Solutions for lack of marketing activities of Viet Phat Uniform Limited Company

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Le Ngoc Hai Trieu

SOLUTIONS FOR LACK OF
MARKETING ACTIVITIES OF VIET
PHAT UNIFORM LIMITED
COMPANY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – 2019


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Le Ngoc Hai Trieu

SOLUTIONS FOR LACK OF
MARKETING ACTIVITIES OF VIET
PHAT UNIFORM LIMITED
COMPANY
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: DR. LE THI THANH XUAN

Ho Chi Minh City - 2019

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Table of Contents
1.1.

The company overview ................................................................................................. 6

1.2.

Problem context ............................................................................................................ 7

CHAPTER II – PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION ............................................................. 10
2.1.

Symptoms analysis...................................................................................................... 10

2.1.1.
2.1.2.
2.1.3.

2.2.

Limited customer network ....................................................................................................... 10
Lack of brand awareness .......................................................................................................... 10
Ineffective digital marketing .................................................................................................... 12

Problem analysis ......................................................................................................... 14

2.2.1.
2.2.2.
2.2.3.

Potential problems .................................................................................................................... 14
Main problem validation .......................................................................................................... 17
Problems – Symptoms Map ...................................................................................................... 21

CHAPTER III – CAUSE ANALYSIS .............................................................................. 22
3.1.

Potential causes........................................................................................................... 22

3.1.1.
3.1.2.
3.1.3.

Lack of attention from the board of directors (B.O.D) .......................................................... 22
Lack of resources ....................................................................................................................... 22
Wrong personnel ....................................................................................................................... 24

3.2.

Initial Cause-Effect Map............................................................................................. 25

3.3.

Main cause validation ................................................................................................. 25

3.3.1.

3.3.2.
3.3.3.

3.4.

Lack of B.O.D’s attention ......................................................................................................... 25
Wrong personnel ....................................................................................................................... 28
Lack of resources ....................................................................................................................... 30

Final Cause-Effect Diagram........................................................................................ 32

CHAPTER IV – ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS AND ACTION PLAN ............................ 34
4.1.

Alternative solutions ................................................................................................... 34

4.1.1.
4.1.2.
4.1.3.

4.2.

Establishing a marketing department ..................................................................................... 34
Investing more capital budget to conduct marketing activities ............................................. 36
Hiring employees to support marketing activities .................................................................. 38

Action plan ................................................................................................................. 39

CHAPTER VI – SUPPORTING MATERIALS ................................................................ 45
References ...................................................................................................................... 62

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List of tables
Table 2.1. ..............................................................................................................................................10
Table 3.1. ..............................................................................................................................................26
Table 3.2. ..............................................................................................................................................27
Table 4.1. ..............................................................................................................................................41

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List of figures
Figure 1.1. ............................................................................................................................................6
Figure 1.2. ............................................................................................................................................8
Figure 2.1. ............................................................................................................................................12
Figure 2.2. ............................................................................................................................................13
Figure 2.3. ............................................................................................................................................13
Figure 2.4. ............................................................................................................................................21
Figure 3.1. ............................................................................................................................................25
Figure 3.2. ............................................................................................................................................32
Figure 3.3. ............................................................................................................................................33
Figure 4.1. ............................................................................................................................................34
Figure 4.2. ............................................................................................................................................40

