HCM CITY — Skilled workers, low-cost and good IT infrastructure are among the factors that make Vietnam an emerging destination for IT outsourcing services, a conference heard in HCM City on Thursday.

Delegates at the Vietnam ITO conference held in HCM City on October 19. — VNS Photo

Dao Dinh Kha, director of the Ministry of Information and Communications’ ICT department, told the second International Conference on Information Technology Outsourcing/Business Process Outsourcing, that according to Cushman & Wakefield, Vietnam ranked first in business process outsourcing (BPO) and Shared Service Location in the world last year.

A Jones Lang LaSalle report this year ranked HCM City (second) and Hanoii (seventh) in the top 10 global City Momentum Index.

This year Vietnam has jumped five places to sixth in A.T.Kearney’ s 2017 Global Services Location Index, Kha said.

ICT has been identified as one of the country’s key industrial sectors, and the Government has rolled out policies for its development, he said.

According to Lam Nguyen Hai Long, president of the VNITO Alliance and CEO of Quang Trung Software City, with its fast growing economy and rich pool of talent in IT/software engineering, Vietnam is becoming Asia’s new technology hub.

In the past few years many tech giants have moved their high-tech operations to Vietnam, he said.

Vietnam’s software and ICT service exports have been growing at an impressive rate, and a survey by KPMG of 150 IT-related businesses and universities in Vietnam found 88 per cent expecting the sector to grow at 15 per cent or more for the next three years.

Seventy three per cent believed Vietnam would remain a low-to-medium cost market, Nguyen Cong Ai, head of strategy group at KPMG Vietnam, said.

Vietnam has a competitive advantage regionally in terms of its low costs and would become a production base of choice in future, he said.

More than 90 per cent of respondents said Vietnam’s IT workforce is very good at management skills and adoption of new technology, he added.

According to delegates at the conference, a majority of Vietnamese software enterprises are small and it is difficult to enter the international market through individual marketing efforts.

With technology today changing faster than ever, businesses are required to know about Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other technologies, said Desmond Kam, founder and CEO of Malaysia’s Codecamp.

He urged Vietnamese firms to embrace innovation.

“Most of the companies I have been seen here are small and traditional. I believe that if they really focus on innovation, they can bring more value not only to their companies but also Vietnam’s engineers.

“As an investor I am possibly interested in investing more money in Vietnam.”

Nguyen Thai An, managing director of Luxoft Vietnam, said to develop further, businesses in the sector need to invest in innovation, training and research and development besides improving their English.

Many tech giants have entered Vietnam and more are expected to come in the future, he said.

Organized by the VNITO Alliance, QTSC and the Investment and Trade Promotion Centre, the two-day Vietnam ITO conference attracted around 500 local and international business leaders, government officials, entrepreneurs and educational officials. Some 150 were international investors and vendors.

The conference, which ends on October 20, was held to promote Vietnam as an emerging IT outsourcing destination and offer a business-matching platform for buyers and Vietnamese vendors.  

The event also included panel discussions, including on how to attract talent in Vietnam, outlook for and insights into the BPO industry in Vietnam, transforming Vietnam – Japan co-operation, how to leverage new technologies and solutions to increase competitive advantages and succeed.

VNITO Alliance signed memorandums of understanding with three organizations from the US and Japan. Viet Nam News  — VNS