NEWS Vietnam

NCKU Overseas Hub in Vietnam organized the International Conference with the topic “2022 International Conference on Innovation & Breakthrough in Business” on May 12^th, 2022. This Conference receives many remarkable results as it attracts the attention of people from many different occupations including 54,2% from University Staff, 43,4% from Students and 2,4% Industry through the registration link. The high percentage of the University staff (Lecturer and Researcher) joined the event confirms the prestige of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), NCKU Overseas Hub in Vietnam (NCKU OH) and also the quality of the event. The event got the huge media support of the Office of International Affair NCKU, Vietnamese Institutions and the sister Hub in Thailand and Malaysia.

Participant’s occupation

Firstly, Dr. Minh Hien-Director of NCKU OH introduced the purpose of the conference, which is to update the newest knowledge and information as well as to share the innovative and breakthrough methods applied in business in Germany, Taiwan and Vietnam. The delegating guest Speakers include: Prof. Volker Nitsch, International Economics, Technical University of Darmstadt (TUDa), Germany; Prof. Yu-Yu Chang, Inst. of International Management, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan and Dr. Do Thi Hai Ninh, School of International Business & Marketing, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH), Vietnam have been introduced. Besides that, Dr. Minh Hien also introduced representatives of UEH including Assoc. Prof. Bui Thanh Trang - Vice-Rector College of Business - Dean School of International Business - Marketing; Dr. Nguyen Thi Hong Thu - Vice Dean School of International Business - Marketing; and Dr. Hoang Cuu Long - Vice Dean School of International Business - Marketing.

The Group photo

In the Opening remark, Assoc. Prof. Bui Thanh Trang-Vice-Rector, College of Business said that the COVID-19 pandemic creates many challenges for businesses. Facing those challenges, all businesses need to change their business approach to survive and develop in the market. So digital technology and innovation models will be a very important aspect of the business in the future and long term. As one of the leading universities in Vietnam, UEH is always committed to improving capacity and accompanying businesses. In the last part of the speech, Prof. Trang thanked the participants for taking their time and believes that the Conference will be productive and beneficial for all of the participants.

Assoc. Prof. Bui Thanh Trang in the Opening Remark

Continuously, Prof. Volker Nitsch introduced the topic “Digital Business: Insights from Economics”. According to Prof. Nitsch, the current challenges in the world economy are: the Disrupt of value chains (Pandemic, War in Ukraine, National security); Energy shortages; Inflation and Monetary policy. Faced with those challenges, businesses need to reduce costs such as: Search costs, Reproduction costs, Transportation costs, Tracking costs and Verification costs by digitalization. In the presentation, Prof. Nitsch focused on talking about Search costs; Firm organization and Transportation costs. Prof. Nitsch showed the case of eBay for the evidence of the E-commerce and digital transformation. The case study expressed that the rapid development of the internet, leading to decreasing cost of information communication, makes distance less of an impact on business operations. So the economists have been trying to absorb the story and try to analyze the market based on their database to achieve their goals.

The speech of Prof. Volker Nitsch

The next part is the speech of Dr. Do Thi Hai Ninh of UEH with the topic: “Understanding Vietnam Innovation Ecosystem: Systematic Review”. According to Dr.Ninh, innovation is defined as the introduction and adoption of new products, technologies, business processes, business models and ideas in the market, as well as the invention of new ideas. The conceptual framework for undertaking the analysis adopts a systematic view of the innovation ecosystem in Vietnam. Between 2011 and 2021, science, technology and innovation have been playing an increasingly important role in Vietnam socio-economic development. As COVID-19 triggered economic shock continues to spread globally and its impact deepens in Vietnam, the importance of innovation and technology adoption for business resilience as well as for productive growth has been amplified. Dr. Ninh gave specific figures in Vietnam such as: The annual government expenditure on science & Technology for 2011-15 was about 1.7% of the national budget, equivalent to 0.4% of GDP. The state is the biggest funder of research in Vietnam, with the majority of the budget going to government R&D institutes. The national gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) in 2016 was about 0.21% of the GDP (with nearly 80.99% of that spend accounted for by the public sector).  But this is a lower rate than its neighbours, and much lower than most developed countries. In the last of the presentation, her recommendation is to Reset a new strategy towards business innovation based on 4 key pillars: Pillar 1: Strategy, policy design and implementation; Pillar 2: Demand side; Pillar 3: Supply-side; and Pillar 4: Strengthening institutional coordination and delivery of innovation policy.