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Executive summary

Nowadays, as the world has developed continuously, the living standard has been
improved rapidly. In order to meet those standards, more and more businesses have been
established. Specifically, in the garment industry, there are many firms that are able to
providing uniforms for both schools and businesses. However, there is just a few
companies meet the required standards of customers. Therefore, Viet Phat Uniform
Limited Company has been established to offer high quality uniform with reasonable
price.
As a new and small business, Viet Phat Uniform Limited Company has many
weak aspects that need improvements, especially the marketing field. Firstly, it is
realized that it has limited customer network, lack of brand awareness from the
customer, and ineffective digital marketing. From the above symptoms, it is considered
that Viet Phat is facing some potential problems, such as high price and poor product’s
quality, lack of marketing activities and poor training for sales staffs. Nevertheless,
through analyzing and synthesizing data and information, it is realized that the main
problem that it has faced is lack of marketing activities while its B.O.D just focus on
expanding the customer network based on their relationships. At the beginning, it is
considered that because its B.O.D does not pay enough attention to the marketing aspect
and they chose wrong personnel to cover the marketing job that lead to its main problem.
However, based on the above analysis, data and arguments of its B.O.D, CEO, staffs,
and other stakeholders, it is found that the main cause that leads to this problem is lack
of resource. Particularly, because of the difficulties in the initial stage of a startup
business, its B.O.D cannot provide sufficient resource including both human and
financial resource to implement marketing activities. After many internal and external
factors have been considered, it is suggested that Viet Phat shoud recruit more
employees to support its CEO who is simultaneously in charge of the marketing aspect
in building an obvious marketing strategy and executing marketing activities efficiently.

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CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION
1.1.

The company overview

In Vietnam, students have to wear uniforms when they go to school, especially
in primary and high schools. Additionally, many businesses in Vietnam require their
employees wear uniform when they go to work. Although this is not a new market, there
is a few businesses having reputation in providing uniforms having good quality for both
schools and businesses. Therefore, Viet Phat Uniform Company Limited was
established at the end of 2018 with the ambition of meet the needs of a great number of
customers, gain a big market share in the niche market, and build good reputation to
become one of the most famous uniform brands in Vietnam. Its organizational chart is
as below:

B.O.D

CEO
Sales
Department

Accounting
Department

3 staffs

1 staff

Figure 1.1. The organizational chart of Viet Phat
Its board of directors (B.O.D) consists of 2 persons, they are responsible for investing

money to the company when it needs, making important decisions and also building the
business strategies. The company has a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with
responsibilities of managing all activities of the company, cooperating with BOD to
make business strategies, communicating with departments to deliver tasks to them as
well as it is suitable for its strategies and directions, and work with manufacturers. As
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Viet Phat has just been established for a few months, CEO has to work in many roles to
save costs, especially in marketing aspect. She is responsible for developing business’s
goodwill, conducting marketing activities, such as advertisements on media channels,
marketing campaigns, etc., and suggesting ideas to let customers know about Viet Phat
and its products. It also has an accountant to do accounting tasks as the company does
not have too much accounting activities to do in this initial stage. There are 3 sales staffs
in sales department to approach potential customers in order to boost sales revenue up
and widen customer network. They have to find customers, meet them, and introduce
its products and benefits that customers can get if they cooperate with Viet Phat.
Viet Phat is a startup business which offers uniforms for not only schools but also
businesses. In order to gain more market share, Viet Phat offers customers higher
discount rate than its rivals. Particularly, it offers 30% discount rate for customers when
rivals offer approximately 25%. It competes with other rivals by discount rate in not
only the initial stage but also later. Additionally, Viet Phat always tries to provide
customers products having high quality material and beautiful seam but with
competitive price. Because Viet Phat is a new comer in the market, its target customer
concentrates on schools in Vietnam in initial stage. As those schools have new students
every year, they have to order uniforms for both new and current students. It will bring
Viet Phat stable order and income each year. However, Viet Phat still serves businesses
that have demand in order uniforms to develop the customer network. However, it will
be focused more after the company has certain market share and goodwill in Vietnamese
market. The mission statement of Viet Phat is providing uniforms with high quality

material with the competitive price. Viet Phat does not manufacture clothes, it is the
intermediary between the manufacturer and customers. It finds customers, deals with
them, receives orders, and brings them for the manufacturer. Then, it gives finished
products for customers. To assure that Viet Phat can provide high quality material
uniform, it has to deal with manufacturer to get the agreement of using chosen material.
If there is any mistake of finished products, Viet Phat has responsibility to work with
the manufacturer to fix them and give customers products having high quality.
1.2.

Problem context
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Vietnam’s garment sector has had speedy and sustainable development over the
last few years which have played a crucial role in the country’s socio-economic
development, especially there are approximately 6000 textile and garment
manufacturing firms operating in Vietnam (1). However, almost garment manufactures
in Vietnam produce clothing majorly for export, not focusing on local consumption
market. Vietnam held the 4th position in the top 10 global garment exporters in 2016.
For example, Viet Tien, Nha Be, Garco 10 are familiar brands in garment industry in
Vietnam that concentrate on exporting clothing.

