Operations Case

As we all know, there is a big gap between theories and reality. However, sometimes I feel what I have learned somehow is not related to the reality in Vietnam much.

The first topic I want to talk about is quality standard and customer’s decision in Vietnam.

At present, Vietnam is using both international (ISO) and national (TCVN, TCCS) quality standards. However, these standards are only concerned with firms, the government and who care about them. They are almost nothing to customer. Though customers are always looking for price, quality and variety while shopping, Vietnamese mainly look for the origin of the products and services. The origin stands for quality (may be price at the same time) for most Vietnamese.

For example, female customers in big cities, who often look for or buy clothes on the Internet, usually prefer products which are from foreign countries. Nowadays, the living standard in big cities of Vietnam is increasing and people earn more and more money. Therefore, as shopping malls (such as Vincom Center or Mipec) appear, foreign clothing labels, such as FCUK, Zara, H&M and Mango..., are more familiar and popular among Vietnamese. And, many of these lables have factories in Vietnam.

So, when products with errors could have been eliminated or the factory produces more than requirement, these products would be brought out of the factory and sold by the workers. This situation also happens in China, as I know. Hence, beside authentic products which are sold in authentic stores, there is a kind of product called “Vietnam Export”, which is abbreviated into VNXK in Vietnamese. The export product first appeared on well-known trading website like muare.vn, webtretho.com ... 3 or 4 years ago. Because back then the clothing industry of Vietnam only focused on processing for foreign labels and Vietnamese clothing firms has very small market share for many reasons, VNXK brought a totally new and wonderful choice to all female customers. Because of the culture, Vietnamese always highly evaluate foreign countries, foreigners and foreign products, everything’s value will have a shocking increase if you add “foreign” to its name. With VNXK, customers can buy a high-quality product with a very cheap price (almost equal the price of clothes from Vietnamese firms), but the most important thing is that they get the labeled clothes (which can bring a status to them). After that, stewardess started to bring products from authentic store in America or Europe to Vietnam, these are called “au”, which stands for authentic, products and usually goes with bill to prove that they was bought from authentic stores.

Although the “au” has the price at least triple the price of VNXK, customers prefer it. However, it is ridiculous that sometimes you would get authentic products with high price with the tag “Made in Vietnam”. We almose can not differentiate those