Nearly 40 percent of enterprises acknowledge the importance of ISO, while the rest simply take the certification in an attempt to attend contract auctions, says an expert from an Australia-based quality management service supplier. 

“Modern trading requires that enterprises have to achieve certain certifications of quality and environment management,” Ha Tuan Anh, general director of QMS Vietnam says in an interview with Dau Tu Tai Chinh Newspaper.

“These documents show their operation run in accordance with international standards of quality managements.”

Vietnam’s industries mainly focus on providing outsourcing services, which have low profit margin, Anh says.

There is no Vietnamese brand getting popular worldwide due to lack of breakthrough in quality management, he adds.

Statistics show measly 2 percent of local enterprises in Vietnam apply advanced technologies in their operation compared with Singapore’s 73 percent, Thailand’s 31 percent and Malaysia’s 51 percent.

Up to 70 percent of directors have no knowledge about running business in accordance with international standards, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s survey at 36,000 enterprises nationwide.

“Directors are responsible for 76 percent of mistakes, which are caused during production processes, while machines made the rest,” Anh says.

“But machines are controlled by human, so human causes all production errors. The quality management is meant to prevent workers from making the mistakes.

However, many enterprises hesitate to apply ISO after achieving the certificate, leaving their operation with many problems and making customers lose faith in their products.”

Figures from the QMS Vietnam show around 4,000 ISO are granted annually in the country.

Yet, about 40 percent of enterprises apply the international standards of quality management in their operation, while the rest take ISO in an attempt to be qualified for purchase order auctions.

Many enterprises even try to get the certificate in an attempt to “polish up” their brand name, Anh says.

“Local enterprises should start considering ISO as measures on restructuring their businesses and boosting their competitiveness during the difficult time,” he says.

“They should seriously apply the international standards of quality management in their operation as foreign markets set their requirements higher gradually.”

Source: SGGP