Figure 1.2. World Ranking Among the Top Garment Exporting Countries in 2016
(WTO Reports World Textile and Apparel Trade in 2017)
Because almost big and famous garment brands focus on export market, domestic
market is a “promising land” for small businesses, especially in niche market like
supplying uniforms. Obviously, for the Vietnamese garment market, the demand has
been growing thanks to the higher income and higher living standard of Vietnamese.
There are many opportunities for domestic garment brands if they accept the challenges
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and have a strategy to reach the market. As Viet Phat is a new business in Vietnamese
market, it has many weak aspects that need to be improved and developed. Particularly,
the most important aspect that needs to be developed is the marketing strategy.
Marketing refers to a process in which a product or service is introduced and promoted
to any potential customers. Since it was established, Viet Phat has just depended on the
relationship of its owners to develop the customer network. Thus, it has not had
marketing strategy yet to build the image, brand position, and reputation although it is
very essential in developing business in fierce competitive market. Customers should
have known about its brand name, reputation, and also the image, so it can gain more
market share and widen its customer network. Nowadays, there are many competitors
in the market that already has had reputation and trust from customers. Rivals can
provide products that are not as well as Viet Phat, but they communicate their value for
customers better, so they gain trust from customers. Hence, more customers prefer to
incorporate with them to Viet Phat. They have effective marketing strategies to
communicate to their customers, such as advertising on social media channels, having
their own website, brochures, do some marketing campaigns and so on. Therefore, if
Viet Phat has not had marketing strategy, it can offer the best products in its niche
market, however, no one can even hear of it.

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CHAPTER II – PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
2.1.

Symptoms analysis
2.1.1. Limited customer network

Every business would like to widen its customer network as broadly as possible, Viet
Phat also wants the same thing. Nonetheless, it reaches current customers depending on
the owners’ relationships. Specifically, Viet Phat’s owner has good relationships with
those customers, then he convinced them to cooperate with Viet Phat. In particular, Viet
Phat has about only 6 current customers depending on the owners’ relationship, and they
are only schools not businesses. It has not had any marketing strategies to enlarge its
own customer network. Though it is good to approach certain customers initially, it
cannot be considered as a long-term strategy if Viet Phat has a chance to develop more
and more in the market.
CUSTOMER LIST
Name

District

Nguyen Van Thanh Primary School

2

Dong Den Secondary School

Binh Chanh

Hung Long Primary School

Binh Chanh

Phu Tho Primary School

11

Vinh Xuyen Primary School

6

Thang Long Secondary School

3

Table 2.1. Viet Phat’s customers list
2.1.2. Lack of brand awareness
As Viet Phat does not have any marketing activities, customers do not know anything
about them. It cannot reach its target customer because its products and services have
not been introduced to them. They do not apprehend factors that products can offer for
them. Therefore, it loses a great number of customers as they do not know the benefits
when they do business with it. In particular, a survey was conducted by interviewing
some people about their awareness of some Vietnamese uniform brands, all of people
who are interviewed that whether or not they knew anything about Viet Phat said that
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they had never heard anything about Viet Phat. They do not know that what services or
products Viet Phat can offer to them and benefits when they choose its products. For
example, a respondent stated that she thought about Saigon Uniform, Dony Uniform
when she was asked about the famous and popular uniform brands in Vietnam, and she
did not have any idea about Viet Phat. She shared:
“My company requires all employees wearing uniforms from Monday to Thursday, and
we are allowed wearing “free styles” on Friday. I see that uniforms we received from
the company having tag of Dony uniform and Saigon uniform. Then I asked some of my
friends about those brands, they told me that they were very popular in the uniform
market.” (Ms. Vy Vo, 29 years old, an employee of a logistics company)

