CATEGORY: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The digital transformation process has prompted many dramatic changes in the way businesses operate in both the short and long term.

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What is Cloud eCommerce Benefits from Cloud eCommerce
WHAT IS CLOUD ECOMMERCE? BENEFITS FROM CLOUD ECOMMERCE
20/12/2023
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eCommerce has been booming more than ever, driving the demand for new technologies to adapt to the continuous growth of the market. Some emerging eCommerce technologies include VR/AR, MSI (Multi-Source Inventory), PWA (Progressive Web Apps), Headless Commerce, etc. However, among these, the technology that developers and businesses are currently paying the most attention to is Cloud eCommerce.

What is Cloud eCommerce?

Cloud eCommerce utilizes server clusters and cloud computing systems from cloud service providers to process large transaction volumes and online sales channel traffic. In simpler terms, Cloud eCommerce involves renting Internet servers based on cloud platforms to process, store, or use applications for various eCommerce business purposes.

What is Cloud eCommerce Benefits from Cloud eCommerce-What is Cloud eCommerce
What is Cloud eCommerce?

Before cloud-based eCommerce platforms and other solutions emerged, traditional eCommerce platforms like IBM WebSphere and Oracle ATG required on-premise server setups and continuous maintenance. Unlike those “on-premise” eCommerce solutions, cloud-based eCommerce allows companies to outsource their IT infrastructure without the need to invest in equipment and continuous maintenance as before.

This solution helps businesses adapt to the increasing demands of customers, enhance security, simplify maintenance, and integrate new eCommerce applications as needed. For these reasons, Cloud eCommerce is often combined with eCommerce platforms such as Shopify Plus, Salesforce, Magento, etc.

Cloud eCommerce Solutions

There are several cloud eCommerce solutions to choose from, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, each with different resource requirements.

What is Cloud eCommerce Benefits from Cloud eCommerce-Cloud eCommerce Solutions
Cloud eCommerce Solutions: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

IaaS eCommerce

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is where businesses rent physical resources such as servers, databases, and network equipment to build a sustainable eCommerce architecture. IaaS eCommerce focuses on providing on-demand data storage on disks and virtual servers, making it easy for businesses to use database services rather than dealing with hardware. However, businesses are responsible for managing applications, data, runtime, middleware, and the operating system on this infrastructure.

Notable IaaS providers include Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Digital Ocean. IaaS is suitable for businesses wanting full control over the system without the complexity of on-premise eCommerce.

PaaS eCommerce

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is similar to IaaS but requires less infrastructure management, allowing more time to build eCommerce applications using predefined infrastructure with pre-defined operating systems and processes to handle resources, planning, and error correction.

For example, Google App Engine provides a PaaS environment for developers to build web applications without worrying about infrastructure. PaaS eCommerce is suitable for businesses needing to build specialized eCommerce applications and are willing to eliminate infrastructure-related factors in their technology stack.

SaaS eCommerce

Software as a Service (SaaS) provides ready-made eCommerce services, including complete eCommerce solutions or individual eCommerce applications like Product Information Management (PIM) software, Order Management System (OMS), etc. SaaS eCommerce providers are responsible for managing both the infrastructure and software and businesses only need to configure the desired software. Additionally, SaaS eCommerce developers can work outside the user interface with APIs to develop custom solutions without the need for custom software development.

SaaS eCommerce is suitable for businesses that want to quickly deploy eCommerce solutions without significant involvement in infrastructure and software management.

Cloud eCommerce benefits

What is Cloud eCommerce Benefits from Cloud eCommerce-Cloud eCommerce Benefits
Cloud eCommerce Benefits

High scalability

Cloud eCommerce inherits features from PaaS, making it easier to expand system functionality.

Typically, when fashion businesses start, they may not initially focus on scalability. However, from a strategic perspective, investing in technologies with scalability capabilities, such as Cloud eCommerce, can help businesses expand system functionality in each stage of eCommerce website development to foster business growth.

Improve page loading speed

According to Think with Google, if a website takes up to 6 seconds to load, the probability of users bouncing increases by 106%. That’s why businesses need to focus on page load speed.

When an eCommerce website leverages Cloud eCommerce with data stored on a cloud platform, the speed of processing queries and API calls is significantly faster.

Increase security

In the current era of the 4.0 technological revolution, the concern for data loss is a major focus for business leaders. As a response to this, numerous new technologies have emerged to address this goal.

According to PC Magazine, Cloud eCommerce provides control over data and storage locations, along with options such as physical backups and file synchronization to ensure data safety. Additionally, Cloud eCommerce supports businesses in obtaining PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) certification, enhancing the credibility of their website.

Increased stability

Typically, businesses struggle to optimize storage capacity on their websites, especially when facing a massive surge in traffic during peak seasons, such as the “sale hunting” period. This sudden increase in workload poses a significant challenge to storage operations.

Cloud eCommerce offers a flexible solution to meet the demands of unpredictable spikes in traffic, whether seasonal or even hourly. It can dynamically scale up or down to support the real-time needs of a business. Overall, Cloud eCommerce is becoming a widely adopted technology in the digital transformation journey, helping businesses expand their functionality, improve page loading speeds, and enhance the security and stability of their websites.

However, mastering these new technologies requires programmers to possess a significant amount of specialized knowledge and hands-on experience with various complex projects. As a result, the costs associated with implementing Cloud eCommerce can be relatively high.

With over 9 years of experience designing complex eCommerce systems for companies like An Nam Gourmet, Laybyland, Jasnor, etc., SECOMM understands the challenges that businesses face when exploring new eCommerce technologies. 

Contact SECOMM today for a free consultation on detailed eCommerce system development solutions!

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On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences
ON-PREMISE CRM VS ON-CLOUD CRM: KEY DIFFERENCES
07/12/2023
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When it comes to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, businesses often have two choices: On-premise CRM and On-cloud CRM. This article will focus on clarifying the key differences and pros and cons of each option.

Understanding the distinctions between On-premise and On-cloud CRM can help businesses make well-informed decisions, optimize customer relationship management, and succeed in today’s business landscape.

Related Reading: What is CRM? Top 5 benefits of using CRM software in 2023

On-Premise CRM Software

On-premise CRM is a type of CRM software installed and hosted on the servers and infrastructure owned by the business. When deploying On-premise CRM, the business takes responsibility for all aspects of the CRM system, including hardware, software, maintenance, security, and database management.

Pros

On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences
Pros of On-premise CRM
  • Data Control: Businesses have complete control over their CRM data, which is particularly crucial for safeguarding sensitive and essential information.
  • Customization: On-premise CRM systems frequently provide a high level of customization, allowing businesses to tailor the software to meet their specific needs and operational workflows.
  • Security: With full data control, businesses can implement their security measures and protocols to ensure the protection of both customer and business data.
  • Operational Efficiency: On-premise CRM software can offer robust operational efficiency and faster data access as it is stored and operated entirely on the internal servers and infrastructure of the business.
  • Cost Efficiency: On-premise CRM requires businesses to pay for hardware and software licenses upfront. However, ongoing costs can be significantly lower than cloud-based CRM, making on-premise CRM cost-effective in the long run.

Cons

On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences
Cons of On-premise CRM
  • High Initial Costs: Implementing on-premise CRM entails substantial initial payments for acquiring servers, obtaining software licenses, and establishing the necessary infrastructure. This considerable upfront investment might pose challenges for some businesses.
  • Maintenance:  Businesses have responsibility for all maintenance tasks, security measures, updates, and issue resolutions. This can consume a lot of resources and requires a highly skilled technical team.
  • Limited Accessibility: On-premise CRM software is quite limited in terms of remote access, making this system less appealing to businesses with multiple branches in different locations.
  • Limited Scalability: Scaling up the on-premise CRM system can be complex and incur significant costs for purchasing and configuring additional hardware and software.
  • Software Backup: Businesses must deploy their own data backup solutions to ensure the availability of data in case the CRM system encounters unforeseen issues.

Some popular on-premise CRMs like Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle Siebel CRM,…

On-Cloud CRM Software

On-Cloud CRM is a form of customer relationship management software hosted on the remote servers of a third-party provider. With this software, businesses are relieved from the task of managing and maintaining fundamental infrastructure like servers and central databases, as those responsibilities are handled by the On-Cloud CRM provider.

Businesses can access the CRM system from anywhere with an internet connection through a web browser or mobile application.

Pros

On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences
Pros of On-Cloud CRm
  • Easy Deployment: On-cloud CRM systems are typically deployed quickly because they don’t require complex hardware setups or software installations.
  • Low initial costs: Cloud CRM solutions often have lower upfront costs compared to on-premise CRM solutions because businesses don’t need to invest in servers and infrastructure.
  • Scalability: Cloud CRM can easily scale to meet the growing number of users and changing business needs without the need for additional hardware investments.
  • Accessibility: Cloud CRM users can access the system from anywhere with an internet connection, making this software appealing to businesses with multiple branches in different locations.
  • Automatic Updates: On-cloud CRM providers are responsible for handling updates and maintenance, ensuring users quickly access the latest features and improvements.
  • Data Security: On-cloud CRM providers are highly regarded for their ability to offer optimal security measures to protect customer data.

Cons

On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences
Cons of On-Cloud CRM
  • Data Control: The entire data is stored on servers owned by the third-party provider. This raises concerns about data control and security, as well as risks from the provider’s end.
  • Dependency on the Internet: Cloud CRM operations rely on Internet connectivity. If the connection is slow or interrupted, it may impact the overall system performance.
  • Customization Limitations:  While many cloud CRM solutions are highly configurable, compared to on-premise CRM solutions, they still have limitations in terms of customization.
  • Subscription Costs:  Using on-cloud CRM, businesses will incur ongoing monthly or annual usage fees. Initially, the upfront costs may be lower than on-premise CRM, but there are ongoing fees such as user quantity fees, customization fees, etc., which businesses will continuously have to pay throughout the deployment process. This leads to an increase in the total cost of using the cloud CRM system over time.

Some popular Cloud CRMs include Salesforce Sales Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud, Oracle CRM On Demand,…

Related Reading: 

What is The Difference Between On-Premise and Cloud CRM?

On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences
Difference Between On-Premise and Cloud CRM

On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Which is The Better Choice?

The choice between On-premise and On-cloud CRM becomes a crucial decision in the strategy of deploying CRM. Each type comes with its own set of advantages. On-premise CRM offers high control and customization, while On-cloud CRM is convenient, flexible, and helps reduce the burden of infrastructure and initial costs. 

The ultimate decision depends on the deployment needs, data control requirements, and budget.  Nevertheless, both can serve as valuable tools for businesses to manage customer relationships and amplify operational efficiency. 

Contact SECOMM or call the hotline at 02871089908 today to learn more about deploying and developing a comprehensive CRM system and determine the optimal choice between On-premise and On-cloud.

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Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2
EXPLORE THE 10 BEST CRM SOFTWARE FOR LARGE ENTERPRISES PT2
07/12/2023
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The recent surge in prioritizing customer experience has significantly impacted the evolution of eCommerce. Therefore, choosing the right CRM among various CRM software solutions to effectively manage customer relationships is crucial. 

Following Part 1, here are 5 other CRM software options for large enterprises worth considering.

Dynamic 365 Sales

Dynamics 365 Sales is a comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution developed by Microsoft. The software is designed to assist businesses in managing and streamlining customer interactions, enhancing the sales process’s efficiency.

Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2 - Dynamic 365 Sales
Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2: Dynamic 365 Sales

Its notable capability for scalability and flexible customization has made Dynamics 365 Sales one of the most suitable choices for the complex deployment needs of large enterprises.

