Bridging the Divide (06/01)
06/01/2011 - 24 Lượt xem
In Vietnam, over the past five years, the State issued many policies to encourage scientific research. In promoting commercialization of research results, the Government issued Decree 115/2005/ND-CP that says state-owned scientific and technological organizations are self-controlled and internally responsible for their operations, and Decree 80/2007/ND-CP that refers to scientific and technological businesses. These policies have had positive impacts on the commercialization of research results here in Vietnam. A number of research institutes succeeded in transforming into organizations that are independent in their operations. The effective development of a technological market proves the Government's successful efforts in stimulating the commercialization of research results of scientific organizations and businesses.
Scientific and technological businesses need to create high quality products if they are to do a good job commercializing their products.
The Quang Trung Mechanical Enterprise has been rather successful in commercialization of its scientific and technological products. For many years, the enterprise researched and tested its products at the same time to prove its high product quality. The enterprise even let buyers of its products owe for the goods and related installation costs and used machinery to prove the competitiveness of its products in comparison with imported goods of the same kind. The enterprise's products are of high quality but have a price that is 30-50 percent of that of imported goods of the same kind and therefore have attracted customers. Annually, the enterprise provided leading factories across Vietnam with thousands of tonnes of equipment as import substitutes. Having acknowledged that product quality is integral to a business's development, the enterprise has been promoting trademark development and a quality management system to satisfy every customer need.
Regarding information technology (IT) products, Nguyen Xuan Tai, general director of Naiscorp, said that his company has its own technological know-how while investing in improving that technology and having a focus on continuous improvement.
Although a scientific and technological market has been formed in Vietnam, the commercialization of scientific and technological products in the country still faces many difficulties.
Associate Professor, Dr. Hoang Vinh Sinh, the head of the industrial material and tool fabrication faculty, of the mechanical engineering institute, at the Hanoi University of Technology, and director of a state-level project on CNC machine tools, said that Vietnamese CNC machine tool producers still need to persuade customers to buy their products and have not yet found a more efficient way to approach customers. BKMech-VMC65, BKMech-VCM110 and BKMech-HSM50 are the first high technology products made in Vietnam but they do not yet have a recognized brand and their producers are not yet famous enough to persuade customers, he said. These Vietnamese products are facing fierce competition from products of the same kind coming from China, Chinese Taipei and Japan, Sinh said.
The first products could make consumers interested but it takes any product time to gain customer trust. Continuing marketing would be a solution to this but it causes a financial problem for many businesses especially small businesses.
Apart from marketing, businesses are recommended to invest in research to improve product quality and reduce product cost. They are also recommended to have good customer care services to gain customer trust. Actually, buying Vietnamese goods one can easily find spare parts and have his or her goods repaired promptly.
Sinh said that he and his colleagues will be promoting design and research development apart from providing the best customer care services. "Based on our experiences, this is the right way to go and the best marketing solution for a product," he said.
To gain customer trust, scientific and technological products must reach certain standards and they will not carve a niche on both domestic and foreign markets until they meet those standards./.
Source: VEN
