Ứng dụng công nghệ thông tin tại tập đoàn dệt may việt nam VINATEXe

APPLYING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS
Vietnam Textile Garment Corporation (Vinatex) is a consortium of multi-owned
companies including parent Vietnam Textile-Garment Corporation; research – training
units; nearly 120 subsidiaries, associated company which are joint stock companies
having multi business including manufacturing- textile business and commercial service
operation; having wholesales and retail system; financial investment activities,
investment on supporting business of textile - garment…


Vietnam Garment- Textile corporation – the biggest corporation in Vietnamese
Garment – textile – shall participate in general strategy planned by garment to puruse the
target that to bring Vinatex become a conglomerate ownership in the top 10 textile
corporations worldwide in year 2015.

In strategy of development of garment - textile industry in Vietnam to 2015,
directioning to 2020, it will focus on the development towards specialization and
modernization which help to creat a leaped increase on textlile and garment product’s
value-adde. This will be implemented through three programme including cotton, woven
fabric with high quality and training of human resources which are crucial to the
development of sustainable, long-term stability of the Vietnam Textile and textile
industry.


Currently, Vietnam Textile-Garment Corporation has trade relations with more
than 400 corporations, companies from 65 countries and territories with annual exports
accounted for over 20% of whole country exports of textiles.

VINATEX’s policy is to expand cooperation with all domestic and foreign
partners through joint ventures, business cooperation, creating a large export market and
stable; calling capital from strategic investors for long-term cooperation in the spirit of
equality mutual benefit.

Evaluation of current applying Information Technology
Communication Board can be considered as a address receiving transfer of
technology (hardware, software) to operate and exploit. After a period of operation, it is
necessary to evaluate the efficiency of investment, technical specification, and criteria
relating to operation, upgrade and new investment. The results of this assessment, if
adequate and accurate, will give information to the owners for them to improve
effectively operation together with proper new investment decision. All mentioned
activities are called the audit of IT systems.
In recent years, the corporation has invested quite much money, time,
human resource for IT applications; however, no high result has been achieved.
From actual observations, I personally believe that the current status of IT
application in Vietnam in recent years is very weak. It can be seen from the followings:
- Compared with other countries in area such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand…


- Compared with the speed of application development on the telecommunication
industry in the world.
- Compared with money we have invested.
- Compared with human resource we have invested.
- Compared with time we have spent for implementation.
- Compared with plan made by corporations and State agency.
Therefore, opinion that “basically failed” is not totally un-reasonable. However, in
order to be more successful, I think we have to figure out the fundamental causes,
cores of the failure and accordingly to eliminate such causes
What are reasons for un-successful IT application?
The first and most important reason is the in-proper acknowledgement of IT
role in improving labor productivity and product quality of the leadership.
Most leaders of organizations believe that they were well aware of IT role but in
fact only on words but not on jobs. Acknowledged that IT is important, but leaders do not
spend enough time, invest enough money for IT, not direct or involve in IT discussion. IT

in charged persons in all organizations are hardly given significant powers. They are not
involved in the strategic direction of IT applications, nor to be involved in
restructuring the business processes...
The second reason is the IT application environment is not good.
It is firstly seen from leaders’ habit to lead the company based on experience and
instinct. This reduce much IT role. If the leaders do not use information to make
decision, the informatics system’s effect is no longer exist. Leader do not use
informatics, their staff do not either and then all company do not require to use
informatics system. In organization where leaders always ask for information, IT shall
develop and work well.


It is secondly seen from backward or unstable professional procedure. We all
know that it is not possible to apply IT for unstable professional procedure. In addition, if
applying IT for backward, old procedure, the improvement will not achieve much
(or even will be negative investment).
It is thirdly seen from not good management level by leaders. Due to limit
knowledgement, some leaders are afraid of apply IT, learning IT because they do not
show the shortage of knowledgement.
The third reason is that Departments, Boards do not see the threats of losing
competition:
Many leaders in our organization and corporation think that it is good to apply IT
but without IT, it does not affect to anything. In internal corporation, any department and
boards applying IT shall have more attraction than other non applying IT departments.
The forth reason is that low quality plan for IT project is still used for application.
Very few IT application project is started by correct assessment of actual demand.
Lacking the determination and assessment of demand will cause the situation that some
urgent demand is not fulfilled while the un-necessary and expensive demand are served.
The fifth reason is that there are insufficient qualified persons.
In order to implement IT in any business field, we need an intergration of two

knowledgement sectors: IT and professional knowledgement. There are many
unsucessfull IT project due to lacking qualified staff including professional staff having
IT knowlegement, experience staff for implementing IT project, managing project… In
addition, qualification of users plays important roles in improvement of efficiency of
application IT projects.
Other reasons:
There are many other reasons; I just list some main important reasons as below.