Core features:

  • Communication Management: Harness the power of Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams to enhance team collaboration effectiveness and interact more efficiently with customers.
  • Revenue Acceleration: Optimize the sales process and revenue with suggested next actions proposed by Microsoft, helping businesses prioritize their sales activities.
  • Predict & Manage Pipeline: Analyze individual and team sales processes to provide automatic in-depth insights and deliver the most accurate forecasts.
  • Real-time Insight: Provide real-time insights from sales calls, including customer emotions, market competition, and more, enabling businesses to assess and guide their sales teams effectively.

Costs:

Dynamics 365 Sales Professional  Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise Dynamics 365 Sales Premium Microsoft Relationship Sales
$65/user/month $95/user/month $135/user/month $162/user/month

Pros:

  • Seamless integration with other Microsoft products.
  • Intuitive interface, easy to set up, and shares similarities with other Microsoft solutions.
  • Collects customer data from multiple sources and stores it centrally in a single platform.
  • High flexibility and scalability for customization.

Cons:

  • Rigorous configuration, challenging to change after setup.
  • For users unfamiliar with Microsoft products, the interface may be cluttered and challenging to navigate.
  • Requires a high technical proficiency and a specific understanding of Microsoft products for deployment and customization.
  • Some advanced features may necessitate additional module purchases

Oracle CRM On Demand

Oracle CRM On Demand is a cloud-based CRM designed to assist businesses in managing sales activities, marketing, and customer interactions, and providing in-depth analytical reporting. It is the SaaS version of Oracle’s renowned on-premise software, Siebel CRM. Businesses can use both of these software applications and link them through the ‘Oracle Application Integration Architecture’ and ‘Oracle Fusion Middleware’ software.

Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2 - Oracle CRM On Demand
Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2: Oracle CRM On Demand

Core features:

  • Browser & Cloud Support: The software is accessible on mobile browsers and various web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Bing, enabling businesses to access customer data and manage all sales activities remotely.
  • Workflow Automation: Create and automate sales, marketing, approval processes, and daily tasks for the team to enhance the overall efficiency of business operations.
  • Analytics & Reporting: Additional factors are incorporated into reports, such as personalized content, and enhanced custom sales history, to provide in-depth insights that assist businesses in making better business decisions.

Costs: Oracle CRM On Demand doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing on the website. Therefore, businesses are advised to contact the provider directly for consultation and a price quote.

Pros:

  • Intuitive interface with step-by-step setup and usage guidance.
  • Flexible and highly customizable with extensive scalability.
  • Seamless integration with other Oracle products and third-party applications.
  • Provides in-depth reporting and analysis.

Cons:

  • Requires internet access for use.
  • The pricing for using Oracle CRM On Demand is not disclosed, making it challenging for businesses to calculate deployment budgets.
  • While Oracle provides setup instructions, businesses still need technical expertise and a certain level of understanding of Oracle products for deployment and customization.

Related Reading: On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences

Infor CRM

Infor CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software designed to assist large businesses in developing and maintaining customer relationships.

Infor CRM is known for its flexibility, scalability, and high configurability, offering a range of features to help businesses better understand their customers, personalize customer experiences, and enhance the effectiveness of sales operations.

Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2 - Infor CRM
Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2: Infor CRM

Core features:

  • Customers 360º views: Provides businesses with a comprehensive overview of customer transaction history, preferences, and behavior.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Infor CRM’s in-depth reporting and analytics offer crucial insights for making informed decisions.
  • Email Integration: Seamlessly integrates with email platforms such as Outlook and Gmail to retrieve information directly from Infor CRM and send emails to customers at any time.

Costs: Infor CRM doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing on the website. Therefore, businesses are advised to contact the provider directly for consultation and a price quote.

Pros:

  • Intuitive interface, easy to set up and use
  • Seamless integration with other Infor solutions
  • Smooth integration with third-party applications and services
  • High flexibility and scalability for customization.

Cons:

  • Requires internet connectivity
  • The usage cost of Infor CRM is not publicly disclosed, making it challenging for businesses to estimate deployment budgets.
  • Technical expertise and a certain level of understanding of Infor CRM are necessary for deployment and customization.

LeadSquared Sales + Mobile CRM

LeadSquared Sales + Mobile CRM is a cloud-based CRM solution that enables businesses to enhance sales productivity and manage relationships with customers and potential customers.

This CRM solution integrates the features of Sales CRM and Mobile CRM, allowing businesses to access customer data and perform essential sales tasks from anywhere, at any time.

Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2 - LeadSquared Sales CRM
Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2: LeadSquared Sales CRM

Core features:

  • Lead Distribution: Evaluate transaction scale, customers, language preferences, and various other critical factors to distribute suitable potential customers to each sales team member.
  • Sales Smartviews: Eliminate clutter and boost the productivity of the sales team by displaying tasks in order of priority.
  • Mobility: Track and manage the remote activities of the sales team, including automatic check-in/check-out, automatic detection of incorrect check-in locations, automatic reminders for the next meeting, and expedited document sharing and uploading processes.

Costs:

Lite  Pro Super  Ultimate
$25/user/month $50/user/month $100/user/month Custom

Pros:

  • Automates sales and marketing processes.
  • Enables the search for potential customers from multiple channels, minimizing the risk of losing potential customers.
  • Manages and nurtures potential customers for conversion with AI-built functionalities.

Cons:

  • No free trial version is available.
  • Requires technical expertise and understanding of LeadSquared for implementation.
  • Occasionally encounters server-related issues or problems with internet connectivity.
  • Compared to other CRM software, LeadSquared is somewhat limited in providing in-depth reports.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a popular CRM software solution used by businesses of all sizes and industries. In recent times, large enterprises have shown particular favor for Pipedrive CRM due to its advanced features that assist in managing sales opportunities and swiftly converting potential customers into clients.

Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2 - Pipedrive
Explore The 10 Best CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt2: Pipedrive

Core features:

  • Customizable Sales Pipeline: Set up a customizable sales process with multiple stages to align with the existing sales cycle.
  • Segment Leads: Filter, sort, and segment potential customers to create target customer lists for personalized interaction activities.
  • Contact History: Track and manage the entire history of all calls, emails, meetings, and notes related to every transaction and contact.
  • Revenue Forecasting: Predict transaction volume and revenue within the CRM system. Track and automatically calculate revenue as transactions are updated.
  • Reporting & Dashboards: Receive detailed reports on sales activities and sales figures. Monitor progress and achievements in the dashboard.

Costs:

Pricing plans Essential Advanced Professional Power Enterprise
Billed Monthly $15/user/month $29/user/month $59/user/month $69/user/month $99/user/month
Billed Yearly $12.50/user/month $24.90/user/month $49.90/user/month $59.90/user/month $74.90/user/month

Pros:

  • Intuitive and user-friendly interface.
  • 14-day free trial available.
  • Automation of sales and marketing processes in most service packages.
  • Unlimited customization of sales processes through API.
  • Multilingual and multicurrency support.

Cons:

  • Phone customer support is only available with premium packages.
  • Pipedrive is somewhat limited in providing in-depth reports compared to other CRM software.
  • Occasionally, emails sent from the Pipedrive system may encounter errors.
  • Limited seamless integration with third-party apps and services.

Choose the best CRM software!

So, the article about the 10 CRM software systems part 1 + part 2 has come to a close with the hope that businesses will choose a platform suitable for their development needs. 

By implementing a CRM solution, businesses can quickly build and develop relationships with customers while enhancing collaboration among internal departments.

Contact or call SECOMM’s Hotline directly at (02871089908) for advice and CRM implementation.

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Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1
EXPLORE THE 10 BEST CRM SOFTWARE FOR LARGE ENTERPRISES PT1
07/12/2023
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The options for CRM solutions are expanding and becoming more diverse. In reality, some currently popular CRM software may lack the flexibility to meet the complex deployment requirements of large businesses.

Nevertheless, there are CRM software designed to offer a digital infrastructure, in-depth technical support, and exceptional features, granting significant customization freedom for large enterprises.

The article below focuses on providing important considerations when choosing CRM solutions and lists the 5 best enterprise CRM software.

5 Things to consider when choosing CRM software

Determine your need

The first important step before selecting CRM software is to clarify the needs and deployment expectations. You can review and assess the pros and cons of the current tools and management programs in use. Following this, the focus should be on the aspects requiring modification or enhancement, all while estimating the customization needs.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1
Determine Your Need

Select types of CRM software: On-premise CRM vs On-cloud CRM

Next, you need to the type of software to deploy, which may be either On-premise or On-cloud CRM software. These two software types come with key differences.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1
On-premise CRM vs On-cloud CRM

For On-cloud CRM, the entire data and software system are stored and managed by a third-party service provider, allowing you to access it through a web browser or mobile application.

Some advantages of On-cloud CRM include:

  • Cost-effective usage
  • Easy to use and accessible anytime, anywhere
  • No need to perform maintenance, security, and software update processes

On the other hand, On-premise CRM stores and manages the entire data and software system locally on the company’s servers and infrastructure.

Some advantages of On-premise CRM include:

  • Internal storage ensures security for vital information.
  • You have complete control over the software, enabling you to customize the software updates.
  • Not dependent on the internet to access and maintain the CRM system’s operations.

Related Reading: On-Premise CRM vs On-Cloud CRM: Key Differences

Check the accessibility

A user-friendly CRM software accessible to users of all skill levels contributes to expediting the deployment process effectively. Specifically, the software interface should be intuitive, easy to install, and allow for seamless import and export of any data type without requiring excessive assistance.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1
Check the accessibility

Moreover, businesses should opt for CRM software that is flexible enough to synchronize with their existing operational processes. Typically, the majority of CRM solutions nowadays offer a free trial period of three or four weeks. This timeframe is sufficient for businesses to understand the software’s functionality and assess whether it is the optimal choice for their deployment needs.

Evaluate the ability to customize

Customization is a vital feature of CRM software. Because each business has different models and scales, it’s essential to select CRM software that offers customization capabilities to match your business requirements and smoothly manage your sales processes.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1
Evaluate the ability to customize

Most CRM software designed for large-scale businesses offers customization capabilities. Nevertheless, while CRM solutions with extensive customization features can facilitate flexible deployment to meet specific needs, they often come with a higher price point.

Pay attention to security issues

The most crucial information stored in CRM software is customer data. Therefore, when selecting a CRM solution, you need to prioritize security.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1
Pay attention to security issues

Currently,  many CRM solutions are cloud-based, meaning customer data is encrypted and regularly backed up to enhance safety and security. However, you should thoroughly research the provider and understand how their data will be stored and secured in the database. This information is typically available on the CRM provider’s website.

5 best enterprise CRM software

According to G2‘s and rankings based on user satisfaction, here are the top 10 CRM software solutions best suited for large-scale enterprises.

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a part of the renowned Salesforce CRM platform, developed to assist large enterprises in optimizing business operations and maintaining better customer relationships.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1 - Salesforce Sales Cloud
Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1: Salesforce Sales Cloud

Core features:

  • Opportunity Management:  Provides details about transactions, including product information, deal stages, pricing, and competitors Allows sales personnel to access real-time information for each transaction.
  • Marketing Automation: Automatically creates, deploys, and manages effective online marketing campaigns. Enables collaboration between sales and marketing teams to search, evaluate potential customers, and streamline the sales process.
  • Lightning Voice: Allows making calls to customers directly within Salesforce with just a click. Sales representatives can view all contact information updated in real-time to be prepared for any customer conversation.
  • Workflows and Approvals: Saves time and simplifies the approval of business requests by designing and automating sales processes with simple drag-and-drop actions. Approval requests include deal discounts, expense reports, purchase orders, etc.
  • File Sync and Share: This enables the sales team to quickly search and share up-to-date and accurate content such as presentations, proposals, and contracts from anywhere, helping the business close more deals in less time.
  • Reports and Dashboards: Easily create and customize dashboards and real-time data reports to support the decision-making process for the next business steps.
  • Sales Forecasting: This enables viewing sales forecasts and specific adjustments suggested for each sales team.

