2007 was an up-and-down year for Vietnamese IT companies. The IT market became bigger and fluctuated very rapidly in the year, greatly influenced IT firms.
M&A (merge & acquisition) is normal thing of the international IT circle but it was really strong in Vietnam in 2007. Because of M&A, some wholly Vietnamese-owned companies suddenly became Japanese or Israelis ones. Some small programming groups became teams of Japanese firms. Some foreign companies established their subsidiaries in Vietnam. For example, GATe Technology was born from a joint venture between GCS and some French firms. TMA Solutions cooperated with Danish and Swiss partners to establish IT service providing subsidiaries.
The local IT circle is keeping an eye on US-based Computer Sciences Corporation’s (CSC) acquisition of First Consulting Group, Inc, the mother group of FCG Vietnam early this year.
CSC is a provider of applications, systematic integration, software processing services while FCG is specialised in consulting and development with 2,500 staffs, including over 600 in Vietnam. It is a good news for Vietnam’s IT industry if FCG Vietnam joins CSC’s contingent of 87,000 workers in 92 countries, with 2007 revenue of $14.9 billion in 2007.
The forerunner of FCG Vietnam was a small company named Tan Tien, which was set up by a group of students from the Electronic Faculty of HCM City University of Technology. Tan Tien named was replaced by Paragon Vietnam when some Vietnamese American from Paragon Solutions Inc. came to Vietnam to seek partner. FCG Inc. then bought Paragon and Paragon Vietnam became FCG Vietnam.
M&A affairs have brought Tan Tien to the world. Despite changes, this firm is focusing on the local market, rather than outsourcing activities.
The negotiation for the merging of SilkRoad and Global CyberSoft, which were invested by the same investment fund, sometimes lured the public. But finally, Harvey Nash, a British software processing and employment consulting group, bought SilkRoad. According to Harvey Nash, they want to develop software in Asia and use the high-quality IT human resources of Vietnam to serve its business in Europe and the US.
Meanwhile, small companies coordinated with each other to become stronger or became partners of big groups. These changes made the local IT market nearer to the sensitive environment of the world, which has many opportunities and challenges. Anyways, experts said this is positive move, which can help form big IT companies in Vietnam.
The failure of Project 112 left a big lesson to the IT sector. That’s the awareness of where the real value of IT is: in information or in technology? IT firms begin to realise the core value of information, not technology. The concept about information-based development is spreading and it is considered the most positive sign in the IT world last year.
IT firms expect the change of thinking of management agencies and businesses about the urgent change of administration model, which use IT as support tools for system reforms.
Source: TBKTVN/VNN