Then she was asked that how she had known those brands, and she replied:
“My company choose those companies as a partner to provide uniforms for us.
Moreover, I had saw their advertisements on social media channel like Youtube and
Facebook, they were very interesting. Then I search them on Internet, there is lots of
information on their own websites that helped me a lot to understand more about them.”
(Ms. Vy Vo, 29 years old, an employe of a logistics company)
Even though sales staffs find new customers and introduce them Viet Phat’s
products, the amount of customers they can reach is very small to make customers have
brand awareness about Viet Phat and build goodwill in the market. Particularly, a sales
staff calls, emails, and meets approximately 15 to 20 people, not all of them however
answer the phone or take time to listen to sales staff, read emails, and meet him or her.
Therefore, brand awareness affects significantly to the performance of sales staffs. A
sales staff shared that because customers do not apprehend anything about Viet Phat, it
is very difficult for them to convince customers listen to them or meet them. Hence,
sometimes they feel discouraged and they did not want to do their job anymore. Some
sales staffs stated:
“I had put all of my effort to convince customers cooperate with Viet Phat but they said
that they did not know anything about Viet Phat, they were afraid that it would not offer
high quality products for them.” (Mr. Binh Vo, sales staff of Viet Phat)
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“I had used knowledge and skills trained in the company to persuade customers,
however, they rejected to deal with me as they have not ever heard anything about Viet
Phat, they did not trust what I said.” (Ms. Minh Le, sales staff of Viet Phat)
2.1.3. Ineffective digital marketing
Viet Phat has not invested in digital marketing yet. Specifically, it has not had its
own website for customers to search it on Internet. It is very difficult for customers to
find out and recognize it. Because nowadays when people would like to do business
with any company, they will search it on Internet first to know necessary information

about it, then deciding to cooperate with it or not. If a company does not have any
information on Internet, customers feel that it is not reliable to collaborate. In addition,
while rivals have their own website to provide information about them, Viet Phat does
not have it, customers certainly choose to do business with its rivals. Although it has the
Facebook page, there is a few activities on this page to provide information about the
company, its services and products. Furthermore, the content on posts on Facebook are
not attractive enough to appeal more customers. Hence, it gets low interaction from
customers and a few followers.

Figure 2.1. The number of people approach posts on Facebook page

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Figure 2.2. The number of followers on Facebook page

Figure 2.3. The interaction of people on Facebook page
Regarding with those pictures above, it can be said that the CEO does not care much in
developing the Facebook page. Also, in order to save money it does not have any
advertisements on popular channels on Internet, so it cannot reach more potential
customers. As the CEO has many tasks, she does not have enough time to do some
marketing activities carefully. When the interview was conducted, she said that she
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sometimes really wants to do some marketing activities for the company, but she has to
take time for many other tasks.
2.2.

Problem analysis

2.2.1. Potential problems
2.2.1.1.

Lack of marketing activities

Marketing is considered as a heart of the business because most of activities work
based on marketing. In particular, selling products or services to customers is the most
important thing of a business because it brings profit for the company to maintain and
develop it. According to all of above symptoms, it can be said that Viet Phat has an
ineffective marketing strategy. Firstly, the owner of Viet Phat has not yet had any
activities to approach more customers. It develops customer network depending on the
relationship of the owner. Regarding with one of the owners of Viet Phat, he agreed that
Viet Phat depended too much on his relationship to reach customers:
“As one of the owners of Viet Phat, my responsibility is developing it by finding out way
to approach more and more customers, giving direction to its development, and also
managing it. However, currently Viet Phat depends too much on my relationships to
reach customers. It does not have any strategy to approach potential customers and
introduce our products.” (Mr. Quang Dang, one of the owners of Viet Phat)
Secondly, although it has introduced its products through sales staffs and on
Facebook page, it seems to be not effective. Particularly, there is no new customers
coming to Viet Phat because they see it on Facebook or they are introduced by sales
staffs. It can be seen from the symptom of low interaction and followers on Facebook
page. All of current customers come to the company via the owner of Viet Phat.
According to an interview with the CEO of Viet Phat and she is also the one directly in
charge of marketing activities in the company, she confirmed that the current marketing
activities like Facebook page and through sales staffs do not bring any good result for
the company:
“Although we still have some marketing activities like posting pictures and information
on Facebook page and let the sales staffs introduce products directly or via telephone
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to customers, they do not bring any good consequences for Viet Phat. Specifically, those
marketing activities do not approach new customers, so there is no new customers
working with Viet Phat because they see it on Facebook or they hear it from sales
staffs.” (Ms. Van Le, CEO of Viet Phat)
Next, lack of communication value to customers, especially providing
information of what benefits exactly it can offer, is the vital factors in marketing
strategies that leading to ineffectively approach new customers. Specifically, Viet Phat
does not have any website or advertisements on other website to introduce its products
to customers.
2.2.1.2.

