums, seminars, and articles to raise businesses’ awareness of international business activities. In fact, businesses have learned about the international business environment to some extent, but these activities are still separate and businesses still do not really understand this environment deeply. Seminars and forums can help businesses have a more complete and logical view of the international business environment, thereby helping businesses to do business successfully in this environment.

In addition, businesses need to continue to promote propaganda through seminars on opportunities and challenges when participating in the international business environment, on the necessary conditions for businesses to be successful in international business. At the same time, including international business subjects in the training major is a long-term solution to prepare future business managers and participating in short-term training courses on international business are immediate solutions.

3.2.2. Fully grasp information about the business's operating environment.

The purpose of this requirement is to help business administrators understand all business activities as well as changes in the business environment that directly affect the business. This task requires

Enterprises must conduct detailed research on the business sector in which the enterprise is operating as well as the business sector in which the enterprise plans to participate. The scope of research is divided into two areas: the external environment (objective environment) and the internal environment of the enterprise (subjective environment).

The external environment for international business enterprises is not only the domestic business environment but also the environment in the countries where their direct business activities are directly related as well as the world business environment in general. However, the external environment has common characteristics including economic, political, legal, cultural-social environments, as well as market factors such as supply-demand relations, prices, consumer psychology, competitors, etc.

The internal environment of a business includes the business's business and production processes (for example, the process of exporting a shipment of goods), the business's financial situation, assets, contracts, customers, personnel, etc.

The research must lead to an impact model, which clearly indicates the factors that can affect the business activities of the enterprise, the level of influence of each factor, the possibilities that can occur with each factor, helping import-export business administrators to identify possible challenges and the level of their influence on the business activities of the enterprise.

This research activity requires a significant investment in money, human resources and time. For many international businesses, even large businesses, this is not an easy task. Therefore, international business managers need to determine what amount of work they can do themselves and what part of the research must be outsourced (for example, hiring companies).

Legal and commercial consulting, etc., must be linked with businesses in the same industry to perform.

* Some points to note when conducting research:

Firstly, many research contents, especially those on the business environment abroad, are not easy to conduct by enterprises alone because they are too costly. International business enterprises need to rely on the business associations they participate in to conduct common research for the benefit of the members of the Association. For example, research on the content of Vietnam's commitments when joining the WTO as well as the level of impact of these commitments on the business of enterprises in the Association.

Second, it is necessary to take advantage of information sources provided by business development support organizations affiliated or not affiliated to the Government. For example, Vietnamese enterprises can rely on information sources from VCCI, the Ministry of Trade, Vietnam's trade offices abroad... to learn about foreign markets. These information sources are often free or can be available at an acceptable cost.

Finally, the research on the business environment is not enough to be done just once but must be updated to keep up with changes in the international business environment. Enterprises need to determine which research content needs to be updated periodically when the need arises, the time and how to organize the update. Only then can we ensure the necessary source information for the process of successfully penetrating the foreign environment.

3.2.3. Conduct joint ventures, join associations.

Joining industry associations is an effective way for businesses to support each other to overcome challenges in the international business process to develop together. Strong associations with appropriate organizational forms and operating mechanisms will truly represent the interests of international business businesses to help

Enterprises seek markets, business opportunities, investment, and association to increase competitiveness and boost exports. By participating in associations, in addition to receiving support from the association, when information on the operating situation of many enterprises is updated, the association can advise enterprises on price fluctuations and general trends, avoiding cases where enterprises spontaneously set prices en masse and compete to reduce prices to sell goods. Especially when there are fluctuations and unfavorable events such as investigations and lawsuits for dumping, the association will be responsible for linking and coordinating activities for Vietnamese international trading enterprises.

3.2.4. Training human resources to perform well in international business activities.

To do business effectively in a foreign business environment, members of the enterprise must first perform their jobs well. By performing their jobs well and detecting abnormalities, they have significantly contributed to limiting challenges and risks for the enterprise. Lack of human resources to perform international business activities is one of the biggest difficulties of Vietnamese enterprises. Enterprises can implement the following specific solutions:

- Invite international business experts to advise employees, build a habit of inviting legal and policy advice, especially when doing business with large foreign partners.

- Send employees for training, attend international business courses so they can return to train other departments in the business.

- Organize training sessions on international business for employees in the enterprise, disseminate knowledge about international business and the international business environment to all members, publicly announce the challenges that the enterprise has encountered and may encounter for employees.

- Pay special attention to raising awareness of business staff on issues related to laws, cultural policies, and ethics of Vietnam as well as of partner countries, which is currently not yet taken seriously by Vietnamese international business enterprises.

- Have a reasonable reward system for individuals and departments that have initiatives or perform well in international business activities to encourage the widespread development of these activities. Have a penalty system for individuals and departments that do not perform well, causing losses to the business.

Good human resource training is an important factor ensuring the success of businesses in penetrating and expanding foreign consumer markets.

Besides, Vietnamese enterprises also need to improve the quality of Vietnamese entrepreneurs.

- Having a global mindset and vision: The biggest challenge for Vietnamese entrepreneurs in the process of international economic integration is the vision and awareness when participating in the international business environment because without awareness, it is very difficult to compete and succeed in the international business arena. The decisive condition to win in the competition in the international environment is to improve the mindset and vision of each entrepreneur. Participating in the international business environment, each Vietnamese entrepreneur must also be a "global entrepreneur", meaning having a global vision, global ambition, global business will, and from there, proposing and deciding on solutions to bring their business to the world in a successful way, minimizing possible losses. When having a vision that is broad enough, far enough and implementing it with business ethics, that is, using the products or services of their business as a means to solve social problems, Vietnamese enterprises will certainly have a worthy position in the global competition. Nowadays, the vision of Vietnamese entrepreneurs must be a vision with long-term fundamental calculations and development strategies.

International business environment: Basic issues, opportunities and challenges for Vietnamese enterprises - 14

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