Unlike the early stage of the crisis, when businesses
strived to maintain key positions to keep everything stable to deal with the
crisis, a lot of high positions at big conglomerates have changed hands.

Local newspapers have reported the changes with a series of key positions at big
corporations over the last few weeks. “Resigning because of family reasons,” or
“carrying out the transferring between the generations of leaders,” are the
words which have been used to explain the personnel changes.

As businesses are facing mountains of difficulties, since the production and
service systems have become stagnant because consumers have turned their back to
the products, the personnel restructuring has become an urgent task which aims
to seek new factors which can drive businesses to overcome the current
difficulties.

The “hot seats”

The biggest changes in the high ranking staff that have been made recently can
be seen in the two fields of finance and technology. Gtel, Microsoft, Lenovo,
FPT, VTC, VDC, the “big guys” in the information technology, all have new
managing directors.

The newly appointed chief executive officer of Microsoft Vietnam, Jamie Harper,
has been known as the person who has 12 years of working for Microsoft and has
many experiences in newly emerging markets. His new role is to obtain the goals
that the manager of the giant group, Steve Ballmer, once discussed with the
Government of Vietnam.

The Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT) has changed its
management team, from chief executive officer (CEO) to deputy general director
and key branding personnel. State owned enterprises like VDC and VTC have also
injected new blood to the companies’ apparatus by replacing with young managers,
or transferring good business officers in local markets to the company’s head
offices.

Big changes have also been seen in the finance sector, from the banks such as
HSBC, SeABank, TienPhongBank, VietinBank, to investment funds, securities
companies and insurance companies such as BIC, Lien Viet, Manulife, SHS,
VISecurities. HSBC said it needs the manager who has experiences about the
business environment in Vietnam, while many other financial institutions have
replaced the key positions because of the ineffective business.

The pressure on apparatus restructuring

Tim Baxter, General Director of DHL Vietnam, said that it is really very
difficult to find out high ranking managers in a young market like Vietnam,
especially in specific fields. A high ranking manager needs to have a thorough
knowledge about the market and needs to be keen on realizing the potential
market areas.

He went on to say that one of the biggest difficulties of enterprises is the
lack of qualified workforce. Besides, enterprises have to compete fiercely not
only with rival companies, but with their clients as well.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Dao, General Director of Samsung Vina, said that the
crisis came to Vietnam later than to other countries: it rushed down in 2009,
while the biggest difficulties appear in 2011. When the market falls into
difficulties, companies have been put under the pressure of boosting sales and
restructuring the management.

He said that in Vietnam, the young labor force which likes changes, and the
experienced leaders who have thorough knowledge about the market are not many;
therefore, it is very difficult for companies to finds suitable managers.

Also according to Dao, since the market has developed strongly, enterprises need
to follow new ways of using personnel. Old people cannot get adapted to the new
rapid changes on the market. Enterprises need to find out new factors to
develop. Meanwhile, in order to restructure enterprises, they need new staff and
new thoughts.

Source: SGTT