Higher price and poor products’ quality

Nowadays, the competition among many rivals in the industry through price and
quality is so fierce. Every business would like to offer the product with good quality but
with competitive price. Also, it is the thing that every customers want to be offered.
Therefore, the question is whether the price that Viet Phat offers is higher than its rivals
but its products’ quality is not good enough, so it cannot have more customers.
Customers who received products from Viet Phat was asked that what they thought
about the price and quality of Viet Phat’s products, then all of them stated that they were
satisfied with products they had received, they are manufactured with high quality
material, beautiful seam and competitive price:
“When I received uniforms from Viet Phat, I was really surprised and satisfied because
those products had been manufactured carefully with good quality of material and
competitive price even though Viet Phat is a new business in the market.” (Ms. Quynh
Truong, an employees in high school that in charge of controlling the quality of uniforms
received from partners)
“We were very glad when we received Viet Phat’s uniforms as those products have met

the needs of our school with beautiful seam, high quality material and competitive price
comparing with our last uniform providers.” (Mr. Phu Tran, vice president of a high
school in Ho Chi Minh City)

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Although schools and businesses are the one who sign the contract to incorporate with
Viet Phat, they are not the ultimate consumers using those products. For example,
regarding with schools, the ultimate consumers are students and the customers who pay
for those products are students’ parents. According to Ms. Tuyen Nguyen, a principal of
a high school in HCMC, she said:
“My school had a problem with uniforms inventories in the last year. Particularly, as
the quality of uniforms provided by the last uniform provider is not good, students’
parents decided to buy uniforms from other shops instead of the school, then they bought
logo of the school and paste them on their uniforms. Thus, there is a huge amount of
uniform inventories from last year that has not been sold yet.” (Ms. Tuyen Nguyen, a
principal of a high school)
Therefore, as now customers has many choices in buying products, Viet Phat try its best
to bring products with high quality for customers but not with high price. Specifically,
because all schools had uniform provider before, but now they choose Viet Phat as a
uniform supplier, Viet Phat try to keep the same price as the last providers offered but
with the same or better quality than them. Hence, it can be said that Viet Phat has tried
its best to meet customers’ needs, so its products now can satisfy its customers.
2.2.1.3.

Poor training for sales staffs

Salespersons play an important role in doing business with customers because
they are the one that directly meet, communicate and deal with customers. Therefore,

training for sales staffs is a necessary process that every business need to do, especially
Viet Phat as it is very new to customers. Every sales employee coming to Viet Phat is
trained for selling skills by Mr. Tu Nguyen who is the one Viet Phat has incorporated to
train all sales staffs. He has had experiences in sales aspect for 5 years as a sales
manager. When he was asked about the performance of those staffs during training
session, he said that their performance was quite good, they paid attention for what he
had talked and try to remember them. He said:
“I tried my best to transmit knowledge and skills I had learnt and experieced that are
necessary for sales staffs. When I trained them, I saw that all of them had paid their
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attention too much to listen to me, write them down, and also tried to remember them
when I asked them again about some topics.” (Mr. Tu Nguyen, Viet Phat’s selling
trainer)
Furthermore, when 3 sales staffs were asked about the reasons why customers usually
refuse to incorporate with Viet Phat, they listed many reasons, such as customers signed
a contract with other uniform providers before they come, they have not known anything
about Viet Phat so they did not trust what the sales staffs said, their uniform inventory
in the last year had not been sold yet and so on.
“I had put all of my effort to convince customers cooperate with Viet Phat but they said
that they did not know anything about Viet Phat, they were afraid that it would not offer
high quality products for them.” (Mr. Binh Vo, sales staff of Viet Phat)
“I had used knowledge and skills trained in the company to persuade customers,
however, they rejected to deal with me as they have not ever heard anything about Viet
Phat, they did not trust what I said.” (Ms. Minh Le, sales staff of Viet Phat)
“Some customers said that their orgnizations had had problems about uniforms
inventory last year, their last providers manufactured products that did not meet their
standards, so there were a huge amount of inventories that they need to solve. Thus, they
were afraid that a new business like Viet Phat would not offer the high quality products