Dr. Do Thi Hai Ninh introduced the topic: “Understanding Vietnam Innovation Ecosystem: Systematic Review”

In the last speech, Prof. Yu-Yu Chang of NCKU presented the topic “The Power of User Innovation: Embracing the World under Uncertainty”. The speech focused mainly on entrepreneurship and how new venture creation can influence technology and how start-up companies can change the landscape of business competition. Prof. Chang began the speech by the case study of the Nightscout-the medical device in continuous glucose; mini Farmbot -device to access the air quality or maker movement-platform that everyone discusses and tries a new innovation. Prof. Chang mentioned that from a great idea for products, leading to starting a business based on the idea, the allocation and a lot of external resources in order to realize the business idea is a long story. According to Prof. Chang, user-innovation Paradigm includes Self-rewarded developers; Collaborative evaluation; Replication/ improvement; and Peer-to-peer diffusion. User-innovation Paradigm: Self-rewarded developers; Collaborative evaluation; Replication/ improvement and Peer-to-peer diffusion. Despite all the challenges when there's no mutual trust and people might try to maximize their own self-interest, Prof. Chang believed that we can start seeing some significant innovations. They are the outcomes of the user and the amateur technology harvest innovation. So with some of the user innovations, a more ethical and more inclusive world can be expected.

Prof. Yu-Yu Chang enthusiastically shared his speech “The Power of User Innovation: Embracing the World under Uncertainty”

After the presentation of the speakers was the Q&A part. Prof. Volker Nitsch received the questions focused onstarting implementing a new idea and its impact on the business, such as: How to start an innovation if there are plenty of ideas but the regular work still prevails over innovation? When wanting to succeed in innovation, is it possible to influence customer behavior in advance or during the marketing phase? How do you innovate within a corporate environment in an industry with very limited product or process innovation over the past decades? Dr. Do Thi Hai Ninhhad questions related to experience in transforming traditional industries in Vietnam and solutions for small and medium enterprises when implementing innovation in business, for example: What impact will emerging technologies have on the traditional value chain in Vietnam? How does a small business scale innovation within its organization with a limited team? Prof. Yu-Yu Chang received a lot of questions related to Managing risks in the process of business innovation & breakthroughs, and factors affecting innovation culture in Taiwan. All of the questions have been answered, the matter of size of the company, the Innovation requires resources, time, money, etc. those resources are more easily available in large companies, running R&D departments. The speaker also expressed that Innovation has an element of risk, if we don’t know whether you will be successful with the innovative activity, it may also be a waste of resources trying to influence customers in advance. In summary the speaker agreed that the innovative activities are extremely necessary to enhance the company’s competitiveness.

At the end of the Conference, the panelists hoped that the viewers could have an overview of innovation & breakthrough in business. In addition, this Conference brought some outstanding results: In Cisco Webex, the Conference had 70 participants, the Livestream of the Conference on FB reached approximately 700 people, 400 views during the live stream and had a sharply dramatic increase. Not only in Vietnam, but this Conference also attracted international viewers from 10 countries like Taiwan, Malaysia, the United States, Australia, Thailand, South Korea, Germany, Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia. This conference becomes an event that provides useful knowledge and new methods for the candidates who are interested in the economics field.

The Conference has attracted International viewers

UEH updated the Conference information on their official Website

 The Conference information has been posted on their official Fan page