In the latest episode of The Quoc Khanh Show series (on the frame of the VietSuccess program), Chairman of Rikkeisoft Ta Son Tung shared stories about the journey of leading a business with 1,500 employees, discussing the direction for IT  startups as well as the outstanding development potential of the IT industry in Vietnam.

“Software outsourcing is no longer a popular direction for Vietnamese IT startups”

Chairman of Rikkeisoft shared for the first time about the company’s growth milestone, the factor that helped Rikkeisoft “go up” quickly at the beginning of its startup. After 10 years of development, Rikkeisoft has taken on high-difficulty projects, receiving advice from domestic and international experts.

According to Mr. Tung, the most crucial milestone in the growth lesson is the landmark of 100 employees. Before this milestone is the process of finding customers to get a job. After this milestone, 70-80% of former customers must maintain cooperative relationships. In addition, processes on ISO, CMMI, and quality management need to be in place after this milestone.

In the current context, Mr. Tung said that outsourcing is no longer a popular direction for Vietnamese IT startups. In the past, because foreign investment funds have not paid much attention to Vietnam, it is challenging for startups to want to make a new product in Vietnam. Raising capital is difficult, so they often choose software outsourcing.

“Currently, when Vietnam has many investment funds, young people are good at developing projects and products that apply new technologies such as blockchain. As a result, so many startups no longer choose outsourcing to start,” he said.

Mr. Tung stated that the Japanese government currently invests a lot in digital transformation by sharing about potential areas in Japan that Vietnamese IT can explore. Vietnam will be the first market that Japan aims to cooperate with because Vietnam has advantages in terms of personnel and quality. In addition, Vietnam’s image in Japan is currently quite reasonable.

Challenges of global expansion

Setting a “go-global” goal, Chairman Ta Son Tung shared more about the difficulties when Rikkeisoft chose this next journey. The first difficulty is the time zone difference. Now Japan is 2 hours from Vietnam, but in the Global market, for example, the US, it’s also more difficult for the light and dark sides. Secondly, competitiveness, in Japan, almost Vietnamese companies do not have many competitors, but at the international level, Rikkeisoft’s competitors are very numerous, and it is a long-term problem.

In addition to the Go-Global goal, Rikkeisoft’s personnel growth goal is also on top. Although there are many problems in the current IT recruitment context, Mr. Tung shared his vision that “farmers know how to code.” (meaning anyone can study and work in the IT industry). Although there are challenging jobs in the IT industry, it is imperative that those who are trained in-depth and methodically. In an extensive IT system, there are tough stages, there are medium-difficulty stages, and there are elementary stages. “Those who are good at hard work, those who work both at the same time and those who work carefully, do simple things but require meticulousness, hard work, and care,” said Mr. Tung.

With specific actions, Chairman of Rikkeisoft desires that Vietnam’s world image will be better. At that time, “rich people” automatically “strong country”. Referring to Vietnam, people mention the leading information technology companies in the region. In the coming time, Rikkeisoft will make goals come true, such as the scale of 10,000 employees by 2025 and IPO and beyond, bringing Vietnamese intellectuals to the world.