Costs: 

Essentials Professional Enterprise Unlimited
$25/user/month $75/user/month $150/user/month $300/user/month
For small businesses with a maximum of 10 users. For businesses of all sizes.  For large enterprises with deep customization needs. For large enterprises with unlimited software usage and demanding support requirements.

Pros: 

  • Enables a 360-degree view of the customer interaction journey
  • Offers tools for automating business processes
  • Includes a demo for every deployed feature
  • High level of customization and scalability
  • Superior data security system

Cons:

  • Internet access is required to use the software.
  • While Salesforce Sales Cloud offers extensive customization, you will face additional charges for adding features or utilities, leading to increased software usage costs.
  • The platform provides advanced features, but for new users, navigating through all the features and options available on the dashboard may not be intuitive. You will need to invest significant time in training their teams to effectively utilize the software.
  • Migrating data from existing systems to Salesforce Sales Cloud can be time-consuming and may require technical expertise. Businesses can contact the Salesforce consulting team for assistance in addressing this issue.

SAP Sales Cloud

Recognized as a top on-cloud CRM software for large enterprises, SAP Sales Cloud assists businesses in creating an internal collaborative environment, optimizing business processes, and fostering efficient interactions with customers.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1 - SAP Sales Cloud
Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1: SAP Sales Cloud

Core features:

  • Omnichannel Engagement: Provides omnichannel interaction features to enhance customer engagement, streamline the sales process, and complete transactions. 
  • Email & Calendar Integration: Integrates with productivity tools like Microsoft Outlook and Google Gmail to automatically synchronize customer data and important information from the current system.
  • Predictive Analytics & Machine Learning: Real-time scoring and prediction features help businesses identify potential customers, guide them through the sales process, and offer personalized recommendations for products, sales representatives, and pricing to optimize contract opportunities.
  • Sales Performance: Offers detailed sales guidance to help businesses actualize their sales strategy while tracking progress and results with comprehensive information on each salesperson’s actions. Additionally, businesses can integrate with the SAP CX solution suite to boost business goals.
  • Productivity & Personalization: Provides features that enhance the efficiency of the sales process, such as tagging, flagging, scheduling, and personalizing fields, reports, and custom fields for easy access and use by sales representatives.
  • Back-office Integration & Connection: Integrates with SAP ERP and SAP CX solutions to leverage real-time, valuable information and details to understand sales cycles and seize transaction-closing opportunities.

Cost: SAP Sales Cloud doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing on the website. Therefore, businesses are advised to contact the provider directly for consultation and a price quote.

Pros:

  • User-friendly interface that is easy to use.
  • Seamless integration with other services in the SAP system, facilitating the sharing of information and data across departments within the business.
  • Provide demos for each deployed feature.
  • Offers advanced analytics capabilities for customer information and market trends to optimize sales strategies.
  • High customization and scalability.
  • Ensures the security, regular updates, and accuracy of customer-related information and data.
  • Automates business processes.

Cons:

  • The usage cost is not publicly disclosed, making it challenging for businesses to accurately estimate deployment expenses
  • The seamless integration capability with other SAP services, while advantageous, can be a drawback as businesses become heavily dependent on the SAP system, leading to limitations if a few services from a different provider are used.
  • Integrating SAP Sales Cloud with external services is not straightforward and requires significant expertise and resources.
  • The high customization capability of SAP Sales Cloud demands technical proficiency and a certain level of understanding of SAP, making it time-consuming for new users to familiarize themselves with the platform.

HubSpot Sales Hub

When it comes to leading CRM providers, HubSpot is a very familiar name for most businesses. The HubSpot Sales Hub solution offers businesses outstanding features to build relationships with customers, manage the sales funnel effectively, and close more deals.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1 - HubSpot Sales Hub
Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1: HubSpot Sales Hub

Core features:

  • Sales Automation: Set up a series of automated and personalized tasks and emails to streamline the sales process and close deals.
  • Conversation Intelligence: Utilize AI tools to record calls with customers to understand how each sales representative interacts with customers and provide timely evaluations and improvement guidance.
  • Document Tracking: Support the sales team in creating and sharing sales content, while tracking which type of content customers open, view, or forward, and which content leads to deal closures
  • Email Tracking: Use tools like Gmail, Outlook, and HubSpot to send tracked emails and receive notifications for any potential customer interaction with tracked emails.
  • Call Tracking: Prioritize daily sales calls based on the HubSpot database. Automatically record call details for contacts in the CRM system.
  • Pipeline Management: Create, customize, and control the sales process visually with the “Deal Pipeline Management” feature. On the “Sales Dashboard” page, you can view detailed sales activities, track customer movement through the funnel, and identify and address issues for each customer case to quickly close deals.
  • Sales Analytics & Reporting: Choose from available reports or customize individual reports to monitor the progress and performance of the sales team with in-depth and accurate analytical data.

Costs:

Free Starter Professional Enterprise
100% Free $45/month $450/month $1200/month

Pros:

  • Provides 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, and hotline.
  • Intuitive platform interface and user-friendly CRM features.
  • Offers a demo for each deployed feature.
  • Provides tools for automating business processes.
  • The ‘tracking’ features are well-designed and systematically meet the requirements for monitoring and controlling the entire sales process.

Cons:

  • Although HubSpot Sales Hub is designed to be user-friendly, the initial setup, customization, and management of the CRM system may require a significant amount of time.
  • Internet access is required to access and use the software.
  • The free trial version limits features and permissions, making it challenging for businesses to accurately assess the capabilities of this CRM system.
  • Migrating data from existing systems to HubSpot Sales Hub can be time-consuming and may require technical expertise.

Zoho CRM

Zoho is a renowned CRM solution with a variety of features designed to suit businesses of all sizes, enabling them to build and manage customer relationships and optimize sales processes.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1 - Zoho CRM
Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1: Zoho CRM

Core features:

  • Sales Force Automation: Automates sales tasks such as scheduling sales appointments, sending follow-up emails, tracking leads, and updating sales opportunities.
  • Marketing Automation: Provides tools to efficiently run marketing campaigns and deliver high-quality leads to the sales department.
  • Performance Management: Streamlines business processes, and enhances sales capabilities with insights relevant to changing market trends.
  • Product Customization: Use custom fields, buttons, layouts, link data, localize language and currency, and test before deployment.
  • Omnichannel Management: Enables businesses to connect with customers across various channels while collecting essential data to support sales calls.

Costs: 

Pricing plans Standard Professional  Enterprise Ultimate
Billed Monthly $20/user/month $35/user/month $50/user/month $65/user/month
Billed Yearly $14/user/month $23/user/month $40/user/month $52/user/month

Pros: 

  • User interface is intuitive and easy to use.
  • Allows integration with multiple applications and services to create a unified CRM system.
  • Utilizes artificial intelligence to predict customer behavior and suggest relevant actions.
  • High-level security features.
  • Offers a 15-day free trial version.

Cons:

  • Customer support service is not yet fully optimized.
  • Customization process requires technical expertise and significant resources.
  • The trial version limits many features, making it challenging to evaluate the platform’s capabilities.

NetSuite CRM

Another prominent CRM software for large enterprises is NetSuite CRM. This is a cloud-based CRM platform designed to help businesses manage interactions with current and potential customers, partners, and suppliers.

Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1 - Oracle NetSuite CRM
Explore The 10 CRM Software for Large Enterprises Pt1: Oracle NetSuite CRM

Core features:

  • Sales Force Automation: Provides businesses with an integrated sales process, covering lead management, upselling, cross-selling, and quoting to sales forecasting, order management, order fulfillment, and commissions.
  • Marketing Automation: Builds, deploys, and measures the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Tracks potential customers and identifies the moment they are ready to make a purchase, transferring potential customer information to the sales department.
  • Customer Service Management: Creates and automates the management process of customer cases, ensuring that customer inquiries are quickly addressed with the answers they need.
  • Partner Relationship Management: Controls all aspects of the sales and marketing process between the business and its partners with real-time updated information.

Costs: NetSuite CRM doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing on the website. Therefore, businesses are advised to contact the provider directly for consultation and a price quote.

Pros:

  • An all-in-one solution for various aspects of eCommerce such as sales, marketing, and customer service.
  • Exceptional customization capabilities to meet the specific deployment needs of each business

Cons:

  • The usage cost is not publicly disclosed, making it challenging for businesses to accurately estimate deployment costs.
  • Businesses are required to pay the entire deployment cost upfront for the initial setups.
  • Users must subscribe to an annual license, incurring additional fees before using this tool.

Related Reading: Explore the 10 best CRM software for large enterprises Pt2

The Bottom Line

Leveraging years of valuable experience supporting various businesses in the deployment of CRM solutions, SECOMM offers valuable insights to help businesses swiftly identify appropriate software and expedite the implementation process.

Contact or call directly to SECOMM’s hotline at 02871089908 for free consultation.

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What is CRM? Top 5 Benefits of Using CRM Software in 2023
WHAT IS CRM? TOP 5 BENEFITS OF USING CRM SOFTWARE IN 2023
01/12/2023
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According to Fortune Business Insight, the projected value of the global Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market for 2023 stands at $71.06 billion, with expectations to surge to around $157.53 billion by 2030, exhibiting a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12%. 

CRM, a software solution, delivers numerous advantages for both sellers and buyers. This tool empowers businesses to forge enduring, meaningful relationships, yielding substantial profits. Meanwhile, customers can enjoy personalized and high-quality experiences.

The following article delves into the detailed definition of CRM, common types of CRM software, core features, and the benefits when businesses use CRM solutions.

What is CRM (Customer Relationship Management)?

CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a software solution crafted to help businesses efficiently manage their relationships with both current customers and potential leads.

What is CRM? Top 5 Benefits of Using CRM Software in 2023
What is CRM (Customer Relationship Management)?

The CRM system is designed to carry out specific tasks, including:

  • Gathering customer data from diverse sources and storing it in a centralized database.
  • Automating repetitive processes in sales, marketing, and customer service.
  • Guiding the management of customers and prospects throughout their purchasing journey.
  • Identifying opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling.
  • Improving collaboration efficiency within the internal operations of the business.

By utilizing CRM software, businesses can eliminate the need for using scattered spreadsheets and apps. This helps overcome limitations, offering robust features for performance analysis and gaining insights into customer interactions.

Types of CRM Software

What is CRM? Top 5 Benefits of Using CRM Software in 2023
Types of CRM Software

Deployment Classified

  • On-premise CRM: This is typically employed to store essential internal data. Under the On-premise CRM model, businesses take responsibility for securing, maintaining, and updating the system.
  • On-cloud CRM: It enables businesses to access the system remotely from any device with an internet connection. In this case, the CRM service provider takes on the responsibility for ensuring security, maintenance, and system updates.

Related Reading: On-premise CRM vs On-cloud CRM: Key Differences

Function Classified

  • Operational CRM

These CRM systems are crafted to help businesses manage sales, marketing, and customer service activities. The main goal of CRM software is to generate a pool of new potential customers, nurture these leads, convert them into loyal customers, and retain them through effective marketing strategies and top-notch customer service.

  • Analytical CRM

While the Operational CRM system helps businesses enhance customer attraction and retention, the Analytical CRM system allows businesses to understand how potential customers move through the sales funnel. These CRM solutions gather, store, and analyze customer data, delivering detailed insights into customer interactions with the business.

