Tech Mahindra takes stronger strides into Vietnam

Rohit Gandhi

What services do you offer the Vietnamese market?

We are offering three types of services. Firstly, we build and test software for banking, manufacturing, and retail. Secondly, we manage data centres for companies. And last but not least, we do mechanical engineering and design, and develop geographical information systems.

What work have you done in Vietnam prior to establishing your first office?

So far, most of the work we have done has been in banking. For example, our first clients were Vietinbank and the State Bank of Vietnam.

The interesting part is that many projects we’ve done for banks in Vietnam have been a first of its kind in Vietnam. For example, we did an analytics project for a bank here, and that was a first for a Vietnamese bank. There are a lot of new things and technologies coming into the country.

Since Vietnam has a strong manufacturing sector, our engineering business is relevant to manufacturing companies here. Retail, as well as mining and oil and gas are also very attractive. Vietnamese companies will gain because of our global experience, and become more efficient and productive.

What is the role of the Vietnamese market in Tech Mahindra’s development strategy?

Vietnam is a growing economy. Vietnam’s GDP is expected to grow by 5.6 per cent, whereas the rest of ASEAN is growing by only 4.3 per cent. In addition, mobile, smartphone, and internet penetration in Vietnam is increasing and many companies want to go digital so we feel that we can do a lot of work in that sector in this country. That’s what has attracted us.

Vietnam’s market can also form a hub from which we can serve customers in other countries, such as Japan and Hong Kong.

How do you make yourself unique?

By cost competitiveness, global expertise and local partnerships.

Although we’re an Indian company, in Malaysia we have close to 600 Malaysians working for us; in the Philippines we have close to 3,000 Filipinos; and in China we have about 400 local associates. We localise well wherever we go.

We have local and global competitors. But the good thing is that we’re very flexible as a company and we partner very well. Local partners have the local market knowledge, while we have the global knowledge of how to execute the projects and the technology, so it’s a good combination.

Do you have any targets for your Vietnamese operation in the near future?

We, including Tech Mahindra and our partners here, expect to expand to 100 people in the coming two or three years.

Right now, we are focusing more on building our operations but our Vietnamese operations could contribute 10 per cent towards our ASEAN revenue. Vietnam is definitely one of the faster growth regions for us in ASEAN.

Also we have a strong focus on corporate social responsibility. We will contribute to society by hiring local staff, by working with local partners, and bringing in global best practices to make Vietnamese companies more efficient. We want to give back more than we take from a country.

What do you expect to happen in the Vietnamese IT service industry?

Vietnam’s IT services industry is set to see high growth rates as companies begin their IT standardisation, enterprise modernisation, and digital transformation journey. Superior customer experience will drive the change for enterprises, and this will be a catalyst for growth.

Increasing demand for cloud, analytics, mobility, social media, and network solutions are key areas of focus. Leveraging data – enterprise or customer related – will be key for successful organisations.

We see a strong push towards upskilling the Vietnamese IT workforce as the country transforms into a regional hub for countries like Japan and Korea.

Tech Mahindra is a specialist in digital transformation, consulting and business re-engineering solutions, and we’re looking to play a key role in Vietnamese enterprise transformation. Our innovative platforms and reusable assets connect across a number of technologies to deliver tangible business value to all our stakeholders. We are part of the Vietnam IT ecosystem and work with local partners in many of these areas.

Tech Mahindra hopes to be part of Vietnam’s IT transformation India-based information technology service company Tech Mahindra today (March 04) opened its first Vietnamese office in Hanoi three years after first setting foot in the country.