Vietnamese information technology (IT) firms which have just returned from CeBIT 2012, an IT trade fair, keep optimistic about their opportunities in the future.

They believe that if having reasonable ways of approaching the market, Vietnamese software products would find their footholds at international trade fairs.

Tran Phuc Hong, Director of TMA Mobile Solutions (TMS), said mobile app is a fast developing sector, where all businesses can find their opportunities, no matter they are big or small. Hong said that the most important thing for businesses is having original idea. If not, their products would not catch the attention, even though they have low prices.

Also according to Hong, during the five day trade fair, 60 foreign companies expressed their interests in TMS’s products, while 10 of them have asked to send price quotations. There’s a noteworthy thing is that when foreign partners seek mobile apps, they tend to pay more attention to the interfaces, wanting well designed and friendly ones, and to the benefits of the products, rather than technologies.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Xuan Hoang, General Director of Misa, the company which specializes in providing software products in corporate governance, said it was difficult to sell products right at international trade fairs, but it seems to be more feasible to seek business partners.

Therefore, Hoang said, Misa attended CeBIT 2012 to look for the foreign partners who can distribute Misa’s products on foreign markets. Besides, Misa was also looking for reasonable partners who can provide the solutions to be applied in Vietnam.

Hoang has revealed that some companies from Germany, France, Ukraine and Qatar wanted to cooperate with Misa to localize Misa’s software product on human resource and client administration for the European and the Middle East markets. Besides, the businesses from Portugal and Greece want to cooperate with Misa to develop education software products in Vietnam.

However, both the businessmen have admitted that it was really a difficult task to attract the attention of visitors to the company’s stall among the stalls of many big guys in world such as IBM, SAP, Microsoft and HP. CeBIT has always been described as a “zoomed out technology world”. 

According to Hoang, in general, foreign partners would seek the information about the products and the enterprises which can satisfy their needs on the organization board’s website before the trade fair occurred. After that, they would contract the targeted partners via mails or telephones. At the trade fair, they would meet the partners face to face to clarify some issues.

In general, businessmen said though it is really costly to attend international trade fairs, one should not expect the good results to come immediately after the trade fairs. However, in return for the big money spent, the trade fair attendants have the opportunities to introduce their products to many partners at the same time, and receive information about many different markets.

Hong said that one would not be able to see his products and services accepted by clients, if he does not come to learn about the market. Meanwhile, joining international trade fairs is really a good way to save time and reap fruits.

TMS, for example, introduced 11 products at CeBIT 2012 and received market reactions at the trade fair. This would help TMS make reasonable investment on every product. The products that catch big attention would be heavily invested before they are marketed.

Source: TBKTSG