HCM City (VNA) - The Vietnamese economy needs“breakthrough businesses” to improve competitiveness and the quality of GDPgrowth, experts said at a conference held in HCM City on November 21.

“The GDP has had good growth but the economic structure isadjusting too slowly to adapt to significant changes in the global economy,” TranDinh Thien, head of the Vietnam Economic Institute, said.

“The economy needs a breakthrough in every aspect, fromadministrative reform to business models, to catch up with the rest of theworld,” he said.

Nguyen Thanh Nam, co-founder of the FPT Group and FUNiXUniversity, said that to achieve success, “we must spend a lot of investmentfor a long journey to discover, learn, fail and stand up again to do businesspatiently.”

Nam said that since innovative attitudes could lead tomistakes, companies should have their own mentors.

“We have over 2,000 mentors in our university to guide ourstudents on what they should learn and do,” he said

He mentioned a new university model in US that has nolecture halls, no campus, and no lecturers and staff.

“It has 10,000 students and they learn and takeself-examinations, with guidelines from the internet. And many of the graduatefrom the university can be recruited at big companies in Silicon Valley,” hesaid.

Do Anh Tu, former general director of Diana Unicharm anddeputy chairman of management board of TP Bank, said that his “breakthrough”was to do the opposite of what people often do.

“When people want to immigrate to another country, Ireturned to Vietnam. When all people focus on real estate, I chose businessproduction. When people want to produce big products, I chose products withnormal and daily usage. That’s why I developed Diana products for women,children and seniors,” Tu said.

But he stressed that each enterprise should develop its ownway.

“All successful enterprises must learn by heart the fourcore values: what is their product, what is their price, how can they launch promotions,and how can they bring their products to customers. A breakthrough should beapplied for each core value,” he said.

Tu also noted that enterprises would gain success if theyappeal to the emotions of customers.

“For Diana products, instead of solving the ‘monthlyproblem’ of women, we made a slogan ‘be proud to be a woman’,” he added.

After selling Diana Unicharm and buying TP Bank, Tucontinued applying his “opposite” thinking. To reduce the number of bad loans,his bank promotes retail for individual customers instead of focusing onenterprises.

To reduce expenditures, instead of opening more branchoffices, TP Bank launched its “live bank” where customers are served by staffvia teleconferences 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

“Three months after we launched the ‘live bank’, the Bank ofAmerica opened its first one in the US,” he said.

Hoang Thi Mai Huong, chairwoman of Publicis Vietnam, saidthat a “breakthrough must stem from right thinking”.

“We can learn responsibility and limit greed. Tu changedfrom an enterprise to a bank, where he managed other people’s money and hadmany chances to do business every day,” she said. “From that, Tu could thinkabout starting retail and live banks. That is a breakthrough.”

Nguyen Thi Thuy Binh, deputy general director of Vietjet Airsaid the company’s breakthrough was when it realised that most Vietnamese hadnot flown in an airplane prior to opening its low-cost services

“Now, Vietjet Air would like to have another breakthrough bybecoming a ‘customer airline’ where we can meet all customer demands, frominsurance, hotel, travel, shopping, and even buying tickets on installments,”she said.

“Enterprises should create demand for customers and workwith partners to serve customers better so they have more benefits,” she added.

Hoang Thi Mai Huong said: “With Vietjet Air, thebreakthrough was the way they recognised customers and discovered a market,along with combining technology.”

The meeting was the 10th Investment Conference organised byNhip can Dau tu (Investment Bridge) magazine with the participation of 500 CEOsand leaders of the local business community.-VNA