Mr. Le Van Cuong, Deputy Director of Department of Planning and Investment
According to Mr. Cuong, the Provincial People's Committee has just issued a plan to implement the program "100 enterprises conducting digital transformation in 100 days" to support small and medium enterprises, and cooperatives to approach and effectively implement the application of digital transformation support tools in the process of production and business.
Accordingly, the Department of Planning and Investment will coordinate with units to select enterprises and cooperatives operating in five fields: tourism, agriculture, manufacture of traditional handicrafts and industrial production, trade and service, and information technology (IT) to support the implementation of this program.
What do you think about the current digital transformation practice of small and medium enterprises, start-ups, and cooperatives?
Digital transformation is a phrase that has been mentioned a lot recently, especially in the current pandemic situation when businesses pay more attention to and considers this trend as a solution to adapt themselves.
Digital transformation is one of Thua Thien Hue's priorities in development. Photo: Hoang Loan
Over the years, with the drastic direction of the province, Thua Thien Hue is gradually affirming itself as a locality with enough capacity and strength to become a province with strong IT development within the country. Especially, Thua Thien Hue is considered a bright spot in smart city construction, IT applications, and e-government building.
Recently, The Provincial People's Committee has just issued a decision approving the Thua Thien Hue province digital transformation program with the motto “Four no, one yes” including working with no papers; meetings with no gathering of many people; public services with no face-to-face interaction, payment with no cash. These are the basic foundations for implementing digital transformation to create changes in administrative procedure reform, aiming at a government with better service for the people and businesses.
Many businesses in the locality have implemented digital transformation, resulting in high efficiency in administration, production management, reduction of cost and human resources, investment promotion, and trade.
Do enterprises in general, small and medium enterprises, and start-ups in particular, have many difficulties in digital transformation, sir?
Most of the small and micro enterprises are still very vague about the concept of "digital transformation" as well as not adequately aware of the role of this trend in the fourth industrial revolution. Now, in Thua Thien Hue, small and medium enterprises account for roughly 97% of the total number of enterprises. Besides, their science, technology, and innovation level are still modest, with 80% to 90% of machinery used in enterprises being imported.
Business support working group was established to remove difficulties for businesses
Small and medium-sized enterprises are facing barriers in digital transformation progress such as lack of digital skills and human resources (17%), lack of a strong enough IT platform to conduct digital transformation (16,7%), lack of digital thinking, or digital culture challenges in businesses (15.7%). However, small and medium enterprises also invest in cloud technology, network security, software, and hardware upgrades for digital transformation.
With the mentioned difficulties, can you tell me what supports the province has provided for businesses in digital transformation?
Currently, the province has many policies to support small and medium enterprises, and start-ups. Among these, newly established enterprises receive immediate support for e-invoices and free digital signatures, and exemption of digital signature.
The Provincial People's Committee has just issued a plan to implement the program "100 enterprises conducting digital transformation in 100 days", to support small and medium enterprises and cooperatives within the province to support small and medium enterprises, cooperatives to approach and effectively implement the application of digital transformation support tools in the process of production and business. Accordingly, the Department of Planning and Investment coordinated with units to select enterprises and cooperatives to support the implementation of the program "100 enterprises conducting digital transformation in 100 days".
Could you give more details about this policy?
According to this plan, enterprises and cooperatives will be supported in digital transformation in internal management. The province will mobilize businesses operating digital transformation platforms to participate in it with free or partially discount support for businesses and cooperatives participating in the digital transformation program in management, administration, and internal administration of enterprises such as finance, accounting, work management, human resources, quality assessment, employee's performance. Besides, we also support a number of units in Thua Thien Hue province to develop digital transformation platforms to support enterprises and cooperatives using them.
Are participating businesses supported in product standardization on digital technology?
Support for the digital transformation of products and services will be based on enterprises and cooperatives' actual needs and capacity. The province hires a consulting unit to assist enterprises and cooperatives in digitizing the company's products and services, such as standardization and modeling to improve production, distribution, promotion, and sales capacity in cyberspace.
In addition, the province will support digital transformation in trade promotion, product sales, support capacity building for e-commerce development, and the formation of digital stores in cyberspace. It is also necessary to connect businesses and cooperatives to participate in e-commerce platforms. Specifically, we will support 50% of the contract value of legal documents consulting contract registration at the floors of the top 10 e-commerce floors in the world (no more than 10 million VND/floor), and each registered enterprise is entitled to maximum support two floors, and each floor is only supported once.
What will businesses and cooperatives need to do to receive this support, sir?
The Department has established a small and medium enterprises support office located at the Department of Planning and Investment (at No 7 Ton Duc Thang St., Phu Hoi Ward, Hue City). Enterprises and cooperatives can directly contact the office for guidance and submit a support request.
When completing the application, the Department will begin to support each enterprise and cooperative. Through the working group to aid small and medium enterprises, start-ups, and cooperatives, the department will remove each difficulty for businesses.
In addition to the province's support, what should businesses and cooperatives do to adapt to the current digital technology trend?
In digital transformation, the most important thing is awareness. Therefore, in the upcoming time, businesses must be aware of the importance of digital transformation to make progress in this trend.
To adapt to the new context and not be left behind, small and medium enterprises need to accelerate the business digitalization process, especially training human resources about digitalizing to meet the transformation requirements. Along with that, enterprises have to develop products and services to meet the new needs of the market during the pandemic, closely connect with partners, improve innovation capacity and competitiveness in the market.
Thank you, sir!
By Hoang Loan