This facilitates businesses in assessing the effectiveness of marketing, sales, and customer care initiatives, allowing them to make necessary adjustments.

  • Collaborative CRM

The main goal of Collaborative CRM software is to improve customer experience and streamline business processes by enabling communication and data sharing among internal departments and external stakeholders (suppliers, partners).

While operational and analytical CRM systems also allow for data sharing, collaborative CRM places a greater emphasis on enhancing the customer experience.

It is especially favored by businesses with extensive customer databases that necessitate tight collaboration between departments (sales, marketing, customer care) to ensure the optimal customer experience.

Top 6 Core CRM features

What is CRM? Top 5 Benefits of Using CRM Software in 2023
Top 6 Core CRM Features

Contact Management

The first important feature to mention in CRM software is Contact Management. This feature allows businesses to store information related to customers and potential customers on the platform, ranging from their names, phone numbers, email addresses, and job details to more in-depth data such as interaction history and how each customer interacts with the business.

Lead Management

Lead Management is one of the core CRM features. This feature supports marketing and sales efforts by:

  • Attracting potential customers from various sources.
  • Organizing data related to potential customers.
  • Segmenting potential customers based on criteria.
  • Creating a scoring framework to assess conversion potential.
  • Automating personalized interactions to foster relationships.

Pipeline Management

The Pipeline Management feature provides businesses with a visual overview of potential customers and existing transactions. Deals are separated into different stages of the pipeline. This helps sales representatives understand the status of each potential customer and aids them in deciding which leads to pursue.

Email Management

Utilizing the Email Management feature, businesses can seamlessly integrate their email functionality with CRM software, facilitating the sending and receiving of emails directly within the CRM system interface. 

This streamlined approach saves time, eliminating the need to navigate between various tabs for email communication and ensuring no missed opportunities to engage with potential customers.

Workflow Automation

The next crucial feature in CRM solutions is Workflow Automation, which comprises three fundamental aspects: Marketing Automation, Sales Automation, and Customer Service Automation.

Marketing Automation

The ‘Marketing Automation’ feature helps businesses simplify the marketing process by designing trigger elements for specific actions of customers and potential customers, such as:

  • Sending a welcome email to potential customers when they sign up for an account.
  • Sending a survey email after they have used a product for a certain period (e.g., 90 days).
  • Providing customers with information about related products to what they have purchased or sending discount codes for products left in their shopping carts.

In summary, the automated marketing process in the CRM system utilizes the “if-then” logic to automatically trigger interactive activities after customers or potential leads perform specific actions.

Sales Automation

Similar to ‘Marketing Automation,’ the ‘Sales Automation’ feature also uses trigger elements to help sales representatives automatically provide purposeful interactions with customers at specific points in the sales process.

Additionally, Sales Automation assists sales representatives in scoring and managing potential customers, while automatically generating sales forecast reports, enabling businesses to make informed decisions.

Examples of sales automation process:

  • Invite potential customers to subscribe to the newsletter when they first visit the website.
  • Automatically send a follow-up email if they go silent (for example, 36 hours) after receiving a product quote.
  • Automatically assign potential customers to different sales representatives.

Customer Service Automation 

‘Customer service automation’ in CRM solutions refers to the use of automation technologies to enhance and optimize the customer service experience.

This may include using chatbots for online support, sending automatic notifications and updates to customers, automating the handling of basic customer requests and inquiries, and various other activities to save time and streamline workflows.

Analytics and Reporting

The ‘Analytics & Reporting’ feature in CRM solutions plays a crucial role in analyzing data and generating reports to help businesses gain a deeper understanding of their business performance, customer interactions, and market trends.

This is an important tool that enables businesses to make decisions based on accurate data, improve customer interactions, and optimize business strategies.

Top 5 CRM Software Benefits

What is CRM? Top 5 Benefits of Using CRM Software in 2023
Top 5 CRM Software Benefits

Improve Customer Relationship Management

CRM software plays a pivotal role in enabling businesses to gather and store comprehensive information about customers, including interaction history and personal details. This helps understand customers and creates a personalized interaction experience, from providing better services to developing appropriate outreach strategies.

Streamline Business Processes

CRM systems help automate many aspects of the business process, such as sales management, marketing, and customer interaction tracking. This results in increased work efficiency, minimizes errors and enhances the ability to interact effectively with customers.

Enhance Customer Service

CRM platforms provide tools such as automated chatbots and customer support systems, facilitating the swift resolution of customer requests and inquiries. This enhances the customer experience, builds trust, and increases the chances of establishing long-term relationships

Facilitate Informed Decision-Making

The CRM software’s data analysis features contribute to a more profound comprehension of customer behavior, business performance, and emerging market trends. This empowers businesses to make informed decisions and anticipate future developments.

Enhance Internal Collaboration

CRM software facilitates tight collaboration among different departments within a business, working together on the platform. This encourages the exchange of information and internal interactions, ultimately enhancing data consistency, feedback capabilities, and accurate responsiveness to customer needs.

Boost Your Customer Engagement through CRM Solutions!

There’s no doubt that CRM software offers incredible benefits to businesses. From efficiently managing customer relationships to optimizing business processes and providing the best customer experience. CRM is not just a tool but a viable strategy that helps businesses build and maintain relationships with their customers.

Over the years, SECOMM has been accompanying many clients in developing CRM solutions. We have observed that in a competitive business landscape, choosing the appropriate CRM software is as crucial as understanding customers and implementing CRM strategies. 

Contact SECOMM or call the hotline at (+84)28 7108 9908 for a free consultation.

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3 Key Factors for National Digital Transformation Success
3 KEY FACTORS MAKE NATIONAL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SUCCESSFUL
26/12/2022
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When the Prime Minister approved the “National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with a vision to 2030,” national digital transformation became formally a goal shared by the entire Vietnamese people in 2020.

Since then, localities, ministries, branches, and even the government have all gradually incorporated the term “Digital Transformation” and applications of digital technology into their everyday activities.

Thus, we all realize the significance and impact of the digital transformation trend. What essential elements, nevertheless, determine the National Digital Transformation Program’s success or failure?

Overview

What is Digital Transformation?

The process of using digital technology to completely alter each person’s lifestyle, each company’s business model, and each nation’s government operations in order to create new values and prospects for future development is referred to as transformation, also known as digital transformation.

Today, all businesses, big and small, have to decide whether to embrace innovation or risk lagging behind, becoming ineffective, and going out of business.
Furthermore, digital transformation involves- not just comprehending and utilizing technology but, more importantly, reinventing the complete business strategy as well as the vision and development priorities of the nation in relation to the global development trend.

3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
What is Digital Transformation?

According to data from Mordor Intelligence, the digital transformation age is shining in practically “every nook” of the global economy, confirming that this is not a “soon to fade” trend but rather a new and sustainable development orientation following the pandemic crisis.

  • The estimated value of the global market for digital transformation is $998.99 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $2744.68 billion by 2026. The compound annual growth is 17.42%.
  • Global spending on digital transformation is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by the end of 2022 and surpass $3.4 trillion by 2026.
  • Over 90% of global businesses, both large and small, are adopting digital initiatives.
  • 97% of business executives say the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred digital transformation efforts.
  • 95% of startups have a digital business plan compared to 87% of traditional, established companies.
  • According to statistics, currently, only 13% of jobs do not require digital skills, and 33% are jobs that require proficiency and advanced digital skills.

In Vietnam alone, the government has established a National Digital Transformation Program for 2025, with a vision to 2030, with particular targets to shorten the distance with other countries around the world, including:

  • 80% of online public services at level 4 are performed on mobile devices.
  • 90% of work records at ministerial and provincial levels are online while 80 percent of work records at the district level and 60 percent of work records at the commune level are processed online.
  • All national databases including those for population, land, business registration, finance, and insurance are online and connected, with shared data on a government reporting information system.
  • 50% of banking operations by customers are to be fully online.
  • 50% of the population has a digital checking account.
  • 70% of customer transactions are made through digital channels.
  • 50% of decisions on lending, small and consumer loans of individual customers made digitally and are automated.
  • The digital economy accounts for 20% of GDP.
  • The rate of the digital economy in each industry, and each field accounts for at least 10%, and labor productivity increases by at least 7%.
  • Vietnam is among the top 50 leading countries in information technology, the top 30 countries in innovation, and the top 50 countries on the competitiveness index.
  • Fiber optic network infrastructure covers 80% of households and 100% of communes.
  • Universalize 4G/5G mobile networks and use smartphones in remote areas.
  • The percentage of the population with electronic payment accounts is over 50%

Why is Digital Transformation important?

The fact that the goals are stated in great detail in the national digital transformation program with a focus on 2030 demonstrates how seriously the Vietnamese government takes the significance of digital transformation for the prosperous growth of the nation.

Think about the global Industrial Revolution 4.0 wave that is currently in motion. With the aid of connection provided by the Internet of Things (IoT), real-time data access, and the introduction of cyber-physical systems, the Industrial Revolution 4.0, also known as Industry 4.0, primarily focuses on advancing modern digital technology to an entirely new level.

Every Government, organization, corporation, and individual throughout the world must transform its business model, and the manner of working from non-digital to digital operation, in order to keep up with this current technology and immerse itself in the Industry 4.0 wave. The name of this procedure is “digital transformation”.

Vietnam, despite having a minor economy compared to other countries, is a crucial part of the massive Industrial Revolution 4.0 that is currently underway. Vietnam must therefore undergo a digital transformation in order to compete.

3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
Why is Digital Transformation important?

The goal will be challenging to accomplish if just businesses execute digital transformation because the capital and costs are quite high; therefore, businesses require assistance from the government budget and outside finance.

On the other hand, even with a massive budget, it can be challenging for businesses to implement effective digital transformation if the government does not go digital, but continues to run in the old manner, handles administrative procedures slowly, lacks direction, and supports businesses clearly and methodically.

​​Furthermore, without the support of the people, the National Digital Transformation process to catch up with the global Industry 4.0 wave will be impossible. However, the public needs the government to inform, direct, and inspire digital transformation.

Also, businesses must create useful digital transformation strategies that both before and after implementation considerably raise people’s quality of life.

Vietnam must structure three main areas of digital transformation: the government, businesses, and people, or in other words, the digital government, digital economy, and digital society, if national digital transformation is the outcome it seeks to achieve in order to gradually join the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

These three crucial overlapping and interdependent relationships make up the National Digital Transformation.

The current state of Vietnam’s National Digital Transformation 

Throughout the earlier years, Vinasa reports that in 2019, 40.6% of organizations and businesses confirmed that they have resources available for digital transformation and that 23.6% of them are putting it into practice. However, 30.7% of them are uncertain of what to do despite doing some research, and 38% are unsure of where to begin.

​​Due to the Prime Minister’s approval of the “National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with a vision to 2030” and the abrupt change brought on by the impact of the global pandemic, Digital Transformation is now regarded as the process’ starting year. This makes it a top priority to maintain Vietnam’s economy.

The government and Vietnamese enterprises have been able to promote awareness of the importance and urgency of digital transformation in order to help the country overcome the obstacle thanks to the economic crisis brought on by the effects of the Covid-19 outbreak.

According to the UN, Vietnam’s digital government statistics are better than the average for the area. Vietnam specifically saw a rise of 2 places in 2020, moving up to rank 86th out of 193 UN member states globally and 6th out of 11 Southeast Asian nations.

The establishment of the National Digital Transformation Committee and the decision to appoint October 10 of each year as National Digital Transformation Day in accordance with the National Digital Transformation policy for a better life for the people are two additional significant events that will forever be remembered in Vietnam in the years 2021 and 2022.

