Buzz
“Vietnam's banh mi is a famous street food worldwide. Therefore, banh mi and some other fast foods in Vietnam have no reason to fear McDonald’s,” economist Le Dang Doanh shared with young investors at the weekend enrichment forum about the influx of foreign fast foods into Vietnam.
Mr. Doanh said: The competition with global giants is increasingly fierce for Vietnamese businesses, even on their home turf. Among them, the retail market for fast foods is increasingly attractive to foreign businesses because Vietnam has a young population, loves shopping, and is earning money. Vietnam is also continuing its urbanization process, so the flow of population shifting from rural to urban areas is increasing, leading to daily necessities, like fast foods, becoming more popular.
The influx of foreign fast food chains such as KFC, McDonald’s… is growing, and we must continue to open up because we also demand foreign countries to open up for us to export.
But our domestic fast food businesses should not be overly concerned. Regarding McDonald’s, we should remain calm. Because our banh mi is famous and highly regarded worldwide. In Australia, in France, they highly appreciate Vietnamese banh mi. Many magazines also vote it as one of the best street foods in the world.
Moreover, Vietnam has many delicious fast foods, popular worldwide, entirely capable of competing, such as pho for example.
Seoul boasts around 100 Vietnamese pho shops. However, it's regrettable that about 80% of them are opened by Korean owners married to Vietnamese wives. Saying this to emphasize, we must remain calm, we must see the opportunity.
Moreover, McDonald’s also has its weaknesses. McDonald’s is being opposed by medical professionals in many parts of the world due to the risk of causing obesity and high blood pressure.
Besides, McDonald’s has its own target audience, its own segment. Right next to my office, at the Central Economic Management Research Institute, there is a very delicious pho place, but there is also a place selling bun thang that still attracts customers. Therefore, the key is to identify the differences. See what they do and do something different. Take for example the product line of Trung Nguyen, they may still be at a certain level of success, but they have tried to introduce products with distinctive features, with certain capabilities, done with high professionalism.
We have witnessed a series of our brands being sold to foreign countries, such as the beverage brand Tribeco, like Pho 24… but the important thing is to remain calm, to draw lessons, to link together to create products with quality and scale strong enough to compete.
The regrettable thing is that currently, many Vietnamese enterprises still compete through relationships. Large enterprises have relationships at the top, with the central government, with provinces. Smaller enterprises have relationships at the district, at the commune level. Whereas we should be competing through product quality, through technological innovation, through managerial capacity.
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Discover travel wisdom from Mytour – As reported by Sài Gòn Tiếp Thị
Mytour - Your ultimate travel companionFebruary 26, 2014
