IT expert sees market for ‘on demand’ services

SAP country manager Francis Lee, spoke with Viet Nam News reporter Vu Hoa about IT trends.

What are the key technology trends this year?

Demand for IT differs depending on the industry. In banking, for instance, strong enterprise support and risk-management systems are needed to ensure that banks can better manage risks. Having an integrated view of the bank’s profitability and inherent risks ensures efficient back-office operation and also helps the bank adhere to strict financial accounting standards.

In the telecoms industry, now that 3G is available in Viet Nam, operators will need to pay greater attention to network infrastructure and convergent charging solutions to help them provide better customer care and rapidly launch new services and promotional programmes.

We also see opportunities for “on-demand” offerings as local businesses increasingly want solutions that empower their mobile workforce. With the strong emergence of cloud computing, on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications will surely explode in Viet Nam in the next few years.

Finally, business intelligence will be the next wave for firms that have already set-up their back-end automation processes. They will need a system that enables them to drill down, slice and dice data fast, and convert it into information that their management can use for decision making.

A lot of Vietnamese students graduated with good marks but are still unable to meet the demands of their employers. Do you face the same issue when implementing SAP projects in Viet Nam. What should be done to overcome the talent thirst in Viet Nam’s IT industry?

Human resource is always a challenge for SAP as well as our partners in Viet Nam. Many multinational companies and Government agencies in Viet Nam are investing in SAP. Thus, there is an acute shortage of SAP consultants in Viet Nam and across the region. Our partners are constantly asking us to support or refer them to qualified and able professionals.

Recently, Intel Viet Nam could hire only a few dozen new staff out of 2,000 applicants. This demonstrates just how many IT professionals lack the right qualifications and practical know-how.

In order to solve this problem, I believe that there should be strong co-operation from the universities and relevant businesses, as well as a changing mind-set among the students themselves. Universities need to pay more emphasis to “practical”, problem-based training, not just theory and academic content. Programmes such as SAP University Alliances will enable Vietnamese universities to refresh their existing courses and develop innovative curricula using state-of-the-art software. By partnering with other UAP member universities, Vietnamese universities will also gain access to research and topics that they have not yet encountered in Viet Nam. This will help solve human resource issues that are so pressing in Viet Nam at the moment.

As one of the world’s leading software solutions providers, what do you think about the Vietnamese Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market in 2009?

Despite economic challenges, 2009 has been a very exciting year. We are glad to see Viet Nam’s enterprise software market grow in both and maturity. Many landmark contracts were signed last year. The and scope of these projects have also increased significantly compared with previous years.

Many Vietnamese enterprises had grown quite big in terms of operational scale. It became quite challenging for them to manage their business operations and processes without proper ERP systems in place. It was inevitable that these companies would have to invest in upgrading their ERP.

Regarding SAP, we had many more customers going live in 2008 and 2009. Most of the projects took from five to eight months to complete. We also had customers who had gone into the next phase of their journey with SAP by adding more solution components. These dealt with concerns that large-scale or “foreign” ERP solutions were extremely difficult to implement for Vietnamese enterprises. We believe Vietnamese enterprises see that world class solutions from SAP can be deployed smoothly and that they do work well for Viet Nam like they do in other parts of the world. I believe this trend will continue this year. At SAP, we will continue to be committed to our partners in Viet Nam. We will work closely with facets of the community to accelerate the growth of Viet Nam’s software industry.

It is true that more and more Vietnamese enterprises are interested in management solutions such as ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence? What difficulties have Vietnamese enterprises encountered when implementing business solutions?

It is true that enterprise solutions deployment is not a simple job. It requires commitment by the customer’s top management and business users, strong implementation partners and quality solutions that fit the customer’s business and industry.

From our point of view, the first requirement is the most critical and difficult to meet, especially because implementing an enterprise solution requires certain changes in the organisation. The management needs to understand that these changes are for the good of the company and they must be ready to embrace change.

Typically, meeting the last two requirements has a positive impact on the first. Once you have a strong implementation partner and proven solution, customers have a lot more confidence to go ahead and be committed.

How should businesses go about deploying these solutions to support their business operations and achieve cost-efficiency at the same time?

Every project needs to begin with a business case. Vietnamese enterprises need to identify what business challenges they are facing and what the expected benefits will be.

For large projects, substantial capital and resource investment will be required. We would work with our customers and carefully analyse the business challenges, customer readiness, priorities of different improvement areas, and expected quantitative and qualitative benefits.

In addition to the immediate needs, enterprises also need to plan for future requirements.

Tags: SAP Vietnam, Vietnam Information technology, Vietnam IT, Vietnam IT services markets