As a result, leaders and people are more conscious of the significance, function, and advantages of digital transformation, and there are coordinated actions throughout the entire system, from the government to the general populace.

According to data from the Ministry of Information and Communications, the databases that Vietnam has built up to the second quarter of 2022 include:

  • Citizen data: Approximately 78 million data including birth registration, marriage registration, death registration,…
  • Social insurance data: Over 17 million records.
  • Vaccination data: Over 133 million records.
  • Data of officials and employees: Over 570,000 records.
  • Citizen ID card with the chip: Nearly 72 million records.
3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
The current state of Vietnam’s National Digital Transformation

Additionally, the percentage of qualified online public services offered to individuals and enterprises has surpassed 97.3%; the percentage of these services that produce dossiers has gotten to 67.8% and the percentage of administrative procedures handled online has gotten to 43.2%.

Moreover, the economic sector has seen some very good improvements as a result of digital transformation. The Ministry of Information and Communications predicts that by the first quarter of 2022, the value of Vietnam’s digital economy will be 53 billion USD and that there would be 500 more newly founded digital technology businesses than there were at the same point in 2021.

The number of monthly users on Vietnamese mobile digital platforms climbed by more than 100 million compared to the same period in 2021, and the percentage of the digital economy in GDP increased to 10.41% in the first half of the year from 9.6% in the end of 2021.

3 key factors make National Digital Transformation successful

Based on specific analysis and data on the situation of National Digital Transformation in Vietnam, it is clear that there are 3 main pillars that lay the foundation for the success of the National Digital Transformation process: Digital Government, Digital Economy, and Digital Society.

3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
Digital government, digital economy, and digital society are the three factors that determine the success or failure of the national digital transformation.

Digital Government

In order to increase operational efficiency and develop new operating models and alter the way services are offered using digital technology and data, a government must transition all of its operations to a digital environment. This allows enterprises to take part in the service delivery process. In other words, this is how the government is becoming digital.

Vietnamese citizens have been instructed in the past to finish the registration processes necessary to access the Citizen Identity Card with a chip, which is gradually replacing the previous ID card. This serves as one illustration of how well the digital government is progressing in Vietnam.

The process of processing dossiers and issuing ID Cards in the early stages is not really effective because the National Database on Civil is still under construction and staff training on how to use digital technology and digitize paper data on the data system is still limited. However, the procedure for issuing chip-based ID cards in addition to the cost is public and transparent.

As a result, when people arrive at the location where the chip-based ID card is made, processing will go more quickly if their information is already in the National Database; otherwise, they will need to provide more birth certificates and household registration information and will have to wait a long time for staff to check, enter data, and complete related procedures.

After that, the chip-based ID card will be sent to the registered address by post, but for the above reason, this process also takes quite a while.

The Public Service Portal of the Ministry of Public Security, however, is currently supported by the government and simply requires people to visit the location to capture pictures and fingerprints.

This demonstrates the government’s prompt responsiveness in streamlining business procedures while also saving time for both citizens and employees. This is evidence of the Government’s ongoing attempts to modernize itself digitally.

In addition, on the CCCD chip, more than 14 information fields of citizens are stored: (1) CCCD number; (2) Full name, other names; (3) Date of birth, month, and year; (4) Gender; (5) Nationality; (6) Ethnicity; (7) Religion; (8) Hometown; (9) Place of permanent residence registration; (10) Identification characteristics; (11) Date of issue; (12) Expiration date;

(13) Full name of parent, spouse; (14) issued 9-digit ID card number; (15) Portrait photos; (16) Features of fingerprint extraction and selection of two index fingers; backup for iris images, and other information.

3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
Digital Government

Moreover, a chip-based ID card can replace important papers such as Identity Cards, Health Insurance (HI), Social Insurance (Social Insurance), Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, and Household Registration Books….

It is clear that switching from conventional ID cards to chip-based ID cards has several advantages for both the general public and the government. People’s personal information is highly secure, preventing the creation of fake documents.

Also, ID cards with chips make paperwork and transactions straightforward because many pieces of crucial information are combined onto a single card, saving time and preventing the scenario where someone forgets to bring the necessary paperwork and causing the processing of documents to be interrupted.

The government made a wise choice by implementing chip-based ID cards.

The government can save, control, and check information about a specific individual quickly and efficiently with the use of chip-based ID cards and the National Database, helping to effectively control the situation of local security and order as well as national security.

Also, this helps free up labor for government employees who deal with people, handle paperwork, and maintain correctness, speed, and synchronization.

Digital Economy

The second factor that makes the success of the National Digital Transformation process is the Digital Economy.

Digital Economy is an economy that maintains and develops constantly based on modern digital technology. The digital economy is also known as the Internet Economy, the New Economy, or the Web Economy. This particular economy is made up of electronic transactions over the internet. 

According to the definition from the Vietnam Private Economic Forum, the digital economy is all economic activities based on digital platforms. Digital economy development is the use of digital technology and data to create a new model of cooperation and business, in line with the development trend of modern technology.

3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
Digital Economy

Therefore, everyone would immediately think of eCommerce when discussing the digital economy or the most prominent business model of the trend of digital transformation, and the strong push that this industry provides for high-volume industries catches the trend of digital transformation.

Few people anticipate that the conventional market model, which has become ingrained in Vietnamese culture, would soon be replaced by the market model 4.0, which accepts cashless payments. In several of Hai Phong’s traditional markets, this novel method of buying and selling was introduced for the first time, to the delight of the locals.

The Viettel Money application of Viettel Military Telecom Group, a pioneer in the digital transformation of market 4.0 models in 63 provinces/cities, enables all small businesses and individuals to purchase and sell things at the market by scanning QR codes or transferring money via phone number.

Moreover, cashless payment makes it easier for customers to shop at the market without worrying about issues like carrying change or budgeting extra cash for purchases. Also, many shopkeepers in the market are afraid of this issue pretty much.

Previously, if customers paid in cash with a denomination that was too big, shopkeepers would have to run everywhere to change money, causing time-consuming for both parties and other customers waiting to be served, the issue is now solved with just one smartphone.

Following the success of Hai Phong’s 4.0 market model, many other localities have also implemented this model and received positive feedback signals from the people such as Da Nang, Quang Ninh, Thai Nguyen, Lang Son, etc.

The market 4.0 model has spread to every nook and cranny of the nation’s small trading places, including farmers’ markets, grocery stores, sidewalk shops, amusement parks, parking lots, and more.

The digital transformation trend has quickly extended to places where it was previously impossible, helping to advance the digital economy and achieve the objective of a comprehensive national digital transformation.

Digital Society

Finally, the term “digital society” refers to all human activities in a broad sense. Digital technology, which is based on the exponential growth of information and data, is the primary driver behind digital society.

It transforms all facets of social structure, from the government and business to the individual. In a limited sense, “digital society” refers to both digital citizenship and digital culture.

From this perspective, the three pillars of a digital nation are the digital society, the digital government, and the digital economy.

3 Key Factors For National Digital Transformation Success
Digital Society

Teachers, parents, and students all adore the eLearning model, which is developing into a popular teaching and learning trend, especially in light of the recent pandemic and widespread implementation of social distancing policies.

Students can access lessons at any time, studying at home, using simply an electronic device with an Internet connection. As a result, teachings can be discussed and interacted with by professors and students without them having to actually meet.

This model also supports student doing teamwork well because it is not time- or space-constrained, saving on travel expenses in addition to using many other helpful resources.

However, for eLearning to really replace traditional teaching and learning methods, it takes a lot of effort from both the Government, the school system, and the student’s parents.

In fact, eLearning is only a small part of the digital society effort besides many other important aspects of society that need to be digitally transformed to make life more convenient for people.

National Digital Transformation has become one of Vietnam’s top goals and this is also a rare project that has received special attention from the highest levels of leadership and international support. Since then, Vietnam has had a full foundation to hope to realize the goal of becoming a digital country from now to 2030.

The development of a digital society, economy, and government, in particular, is a necessary and sufficient condition for a successful national digital transformation.

In fact, every citizen, from intellectuals to regular citizens, is gradually demonstrating a certain understanding in their own way about the digital transformation and awareness that the country is in a transition period to match the general development trend of the times.

This is in addition to the efforts of businesses and the support from the government. 

Especially for businesses, digital transformation is an imperative remedy to withstands to withstand the tsunami of eradication brought on by the pandemic’s rapid shift in new business patterns.

Following Covid-19, business digital transformation flowed slowly, gently, and steadily, assisting the economy’s continued rotation.

The first step of the digital transformation journey for businesses is to start implementing eCommerce.

With many years of experience in successfully implementing eCommerce for many customers in many countries, SECOMM specializes in providing consulting services with comprehensive and professional eCommerce implementation solutions.

Contact SECOMM today for free support and advice.

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markets and businesses
INTERACTIONS BETWEEN MARKET AND BUSINESS
07/09/2021
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The business is a very diminutive part of a market; on the contrary, the market is a vast forest, including all transactions and many customers, respectively. During the operation process, the good-supply by the seller, combined with the buyer’s good-consumption, will create the circulation of goods and the business’s development. However, interactions between market and business are the main driving force for all factors to develop in orbit and increasingly innovate according to the times’ improvement and transformation.

1. How does the market contribute to business growth?

The market is the foundation for creating a business’s original values, deciding essential requirements and conditions a business needs to achieve to enter the stage of market presence. From then, customers with specific demands will choose to buy the items they want. The ultimate goal of a market is to meet the needs of commodity exchanges precisely. This process continuously compels businesses to maintain and update their business operations, immediately adapting to customer requirements and not falling behind other competitors in the same market.

business growth
A market contributes to creating the environment of its businesses inside, which can be requirements and conditions for a company to approach the target customer with itself products or services

The market helps businesses approach customer behaviors more deeply, which is very important in resource management. That also presents in data sources such as the number of selling goods, rising goods consumption, or figures showing a sharp drop in merchandise sales due to the disease’s impact. These factors will contribute to the next analysis steps from collected data, approach the operation process more accurately, simultaneously regulate the level of goods production to meet just enough customer needs, avoid goods-excess or -shortage.

A market will reflect the competitiveness, scale, and position of all businesses within the market-share concept. Determining market share will point out precisely the revenue dimension compared to other competitors, also contribute to research and development activities, clearly identify competitors, customers, strengths, weaknesses, and at the same time, aim for following strategies to improve or increase sales.

2. What a business can do for its market?

Under the control and dominance of a market, businesses also contribute their values ​​to the general development custom, creating different development orientations and characteristics for each market type.

The competition among businesses promotes a much more vibrant market. It is also the driving force for enterprises to change and perfect day-to-day operating systems, update the trend not to fall behind other similar competitors, and finally optimize the customer experience.

vibrant market
Business is the driving force for the whole market to change and perfect itself every single day

Business growth expands the market dimension and stability. A speedily growing business will supply more substantial quantities of goods, focusing on research and improving goods quality. This approach will attract more potential customers; also new companies. The full penetration of market factors (sellers and buyers) concurrently affects the market size compared to a general economic picture.

3. Interactions between market and business in the digital transformation

Over 50% of companies are aware of the impact of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and feel it is taking place day by day. However, more than 70% of businesses do not fully understand their technology systems’ status and have yet to ascertain where and when to start deploying digital transformation.