for them.” (Mr. Nam Tran, sales staff of Viet Phat)
Although they try their best to persuade customers cooperating with Viet Phat by using
selling techniques that had been trained, customers still say “NO” with them. Therefore,
it can be stated that the skills that had been trained of sales staffs is not the reasons that
customers reject to deal with Viet Phat that leading to the limited customer network and
lack of brand awareness.
2.2.2. Main problem validation
“A successful product has to fulfill a specific need in the market”, particularly, it
must perform its functions, benefits, and also features (2). Viet Phat has done it so well
because it has manufactured high quality products that are recognized by customers.
With the mission of offering products with high quality materials, beautiful seam, and
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competitive price, Viet Phat always tries its best to satisfied customers by both its
products and price. As mentioned above, according to customers that had received
products from Viet Phat, they were really satisfied with them. They shared that:
“When I received uniforms from Viet Phat, I was really surprised and satisfied because
those products had been manufactured carefully with good quality of material and
competitive price even though Viet Phat is a new business in the market.” (Ms. Quynh
Truong, an employees in high school that in charge of controlling the quality of uniforms
received from partners)
“We were very glad when we received Viet Phat’s uniforms as those products have met
the needs of our school with beautiful seam, high quality material and competitive price
comparing with our last uniform providers.” (Mr. Phu Tran, vice president of a high
school in Ho Chi Minh City)
Regarding with the price, as Viet Phat would like to keep the same price as its
competitors but providing higher quality products for customers and also with higher
discount rate, the uniform price is considered as a competitive price in the market. When
being asked about the price of Viet Phat, some customers said:

“With the experiences of working with many uniform providers before, I think that the
price Viet Phat offering for schools and organizations based on the price of last
providers but with higher quality products was very suitable and competitive. Customer
can try its products with the same price as they had to pay before. Then when they
received Viet Phat’s products, they were very happy with them. It seems to be an
excellent idea to develop Viet Phat and help it gain more market share.” (Mr. Phu Tran,
vice president of a high school in Ho Chi Minh City)
“In my point of view, offering the same price its competitors is a good idea for Viet Phat
because the competitor’s price is very suitable and competitive for customers to agree
dealing with them. Therefore, if Viet Phat provides higher quality products with the
same price as its competitors, it will satisfy customers’ needs. As a customer of Viet
Phat, I think that it offers customers not only good products but also good price.” (Ms.
Tram Nguyen, a principal of a high school in HCMC)
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As Viet Phat is the new business in the market, it does not have enough figure to prove
that the product and price is not a problem. However, according to all of the interview
conducted to collect data, feedback, and comments from stakeholders, it can be stated
that the product and price of Viet Phat is not a problem that it is facing and needed to be
solved.
Regarding with the training sales staffs, Viet Phat always tries its best to do it in
the best way as they can even though it is a new business that has not experiences and
lots of money. Because Viet Phat comprehends that the company will lose more time,
money, and also effort when employees are not trained adequately to perform their
duties (3), its board of directors has paid their attention in training their employees. As
mentioned above, Viet Phat cooperate with Mr. Tu Nguyen to train for sales staafs. He
is the one that has had many experiences and knowledge in sales aspect as 5-yearexperience sales manager. Being asked that what they think about the selling trainer and
what they had learnt from him, some sales employees stated:
“In my opinon, Mr. Tu Nguyen is not only a professional trainer but also a experienced