Investors’s mind focuses on hardware rather than software. Most of them do not
pay much attention on implementation. Very few leaders respect re-structure of old
process to improve the efficiency of IT applications.
Not having right evaluation of the importance of user interaction relationship.
Many projects do not have training parts or less investment of it. Some projects do not
have right evaluation of related technology role. Some projects are not successful as they
do not have chosen wrong partners.
Current bidding methods are mainly based on bidding prices. Criteria about
technical, experience, organization, implementation procedure are less considered.
Companies applying ISO 9000 quality control do not have advantage even though their
quality of implementation has higher assurance. Some project are failed due to transfer
procedure is not good. Some other projects do not have efficiency due to there is no fund
for maintainance of system after handing over such as: updating data, remedy of defects
and incident…
As the current reality, there are not much departments, boards having IT
application. The evaluation of current fact, efficiency of system are not formalized
following KPI criteria. Since that, leaders do not have enough information and therefore
they consider that IT always requires investment without considering about ROI.
Evaluation of current IT status would help IT department to give advice about
improvement of IT operation, to establish better plan for IT application in corporation.
Technically, IT system in corporation could be considered as the following

sectors:
•

Infrastructure system include: data center, server, network system,

computers and archive equipment, devices.
•

Software system: operating software for server, data base, operating

software system for workstation, email, anti virus, security software.
•

Applications: softwares, applications for operation.


In view of operation, the classification could be as follow:
•

Procedure of system operation, control of variation.

•

Un-interruptedness in operation

•

Safe and security of data

In view of management, issues need to be reviewed as:

•

Management of IT properties.

•

Establishment of organization, department to operate IT system in

corporation.
•

To build the procedure system for management of IT organization:

procedure for management of variation, procedure for project management.
•

Supervision and inspection procedure.

Currently, information technology (IT) plays an important role indispensably in
management processes, the operation in business activities of each enterprise. The
development and application of the Internet has changed the models and business
activities of enterprises, gradually moving from traditional transactions to electronic
transactions have affected the position, role and the needs of related parties (customers,
suppliers, investors ...) of the business.
The IT investment activities in corporation serve the business goals such as
support for operational activities, management decisions, development of strategies to
achieve beneficial competition, ... There are many models in enterprise IT investments,
each model has different approach but all share the goal that corporation could identify
investment roadmap and relationships between components in of IT applications in the
enterprise. Each corporation needs to choose his appropriate IT investment model

to promote efficient investments, to serve business objectives.
IT investment model in communications Board of Vietnam Textile & Garment
Corporation can be combined in 4 different stagest: investments of IT infrastructure;
enhancement of operating applications; application for comprehensive capacity and
production
competitive

management;

Investment

to

transform

business

and

create


advantage internationally. At each stage, it has specific objectives and follow the
fundamentals of IT investment that investment must be consistent with the business
objectives of the enterprise; investment must be effective; sufficient investment for
people to use and promote investment in technology.
Stage 1: Investment of IT infrastructure
This stage is initial investment of business on IT including equipped basic
hardware, software and human resource. “Basic” level could be in-consistent, however, it
should meet some major requirement about IT infrastructure (hardware & software) such

as: computers, LAN, WAN network, Internet connection, communication environment
between departments internally and partners; human should be trained to use the basic IT
infrastruction and apply it for management of corporation’s business so that the
“background” could be established for next IT investment stage
Stage 2: Enhancement of operating applications
The objective of this stage is to improve IT investment performance, support for
functional department in corporation, namely activities of functional departments or
work groups as assigned. This is a natural development of most businesses, because the
volume of information to be handled increases, and having necessary skills for
application of IT in the previous stage. The investment to automize operational processes
for improving business performance such as to deploy applications to meet each field
operation and to expand on-demand business; financial accounting program, human
resource management, other functional applications.
Stage 3: application for comprehensive capacity and production management
If stage 2 is considered as partial digitalizer, stage 3 shall be whole digitalizer of
business. Transforming from partial to whole digitalizer is the most issue of this stage 3.
Regarding IT infrastructure, it needs wide area network covering business, ensuring the
smoothy information flows between departments, parts; Integrated software and
databases throughout the company are the key tools for the support and operational
management; deployment of synchronous solutions help companies change the internal
quality management, improve operating capacity, improve efficiency and increase
competitiveness as ERP, SCM, CRM, ... Digital Culture which is built and gradually


developed in two stages before has became reality good, contributing to the culture of
the enterprise business, which is the standard foundation work, the size measure new job,
the system of rules and tools to ensure the full implementation of the standards in
the enterprise.
Stage 4: Investment for transforming business and creating competitive advantage
internationally.