While many other companies have quickly grasped and implemented digital transformation strategies for a long time and achieved specific success in the market, most of the remaining companies struggled with financial and technological problems. That contrary also affects the market, makes it move slowly and miss technology updates. Therefore, to successfully digital-transform, the interactions between market and business should not be overlooked.

interactions between market and businesses
The digital era has had the opportunity to witness firmer and tighter interactions between markets and businesses

First, market and business must satisfy the fundamentals of digital transformation, including connectivity and a stable internet platform. Connectivity refers to connection size and speed. Connection needs will increase continuously in the future, allowing businesses and markets to ignore their customer networks’ connections.

Next, the connection speed needs to be improved to help data transmission and processing take place faster. Since ecommerce sites have become more and more popular, customers have more options when shopping, and there is no reason to waste time waiting for a too slow-speed website. That is why the Internet platform is a vital imperative requirement to promptly meet the needs of markets, businesses, and users in the digital age. The Internet has become an essential part of daily life and a cornerstone facilitating the digital transformation process, promoting innovation, creativity, and new technology applications to the existing civilization.

Besides, focusing attention on improving digital skills for human resources is also a way to tighten the interactions between market and business. Digital transformation tends to impact old business models to upgrade and improve them into leaner and much more modern models. That prediction significantly affects human resources when some jobs have been automated and operated by artificial intelligence without humans. However, these automation jobs can produce more brand-new alternative jobs, namely quality management, market research and development, and product development.

Nevertheless, at the same time, it also raises the requirement to improve the capacity and digital skills of all existing human resources. Information technology skills have gradually become an essential condition for each individual to fully meet the labour market’s basic needs, especially when ecommerce becomes a trend worldwide. However, the ecommerce market also needs to improve data security issues, logistics, and payment security to gain the highest trust from customers and further development in the future.

The interactions between market and business are often subject to significant impacts from common development tendencies, technological advancements, and other digital transformation issues that make sense to be continuously updated and changed procedures to suffice customer needs and experience. Within those interactions, businesses will perform digital transformation responsibilities from the market requirements and vice versa; the market is the environment showing the exact business outcomes. When having reached the capacity and position, businesses can create a different market themselves with a stable and sustainable customer source.

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data digitization process
THE THOROUGH PROCESS OF DATA DIGITIZATION
27/08/2021
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In the context that the 4.0 era opens up an essential evolution for human society, data has become a priceless treasure of enterprises in researching objectives to implement business strategies comprehensively. It is also about time for businesses to admit a complete data digitization formula to optimize this process’s benefits.
Therefore, digitizing data becomes a mandatory transformation requirement that companies need to complete to adhere to modern market trends and the inevitable development era. Data digitization will be the core foundation for more extensive digital transformation layers in a more prolonged vision.

Complete preparation for the data digitization process

Data digitization is a data-transforming process from traditional paperwork to digital format databases. After digitization comes to completion, the database will be stored and managed by software or technology platforms, enhancing this data system’s security and accessibility.

This enhancement is an obligatory transformation requirement for traditional business models as most businesses face operational and management problems. At the same time, start-ups already can access new technologies and have a more modern changing mindset.

First things first, there are many difficulties in storing and preserving paper-printed documents. They are often bound to form in book-types with large sizes. Secondly, paperwork makes searching, synthesizing, and analyzing unnecessary time-consuming.

Meanwhile, digital data sources can streamline the bulk of previous paperwork while still having enough digital space to store in the data systems. Those systems especially have many advantages about security and flexibility in supporting data analysis and research for business development strategies.

An essential data digitization process goes through 3 main stages: data classification, format conversion, storage, and management.

Data classification

To fully prepare for a digital data plan, businesses can start by sorting and sifting through document types according to digitalization objectives and strategies. Specifically, retailers can prioritize the data of products, inventory, customer information, or ordering reports. Besides, operating-oriented businesses may consider using internal data sources for in-house working and managing processes such as accounting data, factory data, operating records, and other related types.

data classification
Data classification helps to select and categorize the high-volume of information resource in a business

Format conversion for data digitization preparation

In the next conversion step, paper documents will be scanned and converted to image sources such as JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, RAW… With a much more improved budget, an organization can take advantage of more breakthrough technologies, namely AI, Machine Learning, Big Data… to digitize paper-printed data into editable formats. The data will then become streamlined and stored in data systems for the later exploiting and editing objectives.

Data storage and management

The benefits of digital data management systems are the minimization of storing space and cost, access time, operation, and management costs, simultaneously providing the optimization of security and data mining performance. These systems operate under two main requirements: the first is to store, the second is to support data access flexibly and quickly.

store and manage data
Almost digital data management systems allow users to store huge-range data and access them flexibly

One of the essential tasks is to use the right technology at a particular milestone to optimize the process’s quality and time. When matching both the above requirements, businesses no longer need to worry about the budget-exceeds anymore.

The role of digital data management systems

Solutions for data digitization processes will be much more comprehensive by using digital data management systems tailored to the data storage and access needs. Businesses also easily use data for business research and development objectives, improve products, service quality, or produce brand-new products and services to meet customer demands. Essentially, digital data management systems can:

  • Ensure data integrity. Digital data systems are a complete alternative to physical document storage spaces (paperwork, shelves, archives, etc.). This solution will reduce the previous cumbersome data-types while restricting the loss, fragmentation, or data damage.
  • Make information more proactive. Data migration to digital systems keeps it available for mining and fast retrieval of analytical, research, and statistical reports. Data will no longer be limited, but on the contrary, businesses can access it anytime, anywhere.
  • Minimize seeking-time. Modern and innovative management systems also allow multiple users to access information simultaneously, ensuring the smoothness and seamlessness of business processes.

One of the most popular digital data management platforms is ERP systems. ERP contributes to being an entire enterprise management system capable of using data as a business operation resource.

ERP system
ERP systems can be a seamless connection for all the business workload

In particular, ERP creates a high-logical storage arrangement for all business departments to develop the ability to seamlessly and quickly access, usage, and exploit information. However, ERP is a comprehensive transformation that requires businesses to accept innovation significantly and reform the traditional operating model.

Typical case studies of data digitization

Data digitization can also be effectively applied in national public services, forming e-government to transform the traditional administrative environment’s working process. E-government creation brings a massive advantage for both the government and the citizens when managerial procedures become faster and more flexible.

Also, information and data sources in the electronic management environment are more secure, safe, and transparent. A typical example of this strength is the blockchain application in managing the e-tax system of an enterprise. Blockchain possesses a significant advantage in data security, and value-added tax transactions are also real-time done quickly, minimizing fraud and tax evasion.

E-government
The e-governments now effectively apply data digitization to transform the traditional working process

Another data digitization case study is the accelerated development of retail technology applications by Saigon Co.op. With the most astounding purpose of optimizing the customer experience, this retailer aims to partner with leading technology businesses to create a digital shopping space.

As a result, the cooperation with Momo wallet has got implementation, and the brand has become the principal e-payment method in supermarkets. The combination with the Grab delivery system is also an essential breakthrough, promising GrabExpress freight forwarding services and food delivery GrabFood applied to the entire structure of Co.opmart, Co.opXtra in Ho Chi Minh City.

However, these successful case studies in typical pioneers’ digitization process do not mean that formula will bring absolute success for almost all businesses. Data digitization strategies mostly depend on external factors. They are even contingent on business demands. That is the reason why companies need to tailor standard processes and systems before conducting data digitization.

Digital transformation is an essential process of multiple scales, in which digitization is only a small layer. However, this layer is a critical core value of the whole digital transformation process.

Data digitization gives businesses many significant advantages to meet the digital transformation process’s basic requirements, converting the format of data platforms. Forms of storing and managing data are also quite diverse, and businesses can choose the right way to manage their digital data sources.

However, technology is not the main factor for success, so is multiple platforms usage. Considering the correct strategies, data systems based on appropriate technology platforms will lead businesses closer to expected results.

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digital transformation layers
THE 3 DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION LAYERS
26/08/2021
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution has created constant changes in modern life, applying digital technology innovations’ core values. In particular, digital transformation (DT) has also gradually attracted more attention from businesses and individuals, although it has crept into the business operational processes since computers became popular in the 1990s. However, DT has marked a spectacular breakthrough when it matures a hot topic globally. This term shows itself a tremendous impact on the future of business. DT’s critical elements – data digitization, process, and model digitalization have fully demonstrated the improvement tasks for companies to overtake future opportunities. They are also essential pillars in multilayer DT systems, forming data, technology, and people’s seamlessness.

1. Terminology speaking of digital transformation and related perspectives

Digital transformation is a necessary process for traditional business models to keep pace with technologies and times. Implementing DT that is suitable for each of the businesses will increase its competitiveness in the market, thereby increasing revenue while optimizing the operation process, creating values for corporate culture and human resources. A complete DT model is a three-layered design: data, process, and business model.

The data layer is necessary to digitize data sources by using technologies for easy-management. A business will implement transformative strategies for operational processes based on transformed data in the process and model layer. Companies can change their models to suit the prolonged orientation and develop corporate culture more extensively. They can also conduct step-by-step or simultaneously implement all the layers if there is a suitable option with the business requirements and specific transformation strategies in both the short and long-term.

Data digitization

Data digitization is transforming from paper-works to digital formats and then storing the digital database in computerized data management systems. Those systems are made up of the technology-implementation to store data intelligently, making data retrieval more manageable and faster. Therefore, data becomes more proactive and brings substantial value-in-use to the business.

Data digitization will create a more seamless working process while ensuring strictly systematic and complete data sources, building a comprehensive digital infrastructure for businesses. It simultaneously is the digital transformation process’s kernel, forming the foundation for all the remaining layers. Up to now, data digitization is an optimal solution ensuring the integrity and security of data systems in the long run, which significantly reduces operating costs.

Additionally, database management systems are the most critical archives that can maximize data access and exploitation efficiency. MySQL is an excellent example among the most popular DMS today, owning multiple useful features based on open source code while ensuring data speed and safety, even large-capacity data systems in the ecommerce field. Accompanying other DMS such as SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL can meet most of the data-usage requirements of storage performance, security, and data-safety standards.

These outstanding advantages help MySQL get more appreciation from technological experts by implementing them in many highly-complex technology industries.

Process and business model digitalization (PMD)

Based on the digital data’s core, the process and business model digitalization form a more widespread layer covering the core inside. This classification is highly complex and embraces various forms depending on the operations’ ways and objectives. PMD refers to the transformation relying on technology infrastructures and digital data frameworks to form a digital platform.

To complete the digitalization is to analyze issues in operating processes and business models. From an in-depth analysis, they can provide the right direction and strategy for transformation decisions. This transformation layer has supported businesses to meet the DT requirements, which fully are:

  • Customer connection in the business process;
  • Maintenance, development of the appropriate technological initiatives;
  • And over-the-time human resources optimization.

At the same time, a business needs to combine digital solutions to create customer values and build operating models.

Currently, businesses have successfully applied CRM platforms or ERP systems to optimize operational processes in terms of time and resources. It is well-known management platforms such as Zoho CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or Salesforce CRM that almost all businesses implement for stable development. Those names are tremendous supporting tools to create the business departments’ continuity of processes and operational processes.

Both CRM or ERP systems effectively help businesses achieve targeted sales and effectively disentangle complex manual processes or issues related to data controllability and preservation.

3 layers of digital transformation
3 layers of digital transformation process

Digital transformation (DT) is the largest category, the complete model to bring businesses closer to the 4.0 digital economy. DT represents the whole process of digitizing data and digitalizing operating processes, business models. DT’s ultimate goal is people-orientation, and at the same time, combining the corporate culture with the customer-centric foundation. DT sets macro-objectives of people’s direction in building strategies, corporate culture, digital technologies, and adapting to these digital transformations.

