Business Communications and Public Speaking

Why

Businesses sell a product or service. Effective business communications and public speaking close the deal on the what, how and why of the product or service. Especially the why.

Unique Voice

Successful communicators and speakers rise above the ordinary and the expected. They intend to be heard and listened to, because their message and delivery compel and focus. Each communicator or speaker has a unique voice and point of view. Finding that voice and point of view is the challenge and comes from creativity and learned practice.

Competition

Competitors in the global marketplace use three levels of written and spoken communications, depending on the stage of development:

• Basic Level that delivers facts, numbers and position statements that are sufficient for a developing economy.
• Advanced Level that combines the basics into branding and marketing plans common in a developed economy.
• Sophisticated Level that creates new markets and sells the next market dominating product using compelling stories and guiding perceptions. Sophisticated communicators seamlessly use both logic and emotional appeals.

Sophisticated

The purpose of the curriculum is to advance from being a basic communicator to being a sophisticated communicator in writing and speaking. The courses nurture intelligence by using diverse resources to create synergies, encourage dynamic thinking, and help the participants to recognize his or her distinct talents.

A Harvard educated professor of language arts, an international speech coach, a textbook editor, and a courtroom attorney created these business communications and speaking programs for college students and employees of foreign companies to want to win.

Preview the Programs

GHM Business Communications & Speaking Programs

Clustering: a strategy to increase FDI in Viet Nam

FDI Troubles

Foreign investment strategies need review and investment parks in Viet Nam are under-performing according to the news in 2012. These trends challenge the government of Viet Nam:

• Steep decline in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for 2012.
• Inability to meet targets for reinvestment as a set percentage of the revenues of foreign companies into local Research and Development (R&D).
• Low investment in high-technology fields.
• Legacy technology companies displace targeted high-technology companies.

R&D Spending (% of GDP, Last Available Year)
Viet Nam in the Lowest Tier
Source: World Bank and Financial Times

Government Recognizes the Problem

The Minster of Planning and Development, Bui Quang Vinh, said at a recent VIR workshop,

“Our adjusted policy and incentives must match our target of attracting high quality FDI [into Vietnam].”

Nguyen Van Lang, MoST deputy minister, told the same audience that current policies for attracting FDI were “inadequate”. This was particularly true in the high-tech sphere. The government needs to act, he said,

“It’s time to review and reassess incentives and regulations on high-tech investments”

Clustering

Harvard Business School Professor Michael E. Porter, an expert on competition and global competitive advantages, has long advocated the power of “clustering.”

You may be familiar with or are working on “clustering” to raise FDI levels, increase domestic R&D expenditures, and attract knowledge-based companies.

I’ve researched “clustering” and work with knowledge-based companies that benefit from clustering.

Here are some key points from some pertinent scholarship. The source articles are cited at the end of this post.

Clusters Defined

Clusters are concentrations of highly specialized skills and knowledge, institutions, rivals, related businesses, and sophisticated customers in a particular nation or region. Proximity in geographic, cultural, and institutional terms allows special access, special relationships, better information, powerful incentives, and other advantages in productivity and productivity growth that are difficult to tap from a distance.

Impact on a Knowledge-based Economy

[N]ew influences of clusters on competition have taken on growing importance in an increasingly complex, knowledge-based, and dynamic economy.

Roles of the Players

Clusters represent a new way of thinking about national, state, and local economies, and they necessitate new roles for companies, for various levels of government, and for other institutions in enhancing competitiveness.

Attracting FDI and Export Trade

Clusters are a driving force in increasing exports and are magnets for attracting foreign investment. Clusters also represent an important forum in which new types of dialogue can and must take place among companies, government agencies, and institutions such as schools, universities, and public utilities.

 Clustering is not the same as a National Industrial Policy

A role for government cluster development and upgrading should not be confused with the notion of industrial policy. … Industrial policy tends to centralize intervention decisions at the national level. … Cluster theory could hardly be more different. The concept of clusters rests on a broader and dynamic view of competition among firms and locations, based on the growth of productivity.

Clustering and Employment

We find that clusters contribute to the level of employment in young start-ups in regional industries, suggesting that a strong cluster environment in a region enhances the performance of start-ups.

