Final Thoughts - Trip 1

This summary & reflection is being written about a week before Christmas, 2011…roughly two months after returning from my first trip to Hanoi.  While the business of the past weeks gave me an excuse to delay writing this, the lapse has also allowed some thoughts to ferment and coalesce since my initial impressions.

It is difficult to comprehend where the project is going from here.  The tasks of two of the three short-term advisors are done (HR and IT), although their recommendations have yet to be formally accepted by the Bank and IFC despite having long exceeded the 10 days allowed each by the project contract.  Yesterday was also the final day on the project for the team leader, who has yet to be replaced.  His strategic plan, submitted two months ago, also has yet to be accepted.

For my part (the last survivor unless we rapidly find a replacement for the team leader), I am scheduled to submit a 3-year marketing plan for the Bank by February 15^th.  Leaving time for Bankworld and the IFC to review the plan, that gives me a completion date during the last week in January.  That will not be difficult in and of itself, except that the Bank and IFC was recent marketing research to be incorporated into the plan that I write.  That would be great, except that launching the research is now nearly three months overdue, and there is no way I can use it unless my report submission date is pushed back at least a month.  Were that to be done, it would be impossible to give the Bank time to translate and review the plan, schedule my second visit for implementation, and work some analysis of the initial marketing tactics into the mix.  The contractual end of the project will be here well before that.

So, once Christmas is over, I shall dive into finishing the plan, which will take more than the five at-home days I am allotted.  A good part of the exercise may be futile because a marketing plan is built to progress over time on the foundation of previously completed steps, and it is not obvious that any initial steps will actually be completed by the Bank. 

And, that is probably the biggest black cloud hanging over Vietnam as it attempts to jump into the “developed” world – an absolute lack of the basic concepts of business.  The bulk of people are solo or family earners or entrepreneurs, and they will continue to scrape by on hard work and ingenuity, as well as remaining invisible from the authorities, for the next generation.  But, those deemed to be the new generation of business and economy builders are primarily anointed because they have connections in the government, not because they have any special acumen.  Much like American businesspeople have become, the initial generation of Vietnamese entrepreneurs is ready to cry for government subsidies, restrictive laws against their competition, and exclusive licenses instead of identifying and meeting a market need at a fair price.  I see little evidence of initiative, accountability, or desire for increased responsibility among most large enterprise employees. Most are quite content to remain in the shadows of corporate hallways.

It would be interesting to launch my phase of the project and return in five years to see exactly what the end result looks like.  I would probably not recognize it.

Have a safe and relaxing Christmas and New Year (and Tet), everybody.  With luck, this series will resume in March with the saga of my second Hanoi trip.