Generally, most companies carrying out DT encounter significant barriers. They frequently ignore a complete data digitization plan while only focusing on refining more macro-plans in the process and model digitalization layer, which does not bring the high-volume transformation effect due to the initial preparing step not been done thoroughly.

Also, preliminary estimates of time and the limited budget will present a significant challenge for DT tasks in specific periods. Multiples of businesses are unable to catch the expected results. However, despite the existing challenges that they have confronted recently (the COVID-19 crisis), digital transformation will provide comprehensive support on data systems and digital platforms, exclude all social distances, and connect the world easily anytime.

2. The finishing-point of digital transformation – ecommerce?

The digital transformation process has made both efficiency and sales for numerous B2C and B2B businesses. In detail, ecommerce is the most typical manifestation, having recorded impressive growth since 2017. B2C companies have also strengthened the development of a more powerful ecommerce channel than ever.

Meanwhile, B2B models pay much more attention to transforming chains/systems/processes such as production or goods distribution processes by gradually turning into online methods to adapt to the flexibility and rapidity of the 4.0 supply chain.

ecommerce in digital transformation
The digital age witnesses traditional commerce becoming e-commerce with fully-transformation

Up to now, ecommerce can be considered as the complete performance of the digital transformation process. Ecommerce channels can update information quickly and continuously while also ensuring UI/UX optimization to provide perfect user experience, excellent customer experience, and as a result, increase sales. These are also the requirements to digitalize the markets and perfect the business’ operating system. Depending on the DT objectives, the company will stop at the stage that best suits its business model. Some of the businesses only need to digitize data for more effortless operation.

However, from a much more general perspective, almost all companies convert to an ecommerce system to control their business independently and connect directly with customers, partners and come closer to the DT outcomes. Those objectives are also the straightforward development orientation of most retailers today. They focus abundant resources on developing the ecommerce channel to expand the business scale.

For instance, The Coffee House is a case study of the F&B industry’s impressive DT outcomes in Vietnam. The brand has achieved their ordering application for more intensive data resource management and operation. This application was initially built on a requirement to increase the loyalty program’s ease and improve customer care service quality.

However, until now, this sales channel has grown more than that and has become a mainstream business channel that seamlessly integrates with the brand’s existing offline stores.

The story of The Coffee House brand
The Coffee House has implemented impressive digital transformation outcomes in Vietnam’s F&B industry

The TCH app aims to connect and interact directly with customers based on the D2C model, allowing app-users to create membership accounts to earn points and order quickly. These features allow brands to access customer data and shopping habits easily. In-depth data analysis will contribute to new product strategies or menu amendments to better suit the customer’s taste.

Digital transformation is a long-term journey that needs to be done with a detailed and complete strategy while meeting the time and budget, matching the current business’s capabilities. Digitization/digitalization layers also need to fully play their role in digital platforms, transforming entirely and efficiently. A complete ecommerce system considerations are also required for supply chains currently in the marketplace. Ecommerce will be the most agile driver of digital transformation; however, make sure that you can implement a strategy with the right priority in the current situation to give the best effect.

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The concepts of a brand
CONCEPTS OF A BRAND- HOW MUCH DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
23/08/2021
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A brand needs more than just a campaign, which involves many aspects starting from the structuring identity process to brand development and maintenance activities. The concepts of a brand also include many different categories, both horizontally and vertically. However, many ideas or terms have scores of similar meanings that often confuse in a bunch of writing contexts. So, distinguishing almost identical words, spotting the essential elements in a branding model, and pointing out the most critical factors will be the first primary for a new brand.

1. Brand identity and brand awareness – what is the difference between the two concepts of a brand?

The first two common concepts of a brand are the confusion between brand awareness and brand identity when it comes to brands. The biggest problem here is, most people use them, assuming that they have the same meaning and have complementary relationships. However, the simple truth is scopes of these two concepts are entirely different, including how they create awareness and identification values.

Brand identity – a basis term of all concepts of a brand

Brand identity is a way to identify a brand in the public’s mind, using materials such as logo, slogan, company profile, design style, name card, brochure, and even colors across their designs. Brand identity usually starts from the brand’s values to create the first impressions and memories in the customers’ mindset. Among the concepts of a brand, brand identity can do more than as a brand face; it makes the brand memorable, creates a position for the brand in the market, and creates a particular attraction when the brand publishes an advertisement.

brand identity is one of the concepts of a brand

In Vietnam, Coca-Cola often appears on holidays, important occasions with two primary red-white colors and unique handwritten fonts. This brand always communicates to the public the values of reunion, family affection, inspiring people not to forget where they belong. Another example is the Apple logo’s story performing the image of “an apple with a bite” has a strong desire to reach perfect, rebellious, and unique values.

All the elements that appear, more or less, convey a specific aspect of brand value, vision, and mission. They also contribute to creating the unique memories that customers experience with the brand and stimulating closer connections.

Brand awareness – the highly-confused in concepts of brand

Brand awareness is the result of creating a set of values to make a brand different and essential. Awareness implies the mindset, perspectives of the brand’s role to customers and other market competitors.

To build a brand awareness process is to focus on connections and interactions mostly. However, it is first necessary to create an information platform that helps the audience get the whole picture of a brand. In particular, the crucial factors that can make this process done are content platform, product/service platform, and human factors.

brand awareness
Brand awareness remarks about the long-term connections and interactions of brand-and-customer

Content has a great ability to create a brand’s tone and voice while also shaping its style. This ability allows brands to set perspective and the appropriate direction usefully, similar to how Redbull conveys the messages from the “Give you wings” campaign with the desire to become the dream-maker.

On the other hand, product quality also dramatically affects the brand. Product quality is the launchpad for the next PR or marketing campaigns, but an inferior-quality product will make the brand fail no matter how good those campaigns are.

Starbucks has gone beyond the limits of a coffee shop with increasingly appreciated values. However, when it comes to Starbucks, everyone is pleased with almost all the drinks here. The excellent taste of the beverage menu has attracted and kept more customers.

Coca-Cola gets a very high level of brand awareness when almost 90% of the world population knows what Coca-Cola is. Like many other long-standing brands, Coca-Cola has created a cohesive consumer habit that can retain generation-to-generation and refreshed itself by creative advertising campaigns that add more imprints to customers’ mindsets. Did you remember the Coke bottle had your name printed? Have you ever taken a selfie with it? Yes, these name-bottles are part of the “Share A Coke” campaign – a campaign to help Coca Cola to surpass Samsung, to win the Gold Award – Brand Awareness category at The Smarties Vietnam 2015 (organized by Mobile Marketing Association in Vietnam to honor the best brands and agencies).

In another context, to maintain the identity values of perfection, rebellion, and uniqueness, Apple built its own extremely discriminating cognitive system. The brand does not narrow itself to any target market but towards a design that is everyone-friendly. It forms a unified brand culture from the inside out, including creativity and simplicity. Apple ignores the trends and competitions; it contrarily produces themed devices, generating new patterns for other brands in the technology market.

In general, brand identity emphasizes feelings of “love at first sight”. This concept tailors the brand’s face, helping customers classify the brand’s identity, functions, roles, and products. On the other hand, brand awareness conveys long-term values, internal values, and different values remaining in customers after using a brand’s products or services.

Those two concepts of a brand are not synonymous and equivalent, and brand identity is a part of a brand awareness strategy.

2. Essential elements of a comprehensive brand positioning model

Among the concepts of a brand, brand positioning models have been diverse, from the Minimal Viable Brand model provided by Eric Ries to much more complex models, namely the Brand Key (by Unilever) or Brand Pyramid (provided by Keller). There is a common-sense between these positioning models, which is the forming and maintaining values, from the root strength to the brand essence, which can eventually be long-lasting in the community’s mindset from generation to generation.

Usually, we are aware of the elements of visible benefits and measurable values. However, brands that leave an in-depth impression in the customer’s mindset create subjective and sensory values. Therefore, the positioning process worth considering includes discrimination and customer experience as well. Also, emotional and personal factors often require a high level of two-way interaction between both brands and customers, in general.

brand positioning model
A standard brand positioning model needs to adapt two-way interaction between brand and customer

Discriminations refer to values ​​making a brand different from its competitors. You can use product strengths, brand stories, or media messages to emphasize how you are different from dozens, hundreds of brands in the same field. A coffee shop with a mountain-view will be more attractive than another with small tables in 4 tight walls. Of course, the very first goal of people coming to a coffee shop is to drink coffee; however, gradually, people need more than a coffee cup when coming to the shop, such as to talk and discuss together, to work, to have group meetings, to take photos, or even dating.

People tend to be more interested in which coffee shop is suitable for taking pictures, which are tranquil enough for working. A tasty coffee-cup is one of the different values making customers frequent more; besides, people also care about the space, décor, view, etc.

Another fundamentally important factor for a branding campaign is customer experience. Experience is truly the accompanying actions or services, making customers feel they have received the attention and devotion when using certain products or services. Customer experience is one source of developing brand touchpoints and including various concepts of expertise, such as interface experience, shopping experience, or product experience of a brand.

Apple has successfully satisfied their customer experiences by designing an intelligent technology product-ecosystem to meet the seamless connection and interactions between devices and people, creating convenience and ease. Therefore, besides the brand itself’s discriminations, an excellent customer experience will be an active element for branding.

The digital age has witnessed a transformation of the brand-value system and concepts of a brand when almost all the customers are much more interested in sensory factors like emotional experience when using products. That experience requires brands to keep up with customers’ insight, creating compelling content to obtain customers’ trust.

3. Brand voice – the strength out of all the concepts of a brand

Why is brand voice important? Because it can speak up almost all the values of a brand and directly affect its audience. Voice can help personalize the brand, let itself create personality, and speak up as a human. As one of the key concepts of a brand, that is the most basic visualization of brand voice. However, brand voice is the element synchronizing and positioning brands at a higher level, shaping the brand identity and awareness. As a result, brands know what and how to reach the right audience target or market, developing both content styles and operation models consistently.

brand voice
Brand voice has a full power to personalize itself

We remember Pepsi as a symbol of dynamism, youthfulness, and positive energy. On the other side, Coca-Cola is reminiscent of family reunions, cozy and fun spaces. While Apple emphasizes the simplicity and quality of the product system, Samsung focuses much more on diversity and stunning design. These differences show that every single brand shapes the growing direction with unique concepts, then they will record in the user’s mindset of distinct characteristics and styles.

Whether branding is minimalist or sophisticated, businesses need to fully meet the most fundamental concepts of a brand to increase communication and interaction with their customers. Simultaneously, it is necessary to follow appropriate values integrating with development orientation to avoid overuse, and confusion, which then losing the discriminations brands want to convey.

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digital transformation
3 WAYS BRANDS TRANSFORM INTO THE DIGITAL AGE
21/08/2021
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As the digital age has been developed genuinely, platforms have a more robust transformation, marking a significant milestone of globalization. Brands, of course, do not accept falling behind the market and continually innovating to suit the tastes of consumers. This worthy improvement helps brands attract customers’ attention and ideally bring the best user experience. To come into the digital age, brands transform in various ways, focusing on utilizing brand touchpoints, customers, and potential opportunities.

1. Invest in touchpoints to make brands transform

With no exception, brands transform as always to keep up with the digital age’s swift trends. To complete the digital transformation, investing in brand touchpoints is a concept that worth-considering. Most generally, the brand touchpoint is the simultaneous interference from both businesses and customers, creating the highest attraction for the business and providing the best customer experience.

However, some people argue that the concept of brand-touchpoint is vague and quite broad because any existing factors can potentially affect the movement of brand touchpoint for better or worse. This argument will be recognized if businesses do not know where to start creating a touchpoint. Brand touchpoints stem from business core-values, the level of customer experience, and a little bit of difference when needed.