Quotations taken from:

Delgado, Mercedes, Michael E. Porter, and Scott Stern. “Clusters and Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Economic Geography; 10.4 (2010) : 495 -518.

Porter, Michael E. “Location, Competition, and Economic Development: Local Clusters in a Global Economy.”

Economic Development Quarterly 2000; 14; 15 DOI: 10.1177/089124240001400105

Conclusion

Clusters could be a driver to reach and exceed the govenment’s FDI targets and development goals. Government policy appears to move in that direction, as provincial authorities get more power to manage foreign investments. Whether the government understands the power of clustering is an open question.

Toastmasters in Viet Nam

Toastmaster Magazine published my article about Toastmasters clubs in Ho Chi Minh City.

A Toastmasters club is a hub for learning public speaking and leadership skills is a safe place with enthusiastic members.

You can read the article by following clicking on this link: Viet Nam Toastmasters Article April 2012.

Viet Nam: New Growth Path and New Investment Partners

The economies of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam are growing. The global market needs and will get their low-cost and undeveloped resources of raw materials  and labor. As a result, their growth rate will be greater than China’s in the near-term.

Their economic potential has been long recognized and was a key in mission planning during World War 2. The Japanese attempted to develop the region’s resources to rescue its war production devastated by America’s destruction of Japan’s merchant marine supply lines. The Allies prevented the Japanese from unlocking the region’s resources by bombing rail connections throughout Viet Nam and near Hanoi and feigning an intention to invade Indochina that tied-down Japanese military forces and precipitated a diverting and crippling famine in Viet Nam that took more Vietnamese lives than were lost by North and South Viet Nam during the American War.

China today knows the region is resource rich and development poor. China sees Southeast Asia as a raw materials storehouse and outlet for its goods manufactured in SW China.

The region has gained international voice through Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and financial advice through the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The region’s countries welcome the growth needed to meet the demands of their growing populations. What development track should each country use? The answer to that question will depend on the country’s history, culture, and politics.

Viet Nam has three development path choices in its post-colonial, post-Soviet era, to use the categorizes identified by Daniel Altman of the Dalberg Global Development Advisors, which are to:

• Develop on its own, a slow and problematic process.
• Accept aid from international organizations that impose conditions and require transparency.
• Allow foreign nations, the new colonialists, to invest in sectors congruent with the foreign states’ economic plans.

Viet Nam pursued North Korea’s self-development path after reunification in 1975. Growth was too slow and would not support Viet Nam’s growing population.

The Sixth Party Congress of the Communist Party of Viet Nam adopted a change in development policy in December 1986, now known as Đổi Mới (renovation). Viet Nam opened both  to international aid organizations and to foreign investors. The CPVN moved from a planned economy to a “socialist-oriented market economy.”

Viet Nam is well on its way to getting development aid from international sources. Vietnam is an engaged participant in ASEAN, the ADB, and the World Bank. Viet Nam became the WTO’s 150th member on January 11, 2007. Viet Nam has an exemplary record for meeting its commitments under international treaties.

China's Rail Links in SE Asia from The Economist

China meanwhile realizes Viet Nam’s potential as part of China’s development plans. China is underwriting the costs of a new railway network in Southeast Asia to connect the region and China’s factories in the Kunming area. China persuaded Viet Nam’s leadership to develop Viet Nam’s bauxite resources needed for China, despite the daunting burden placed on Viet Nam’s electrical supply, the ecological costs, and the use of Chinese labor in the project.

The leaders of Viet Nam know their history with China and their people’s ambivalent attitudes toward China and its marketing practices. China’s economic strength makes it the largest new colonial power in the world.

An eight-fold increase in the trade deficit with China since 2002 to US$12.7 billion raised tensions, exacerbated by the increased smuggling of unauthorized Chinese goods into Viet Nam and their associated health and safety problems. China has built up military forces to enforce its territorial claims over Viet Nam’s Paracel and Spratly islands possessions in the South China Sea, which the Vietnamese call the East Sea. Chinese companies investing in Viet Nam import not only capital , equipment, and top-tier managers, but also front-line workers. China brings into Viet Nam both needed investment and unwanted problems.