sales manager. He has good expertise and knowledge in sales aspect that can teach us.
I had learnt many skills and knowledge from the case studies in reality that he had
opportunities to experience in the past. Some important skills for a sales staffs that I had
learnt are selling skill, communication skill, persuading skill, dealing skill and so on. I
think they are very useful for my job.” (Mr. Nam Tran, a sales staff)
“According to his performance, I think Mr. Tu Nguyen is a a good sales manager that
has a good background of sales knowledge and lots of experiences in this field. His
performnace was very impressive as he was so professional. He used the real case
studies to teach us essential skills in sales field, such as communication skill, problem
solving skill, persuading skill and etc.” (Mr. Binh Vo, a sales staff)
“After the training courses, I recognized that I had learnt many necessary skills and
knowledge from Mr. Tu Nguyen. He attracted our attention by using practical case
studies and also his sense of humour to release the stress in the training course.
However, it still gained good result because we could learn many things from him. In
the end of the date, we had an exam to test what we remember after training to remind
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us about the knowledge that we had learnt. I think it was a good method in training
employees.” (Ms. Minh Le, a sales staff)
As a new business,Viet Phat does not have enough figure to prove any problem. Thus,
synthesizing from aboved arguments, it can be stated that Viet Phat has done training
course for employees very well. As a result, it cannot be a problem that lead to limited
customer network and lack of brand awareness.
Based on symptoms analysis and above arguments, lack of marketing strategy
can be considered as a main problem of Viet Phat. Particularly, its customer network is
limited and customers even cannot regconize its brand because it had not had any
marketing strategy to communicate with customers. Marketing plays an essential role
because it refers to all activities that associated with selling the company’s products or
services (4). It is very effective in communicate the business’ value proposition to its

customers. Simultaneously, marketing is a useful way for customer education. In order
to decide to buy or use a product or service, customers need to have solid understanding
about the product or service, such as what it is and how it works with them (5). A
marketing strategy of a business refers to its marketing activities and decisions related
to generating and sustaining competitive advantage of the business (6), concentrating on
ways in which the business can differentiate itself from its rivals by capitalizing on its
distinctive strengths to deliver better value to its customers within a given environment
(7). Therefore, building a marketing strategy for a business refers to making a plan
including marketing activities in order to communicate the business’s value proposition
to customers and distinguish itself among many competitors in the market. As a result,
if a company does not have the marketing activities and strategy, it will not have any
diretions to align to develop its products and bring them to customers. Furthermore, it
makes every decision made based on risky guesses. It can waste the company’s
resources, time, and money on efforts when the business’s owners have no idea about
what they would do with their businesses. Without the marketing activities, not only
customers do not know about Viet Phat as it does not have any methods to communicate
to them but also it may put itself into risky situation. Hence, it can be stated that lack of

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marketing activities is the main problem that Viet Phat has to face with and needs to
solve immediately if it would like to develop more and more in the future.
2.2.3. Problems – Symptoms Map

Figure 2.4. The Problems-Symptoms Map of Viet Phat

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CHAPTER III – CAUSE ANALYSIS
3.1.

Potential causes
3.1.1. Lack of attention from the board of directors (B.O.D)
Currently, the marketing strategy has not had a clear direction for Viet Phat to

align to do and all of marketing activities are not conducted effectively. Therefore, the
question is whether the B.O.D of Viet Phat does not pay enough attention for it. Being
asked that if they concern about the development of the marketing strategy, one of the
owner of Viet Phat replied:
“As Viet Phat is a new business, I really concern about the marketing strategy and also
would like to marketing its products and brand to customers so as to more and more
customers know about it. Nonetheless, I would like to develop the customer network
through my relationships in the initial stage to save costs. Although our company has
an employee responsible for marketing field, it has not brought any good result for the
company.” (Mr. Quang Dang, one of the owner of Viet Phat)
According to Mr. Quang Dang, it can be said that the B.O.D of Viet Phat has paid
attention to the marketing strategy to develop it, but it does not attract more attention
because it takes more costs. Because its B.O.D concentrates too much on expanding the
customer network through the owners’ relationships, they had not build an obvious
marketing strategy yet. They just do anything that they think it would impact Viet Phat
in the good way. Specifically, being interviewed that if Viet Phat has any marketing
strategy and activities, the one that is in charge of marketing department shared:
“We do not have any long-term marketing strategy to develop Viet Phat. Regarding with
the short-term one, we just brainstorm about the ideas, think that it would be a good
one, then we try to conduct it.” (Ms. Van Le, CEO and the one in charge of marketing
aspect of Viet Phat)
Therefore, it can be stated that its B.O.D had paid attention for marketing department to
promote its products and brand to customers, but it may not enough because of the