This IT investment stage is to achieve advantage competition in the modern
business environment, ie investment in IT products and services to create cost
advantages, to make up the difference, and the other products in accordance with the
competitive strategy of enterprises. Currently, the business issues in the Internet age,
specifically, the use of technology and Internet services in business, have a decisive role:
building an intranet to share information inside enterprise, extranet to connect and
selectively share information with partners, suppliers, customers... Using Internet to form
relationships of e-commerce such as B2B, B2C and B2G. Inheriting strength on the basis
of data and business processes that have formed in business to raise the business to
higher level, global business. IT is an effective tool in the implementation of business
strategy.
Strategy for period 2015-2016 for the following below contents:
1. Strategy’s view of point
•

Development of human resources for IT and communication to have high
quality and good qualification is the basis.

•

Rapidly conquer domestic market in order to have strong background to
expand to neighbor market and global is a decisive step;

With the above view of point, three basis opinions should be focused when
establishment and implementation:
•

Strongly change the development from the number to quality,
strengthen efficiency and productivity.

•

Using effectively external resource in order to strengthen internal resources.
Internal resource have to become the core and primary, external resource
plays an important role.

•

Promoting the initiative and creative in all business activities in accordance
with market mechanisms socialist orientation, enhance competitiveness
throughout the industry.

2. The oriented basic targets of strategy up to 2016
By 2016, the Information Technology and Communications Board of Group shall
become an important Board contributed positively to GDP growth with increasing rate.
Information Technology and Communications of Group reach an advanced level in the
enterprises contributing to the successful implementation of the industrialization and
modernization of the country and creating the stage for the development of knowledge
economy and information society.
Information Technology Infrastructure needs to achieve the targets that the level
of service is equivalent to the average of the enterprise, diversification of services, catch
up with the trend of convergence of technology and services Telecommunications information Technology - Communications, forming network integrated next-generation
technology, broadband, high-capacity, anywhere, anytime, with any device access,
meet the demand on information

technology applications and Communications,

shorten the digital distance and ensure better system.
Solution for implementation of strategy

a) Raising awareness of the Information Technology and Communications Role:
Raising awareness on the information society, knowledge economy and the role of
information technology and social media in all its forms through advocacy,
dissemination, special attention utilizing media mass. Leaders of the departments, boards
should really be aware of Information Technology and Communication to be an
important sectors and national priorities; interested in creating favorable conditions and
strong support for the application and development of Information Technology and
Communications; exemplary leader in the application of Information Technology and
Communications.


b) Improving the policies, laws
Review and finalize legal documents, mechanisms and policies to create a
favorable environment for supporting applications and development of Information
Technology and Communication to meet the requirements for a comprehensive economic
integration to international,

guarantees the sovereignty and national security;

strengthening and developing internal resources, promote cooperation and healthy
competition among departments, boards within the Group.
c) Good implementation of strategy and planning
Set up and implement strategies and plans in order to effectively use and save of
investment capital, natural resources and other resources to ensure successful
implementation of Group’s target of social - economic development. Each sector should
develop specific strategies and plans to ensure an independence, initiative and creativity.
d) Strengthen the management unit; Innovation of department, board model
organization
Strengthening the management staff of the Information Technology and
Communications follow the model of multidisciplinary management and multi-domain

which suitable with trends of converged technology and services in Telecommunications
- Information Technology - Communications.
Reasonable organization of staff base on distinguished organizations including
planning and implementation organizations; ensure to establish the strong state
management following principal "Management capacity is well prepared to meet
development requirements".
To innovate organization, improve process, management, labor productivity,
business efficiency and competitiveness of Departments. To research the application of
new creative department, boar models in different forms of diversification of ownership.
Formed and close links between departments in the field of Information Technology.
e) Expansion and development of Information Technology and Communications.


Taking advantage of the departments, it is necessary to be quickly master of
information technology. Focus on investment and development of products and
services of Vietnam Information Technology and Communications with increasingly
creative content increasing.
f) Strong development of human resources
To complete training systems, vocational education and professional consistency
of Information Technology in the Group, ensuring supply of qualified human
resources and high quality.
Promote activities to improve training for employees in the business, especially
improve the application of Information Technology and Communication on state
operations and production management.
There are policies and special remuneration to attract experts who have talent,
qualification, capability, experience, position in the field of Information Technology and
Communications positive, actively participate and contribute to the development of
information Technology and Communications of Group.
g) To attract investors and capital
Set up good environment and prepare human resource for meeting and catching

the development and revoluition of scientific and technology. It also help to attract big
Information Technology and Communications corporation in the workd to invest,
deploying research and development of information Technology and Communications in
Vietnam.