GEAT- Firm Steps on Integration Road

General Army of Economic and Technology (GAET) which is specialised in importing and exporting, consulting technology transfer, trading industrial explosives, researching technological skills and equipment, importing and exporting manpower has ridden out the current economic crisis in a spectacular manner. VIB Forum has a talk with Dr. Nguyen Duc Thuan, Director of GAET, on this success.

The economic storm seems to have completely weakened in Vietnam. What do you think about the upcoming market trend? What is the experience of GAET in weathering the storm?

I completely agree that the economic storm has been over in Vietnam. The market is envisaged to warm up in the last months of 2009. The market will possibly thrive in 2010.

When the global economic crisis occurred, importing and exporting activities were hurt most. The competition on the market turned much fiercer. Under that context, an enterprise needs to position its place on the market to redefine its development heading to survive.

Amid complex economic movements, each enterprise has to seek out solutions to its own market issues. We have focused on market forecasting activities and introduced scenarios to cope with the crisis. We wanted to turn general challenges and difficulties into our own new opportunities to expand our operations. We have picked out products of our highly advantageous competition to broad our market presence. We have long introduced customer-oriented business strategies. While many other companies decided to return the domestic market due to more difficulties on foreign markets, GAET continued with its domestic and export market expansion thanks to its improving product quality. GAET has applied the standard quality system from the start; thus, its products and services are always appreciated by its customers. Profits increase year after year, even in the times of crisis.

What has made the today success of GAET?

It is the corporate culture. An enterprise must have its own corporate culture no matter which fields it is involved in. Organisational culture is the core and the foundation for constructing and development an enterprise. Thus, when we talk about a strong trademark, we usually think of its corporate culture first. We have built up corporate values for even the smallest behaviour. Each GAET staff is the representative of the corporate image and corporate conduct to outsiders. All managers and employees of GAET respect, care and trust each other. GAET creates a dynamic and effective environment and is the fulcrum to create trust and build the trust on customers and partners.

Arguably, we have built GAET into the second home for each staff. The consensus of each staff creates the vital force for the company. In addition to this are the visions and strategies of the leadership in building and planning short-term and long-term development policies to make success on the domestic and international markets.

The market is compared to a battlefield. It is said that when we take part in a broader battleground, we gains more than what we lose. What do you say about this viewpoint?

I think the gains and losses are certain. Importantly, we must know to embrace and realise the opportunities. On a broader playground, the competition is definitely much more severe and if you are not strong enough, you will be pushed to other playgrounds suitable to your ability and give the room to others. Therefore, to make successful inroads into the global market, a company needs to have good corporate governance and improve the competitiveness of its products and services. It needs to enhance corporate governance, human resource training to compete and succeed on the market.

For GAET, the market is the battlefield. Once we join, we will triumph. To compete and survive at this time, we must focus on more competitive commodities to defeat our rivals. This will be the backbone of any company during this history.

Tags: GEAT, Vietnam business news, Vietnam enterprise