The leaders and people of Viet Nam want American investment, and are willing to offer attractive terms for that investment. America has an outsized say in the world’s international development organizations. America’s political and economic interests in Southeast Asia act as a counterbalance to China’s.

I asked a manager at Vietsovpetro, the joint Viet Nam – Russia deep-sea petroleum extraction company, “Why do you continue this partnership when Viet Nam can go it alone?” He replied, “A Chinese fighter pilot  will think twice before firing on an oil platform manned with Russian workers.”

Viet Nam wants American investment and American people in Viet Nam for economic, political, and cultural reasons. The opportunity and rewards are there.

Meeting Trade Specialist My Tran in HCMC

In March this year I had the privilege of sitting down and talking with My Tran, a Commercial Specialist with the US Commercial Service at his office located in the Diamond Plaza, 34 Le Duan St., Dist. 1, HCMC. The US Commercial Service provides trade advice and assists in making connections for US businesses doing business overseas.

Officer Tran explained to me that his office provides these specialized services:

Gold key service – The office in HCMC will find partners and distributors in Vietnam and will facilitate personal introductions. This service is available only to persons present in Vietnam.

IPS (International Partner Search) – The US Commercial Service makes available to persons in the US a database used to locate partners and distributors .

Single Company Promotions – The US Commercial Service will help design and facilitate a promotional plan to introduce your business to local customers.

Market Research – The US Commercial Service will provide customized market research on the topics of market entry costs, competition, and market size. This market research can be requested by email or conference call from the US to My Tran’s office.

Recommendations for Support Advisors – The office in HCMC will recommend consulting firms on the topics of law, business set-up, and other consulting services.

Officer Tran offered these observations on doing business in Vietnam:

Licensing to do business in Vietnam can take years, but licensing time is improving.

A joint venture equity investment partner in Vietnam will speed approvals and be a source of investment capital.

Vietnam intends to honor its WTO treaty commitments. An investor is well advised to know the provisions of the WTO treaties for legal leverage with the Vietnam government agencies.

Officer Tran was very cordial, answered all my questions, and gave me information that I provided to a business in the US.

To the left of this posting a link to the US Commercial Service in HCMC if you have questions for Officer My Tran or the other commercial specialists in his office. You can find a Trade Specialist near you in the US by following this link: http://www.buyusa.gov/home/export.html. All specialists in the US have direct connection with My Tran and his team in HCMC. The US Commercial Service has another office in Hanoi.

I wish you good luck with your business in Viet Nam!

Why do business in Vietnam? – Vietnam is a New Asia Market

When you think about doing business or looking for opportunities in Vietnam, what do you think about?

Helicopters, evacuees on a rooftop in Saigon?

That was 35+ years ago. Viet Nam has changed; Asia has changed. Americans have been slow to adjust to the new balance of economic power. Europeans have taken advantage of business opportunities without the constraints of old thinking.

Watch this video clip of Eckhard Cordes, President and CEO of the Metro Group, which has eleven operating Metro Cash and Carry stores in Viet Nam, with more stores in the works.

At 5:00 minutes, Cordes begins speaking about how the Metro Group sees business development in the emerging markets, including Asia. In particular for the Metro Group, the 3rd largest retailer in the world, Cordes says, beginning at 5:50 minutes, the  following:

We are a retailer. We are size-wise the world’s number 3 retailer.  And we are a globally active retailer. Why do I emphasize retailer? We cannot export. If we want to do business, our business is truly local. So that means that emerging markets Asia, emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Russia those are the markets where we do our investments over proportionally. Which does not mean that we don’t invest in Western Europe; we do, but the relative proportion of cash investments is higher for Asian countries and Eastern European countries, otherwise we would not be able to generate a sufficiently high growth rate.

Eckhard Cordes and his management team at the Metro Group have done their financial calculations and planning. They concluded that a global retailer like Metro to remain competitive and profitable must invest in Asia.

Here is a  map of Metro Cash and Carrry stores in Viet Nam.

See Details at http://bit.ly/h5kixj

Metro does business in Viet Nam and is opening new stores in Viet Nam.

It’s time to rethink your company’s business strategy in the 21st century world marketplace.

If you’re a professional worker, are you working in the country with the best job opportunities?

Viet Nam belongs in your strategic thinking  about making money.