Systematic

System assets help businesses grow in both quantity and quality. A standardized system not only allows products to shape within the unified normative framework but also ancillary services. A complete digital transformation of a brand does not stop at the product level. Developing and continuously improving the system are the keys to meet the second requirement of the brand touchpoint: user experience. The apt system helps businesses get in touch with product-and-service convenience and can create an isolated ecosystem to make brands transform.

product system in digital transformation
A complete product system create a much more convinience for customer experience

That was how Apple had been successfully producing a technology-product ecosystem that made a stunning attraction for users. Simply put, the term ecosystem in this context implies a group of products that can interact with each other in harmony to optimize customers’ convenience. Apple has generated an almost-efficient technology ecosystem that performs seamless interactions. However, what makes Apple enthusiasts completely satisfied is the personal ID system with high privacy and data security.

To take another example, Nike has wholly changed their business since their growth stalled, and the earlier business model was no longer sufficient. The mandatory change in the brand requirements has shifted to using an online business network to interact directly with consumers. The online trading system completely replaces the traditional product-distribution through intermediaries, as well as exclusive distributors. Nike also combines the accompanying member programs with trendy and fashionable items, creating a close connection with customers. As a result, the transforming system contributed to an increase in ecommerce revenue by 38% in November 2019 (data provided by Brands Vietnam).

Brand honesty

To transform successfully in the digital age, make sure that the brand is honest and authentic. All information about the business can be delivered more quickly than ever in the internet era. A restaurant with a 1-star review will undoubtedly make customers turn away. Therefore, providing authentic information will make users feel secure and reliable when using products. Brand honesty helps create a pure life for products while contributing to the user experience’s seamlessness, making the brand touchpoint in harmony. Transparency in product quality and working manner will create a unique touchpoint system.

Brands transform with simplicity and minimalism

That viewpoint may sound strange, but most customers in the digital age need simpler products, services than cumbersome and complicated ones. Simplicity and minimalism in branding still can create brand touchpoints while focusing on the pillar values of the brand, such as strengths, target customers, differentiation, missions, quality, and messages. These keys, eliminating other complex elements, will be more focused and orientated for businesses in the long run. Simplicity and minimalism make businesses quickly adapt to the ever-changing digital age.

simplicity in brands
The brands truly need simplicity and minimalism more than a complicated system to produce brand touchpoints

2. Customer-in-center to make brands transform

Product-centric is still an essential factor in most campaigns. However, customer-centric will be the necessary combination to enhance user experience, which making brands transform. Products exist in the world with the ultimate goal of meeting customer needs. Therefore, identifying customer needs is a crucial starting point for a digital transformation campaign.

customer-in-center philosophy
Growing up with customer-in-center mindset will create more brand values than only keeping a product-centric mindset

That is how the Maggi brand cleverly introduces cuisine recipes combining with soy-sauce on their website. This action increases convenience for cooking lovers. Customers feel more excited when their everyday-cooking gets more of the brand-attention though buying only one soy-sauce bottle.

In general, customer-centric is a long-term transformation requiring businesses to have a proper awareness of their target customers. This awareness should also form in every staff of the company to make brands transform. Besides, this customer-in-center philosophy acts as a value connecting businesses with their customers; but not a task to be completed and to get rid of.

3. Challenge-utilizing to turn into opportunities

The digital age witnessed rapid and unpredictable changes requiring businesses to have timely adaptive solutions. Products are not only produced for quality but for customer convenience. Other customer needs are also considerable except for products themselves, namely membership programs, accompanying promotional gifts. Customers also tend to shop more on ecommerce websites, which leads to a requirement to manage information, data, and technology platforms. Epidemics also become dangerous, increasing unforeseen risks for businesses.

challenge-utilizing
Challenge-utilizing in the digital age is a very important to-do-step to make brands transform

Utilizing the challenges will be sure leverage when brands transform into the digital age. Besides, people are still the critical factor, no matter how advanced technology is. Therefore, businesses first need to focus on the internal structure: human resources, processes, products, and customer services to complete the transformation.

The COVID-19 crisis has globally worsened since the Government issued a social-distancing-order as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to increase. However, recently, the ecommerce industry has had a speedy growth, as people now prefer to shop online while staying home. This time is much higher challenging for every business in Vietnam and an opportunity to make brands transform themselves.

At SECOMM, we will accompany clients on every ecommerce step to ensure comprehensive solution-providing for their ecommerce transformation. The brands transform successfully in a digital age when they are operated with a sustainable website platform. We will be the starting point for this revolution. Contact Us for more detail.

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process and model transformation
READINESS FOR PROCESS AND MODEL TRANSFORMATION
15/08/2021
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Digital transformation will be a risky journey if it is not driven by a fundamental strategy to assess current capabilities and considerable foresight. Most businesses are still quite vague and face certain limitations in planning a complete digital transformation process. Aside from the digital-data core, combining the process and model transformation is also essential to a much more strategic-vision of a future digital market with a complete and seamless digital ecosystem.

1. Challenges for business process and model transformation

Given the characteristics of the current Vietnamese market, digital transformation has received positive attention from enterprises. However, this process still faces many cultural barriers, strategies, and implemented technologies that make the process and model transformation not entirely useful.

Cultural barriers in process and model transformation

The corporate culture foundation is a crucial determinant contributing to the model transformation progress. Culture concepts refer to quite large factors of human resources (HR) thinking and perception existing inside the business, including:

  • Leadership thinking
  • HR potential
  • Connection between the two above

The most significant problem creating cultural barriers is the traditional business ideology that developed businesses cannot collapse by digital transformation requirements or any other peripheral factor. It was not until being trapped by the outdated technology that they found they significantly fell behind the bustle of a much more modern market.

cultural barriers
Traditional businesses can trap themselves with outdated technology that they soon fell behind the bustle of a much more modern market

For corporate culture, leadership is the core value creating a complete preparation process to start a digital transformation strategy. The leadership factor plays a decisive role in the business’s strategic changes, simultaneously helps all employees understand and adapt to these changes fully and quickly. In particular, key leadership positions such as CEO, CTO, and other decentralized management levels are the driving force behind implementing more micro changes for each employee. Finally, rely on individual conversions to shape the overall change-process in the digital transformation strategy.

To satisfy all the above conditions, an organization needs prolonged-vision leaders of the current business models. It is complacency and “resting on their laurels” that make the traditional models stumble into the old path and have difficulty maintaining the position they once had in the market.

The HR potential is the next factor in becoming a cultural barrier in the process and model transformation. A significant change often encounters many difficulties when it comes to impacting HR awareness.

HR in corporate culture
HR-transforming priority is a must

No matter how strong the HR is, it will be disrupted in the beginning if employees don’t fully get preparation for a ready-to-change and adaptive mindset. Lack of staff training in digital transformation strategy is likely to face harsh objections from the inside if forcing them to suddenly change their working style while they do not have enough time to adapt to new workflows. Simultaneously, the HR potential will also be a dangerous weapon that demolishes the digital transformation results if it is not prioritized and used accurately.

Among the two human factors, the coherence and connection between them also play an essential role in corporate culture. Connectivity includes the spiritual values businesses build to promote consensus, cooperation, and trust to turn strategies into realistic actions. The discrete connection or the disparity in digital capabilities reduces both efficiency and progression of the whole process and model transformation strategy.

Technology challenge

There are two behavior tendencies in businesses making technology a barrier to process and model transformation strategies: being afraid of technology-changing mindsets that lead to obsolescence and technology-overusing that lead to wasting cost and time.

Up to 80% of SMEs in Vietnam use old technologies in the 1980s (statistics from the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry – VCCI) report. In addition to objective reasons such as lack of staff, skills, lack of a robust digital platform, it is much more significant that limited thinking and understanding in technology application are fundamental causes impacting the digital transformation process.

Indecision in adopting technology is also a negative factor. Technology overuse can create unnecessary conflicts with the process and model transformation. These techs will not bring optimal efficiency but a waste of budget and time to recover. Technology is a driving tool for digital transformation, and at the same time, it is also a rule-setter for businesses in the digital market. However, it is more important to decide which technology is suitable for which model instead of determining how many technologies to apply.

2. Solutions for process and model transformation

Technology orientation in process and model transformation

Technology solutions can solve lots of problems with data and process optimization inside a business. In the very beginning, they need to fully and comprehensively redefine existing processes, and at the same time, model them into maps and charts to identify:

  • How specifically each of the whole process elements works,
  • Factors need having a priority in that process,
  • Interoperability, two-way relationship between processes when running concurrently.

Analysis and control of the entire processes help businesses find out weaknesses and facing-problems, then apply more appropriate technology solutions to optimize the process and model transformation.

Technology orientation
Best-fit technology solutions can optimize the process and model transformation

At present, a business has hundreds of requirements with suitable technology-types for their concurrent process and model. However, companies can develop solutions based on combining the big-four technology platforms in digital transformation: Big Data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things. These tech-types possess lots of outstanding benefits that businesses can apply to create the most suitable digital solutions:

  • Big Data: A potential resource with a considerable data-amount that businesses need to exploit vital information to serve fully digital transformation requirements – optimize customer experience and maximize business performance.
  • Cloud Computing: the ideal storage and analysis platform for big data and other digital transformation applications. Cloud computing possesses outstanding advantages that can meet varied requirements for more than 90% of businesses in the today-market. This tech-type can significantly reduce management costs, operating workforce while increasing automation, work-load velocity, and optimizing the resources-using inside the company.
  • Artificial Intelligence – AI: It helps businesses perform intelligent automation functions that could substitute for humans in the future. Currently, AI is delivering positive results when businesses apply it to many different fields indeed, typically:
    • Marketing: search-engine optimization, sales system, building a customer-based personalization, and more,
    • Manufacturing: improving supply chain momentum using coordination robot systems instead of human resources, fully automated product quality control and monitoring systems, inventory-forecast software, and so much more.
  • Internet of Things – IoT: The connection between hardware and software in a system, scalable and integrating customized-functions to suffice end-consumer requirements while ensuring data confidentiality and security.
Internet of Things
IoT creates a seamless platform for all the connection in the technology environment

Organizational culture re-creation

Human and cultural solutions will effectively address corporate sustainability, change, and develop a digital transformation mindset for all employees in strategies and initiatives products/services to increase advantages over competitors.

  • Leadership thinking: plays a crucial role in building a specific vision and plan for the business process. This term is an unavoidable revolution for the lead-generation to proactively embrace innovations, be ready to perform new experiments, and make quick decisions to move businesses consistent with the market’s growth effectively.
  • Empowering culture: forming rights and obligations in each of the tasks employees undertake. At the same time, businesses can build an open culture where every staff becomes an archetypal representative in all connections with customers and the market. Deriving from core value “employee-centricity”, the digital transformation culture will develop into a complete model including the following components:
    • Customer-centric orientation: to optimize the customer experience in the digital age,
    • Innovations: to continually examine new transmutations and eliminate unsuitable factors inside the business model.
    • Flexibility, understanding when making decisions based on digital data: to thoroughly and accurately exploit customer needs from a huge source of big data.
    • The spirit of cooperation based on a modern-and-open culture are two factors creating the spirit of proactiveness and agility in all plans and actions also.
    • Digital-first mindset: the ability to use and apply accurate technologies to produce appropriate and reliable digital solutions.

Businesses can complete the process and model transformation with technology and cultural solution-orientations. Therefore, technological solutions will maximize their business operation efficiency. They also contribute to stimulating businesses to be always requirement-active in the digital age. And these positive results are based on a sustainable digital culture possessing robust and responsive leader-generations combining with high-quality human resources.

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