difficulties in the initial stage of a new business like Viet Phat.
3.1.2. Lack of resources
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As a new business, Viet Phat facing many obtacles of resources in the initial
stage. Particularly, it has limited capital because its has only 2 owners that invest capital
for it and there is no outside investors. It can be considered as its disadvantage as it
would not have adequate capital investment when it needs. For example, regarding with
marketing field, because of limited capital, Viet Phat cannot conduct more marketing
activities to promote its products and brand and also build a marketing strategy. Building
a marketing strategy needs a lot of money, time, and also human resource, so the
company that would like to do it should spend a great amount of resources. One of its
owners said:
“I absolutely agree that we do not have a lot of money to invest in Viet Phat. It is so
risky that if Viet Phat needs a huge amount of capital immediately to run a project or a
marketing campaign. As it is in the initial stage, we try our best to use capital that we
have to operate it. However, whenever it comes to sustainable growth stage, we will
consider to allow other investors join with us.” (Mr. Quang Dang, one of the owner of
Viet Phat)
In addition to capital, human resource plays a vital role in building an effective
marketing strategy because they are the one that directly do those tasks. Hence, hiring
qualified employees contributes to the success of the company. Nevertheless, as Viet
Phat is a new business, it cannot offer attractive salary and benefits for employees, so
that the qualified employees do not want to work for it. Moreover, in order to save more
cots, its B.O.D decided that its CEO would be in charge of marketing department. It
means that she has responsibilities to all activities of marketing department. CEO of
Viet Phat stated:
“I would like to hire qualified employees for Viet Phat, but sometimes they do not really
want to work for Viet Phat because it is a new business and it cannot offer very good

salary and benefits. Moreover, it is a small business and does not have the reputation,
so the B.O.D decided that I would cover the marketing department to save more costs
in the initial stage.” (Ms. Van Le, CEO and marketing manager of Viet Phat)
As a result, she has to do everything in marketing aspect to develop business. She can
suggest good marketing activities and strategy, however, it may not the best one for Viet
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Phat because there is no one can help her. She also conducts those activities, such as
advertising on Facebook, introducing products to customers through sales staffs and so
on. Nonotheless, the way she did that may not the best way to bring good result for the
company. Thus, it is considered as an obstacle in building and developing marketing
strategy. Furthermore, it takes time to build an effective marketing strategy. Because
Viet Phat is a new business, it does not have enough time to make market research and
build a marketing strategy.
3.1.3. Wrong personnel
Because its marketing field is the responsibility of only one person and she may
not be excellent in this expertise, it can be considered as a cause leading to lack of
marketing strategy. Thus, the question is whether her expertise is good at marketing that
is able to build a marketing strategy and suggest good marketing activities to develop
Viet Phat. The one has responsibility in marketing is Ms. Van Le, simultaneously is a
CEO of Viet Phat. Regarding with her background, she is an Master of Business
Administration (MBA). It means that she is able to know how to build the marketing
strategy and implementing suitable marketing activities for a business. One of the
owners of Viet Phat shared that:
“We believe in her expertise because she not only graduated as a MBA but also have
experiences in managing field for 4 years. Additionally, she has experiences working in
marketing department for 1 year. It is very useful to let her acknowledge obviously about
the marketing aspect.” (Mr. Quang Dang, one of the owners of Viet Phat)
Hence, it is stated that Ms. Van Le has ability to be in charge of marketing department.

However, it depends too much on her, there is no one help her doing marketing activities.
Furthermore, she has to manage all activities in the company, it takes her lots of tome
to accomplish them. As a result, she had paid less attention to marketing activities. She
stated:
“Everyday, I have many activities to control and manage. It takes most of my time, so I
cannot take more time to conduct marketing activities carefully although I really want
to do that. Sometimes, I create new ideas to approach more customers and promote our
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