E-business with Vietnamese Businesswomen

 

Figures of enterprises owned or run by women (General Statistics Office – December, 2000)

	Number of enterprises	Total profit (billion VND)
Total	42,288	809,786
Enterprises owned by women	10,302 (around 24 per cent)	95,428.487

It is possible to see that Vietnamese enterprises are using information technology as a tool to develop their business activities, especially to contact their customers. However, their activities have not gained optimal results because a lack of infrastructure, security and other resources for information technology application.

 

At the APEC forum on businesswomen and the digital economy, which was held in Hanoi recently by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and Asian Pacific Women’s Information Network Centre (APWINC), APEC E-business Centre for Women, and the Women’s University of Soookmyung, Dr Lorna Wright from the Business School of Schulich, York University, the Republic of Korea, said that research conducted by the York University shows that Vietnam has not yet had any small and medium-sized enterprises performing online trading activities. Meanwhile, in Vietnam’s neighbouring country, China, the Internet has been used for 22 per cent of buying activities and 19 per cent of selling activities.

 

Talking about the difficulties of enterprises when they join e-business and e-commerce activities, Dr Pham Thi Thu Hang, director of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Support Centre and vice president of the Businesswomen’s Council under VCCI, said that in Vietnam, enterprise owners’ knowledge about e-commerce remained constrained, so the application of e-commerce in production and business activities of enterprises was still unpopular. At the same time, Vietnam still faces difficulties in infrastructure facilities and security for e-commerce application. In particular, there have not been programmes and policies on helping businesswomen join e-commerce activities.

 

To improve their knowledge and promote their participation in e-business activities, Hang said that apart from developing human resources and promoting the application of information technology, it was necessary to put the gender factor into surveys, research, statistics and plans on helping businesswomen join e-commerce. At the same time, suitable training programmes on e-business for businesswomen are needed. Tran Thi Huong Na, head of the Department for Information Technology Application, the promotion of international co-operation and alliance between a programme on enterprise computerisation and a Government project on information technology application, ministries, localities and agencies was a way to develop an environment for e-business application for enterprises in general and enterprises owned by women in particular.

 

At the forum, some websites providing support for APEC businesswomen in e-business were introduced. These include www.apwebiz.com, http://webiz.women.or.kr and http://www.apweb.com. Dr Kio Chung Kim, director of APWINC said that the project ‘Initiative for APEC Women's Participation in the Digital Economy’ had been put into the 2005 APEC Ministerial Meeting agenda. The 2006 APEC forum on digital economy for women will take place in and Dr Kio Chung Kim, director of APWINC said that the project ‘Initiative for APEC Women's Participation in the Digital Economy’ had been put into the 2005 APEC Ministerial Meeting agenda. The 2006 APEC forum on digital economy for women will take place in Vietnam, which will also act as the focal point of the APEC women’s e-business community. It is hoped that with such orientations and role, Vietnamese businesswomen will acknowledge further about the importance of and get further involved in the digital economy.