The Potential Market in Vietnam

This October, our servo press had to be transferred to the Vietnam for participating the manufacturing exhibition. The demo kit for this time was from the Thailand and had been demonstrated over four times in distinct exhibition. I would be able to support this task without too much pressure which would be the utter different situation from the Taipei Automation. Due to the experience of last time in Thailand, I had known the matter with regard to demonstrate the demo kit abroad, especially in the Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, one of the members I had met in Thailand last time, which could be obviously helpful for the smother communication. However, not only the short preparation time for visa application, the schedule of the business trip in Vietnam also continuous change all along prior to departure. The key point was that there were serious happened from the servo press in Da Nang, and our manager assessed whether or not I had to leave for Da Nang to support this tricky issue after the exhibition. Indeed, the schedule of the client and exhibition concerned, the plan had been changed again and again. Eventually, for this business trip, I had to go to Saigon three days for the exhibition and go to the Da Nang nine days for helping solve the problems. This would be the long time trip for me without any Taiwanese support locally.

The first day was mere for moving, but I had met several unexpected problems due to the luggage preparation and traffic jam. Thankfully, the above problems had been solved and I had the good and smooth process for leaving for the Saigon city. I would have the half day hang out the city due to the earlier arrived time. There are no MRT in the Saigon city, so I required taking the grab car if I wanted to go anywhere. With the more experience of business trip in Thailand, I had the comprehensive plan for sign seeing this time. I took the grab car to the downtown where is far from the location of hotel I stayed, and then I went around the famous viewpoints in the city on foot. Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam with lots of big department stores and markets. Meanwhile, enormous European historical building located here due to the French colony in the past. This is the very big city with crowded people, and the traffic problems caused by excessive motorcycles without the efficient public transportation. The first day was finished by visiting the main train station. Then, I went back to the hotel little earlier to prepare the work for setting up the exhibition next day.

Next day, after finishing the simple breakfast at hotel, I had met our teammates in the lobby prior to departure for exhibition hall. The major task this day was unpacking the demonstration machine and turning the proper motion parameter with the stable running test. The exhibition hall is also far from our hotel, but one of our members was familiar with the environment and took us there by grab car. Due to the long distance between the hotel and exhibition hall, our principal determine to change the hotel which was much closer to the exhibition hall. We had arrived there so early that the fundamental decoration hadn’t completed yet. The principal our this exhibition who had expatriated in Vietnam for several years took us hang around and introduced something special not only near the exhibition hall but also the Vietnam. We had stayed in the beverage shop and chat for a while. Eventually, we went back to the exhibition hall in the early afternoon. Most of our demonstration machine had been showed in another exhibition previously. We were able to make the simple adjustment without encountering the difficult problems. The task first was much easier than which had been in the Taipei Automation Expo on August. Consequently, all of us had finished the work early and our principal took us to eat the Korean BBQ which one I even hadn’t eaten in Taiwan. Second day, we also went back to hotel early, but I also went around the neighborhood near the hotel where is located in the downtown and utterly distinct from what was the day before. It is famous for its night life with a vast amount of pub and fashion restaurant. I had visited the most crowded area with the loud music all around and then went back to hotel for finishing this day.

The third day was for the formal opening, it was also similar to what held in Taiwan and Thailand. I required introducing our product to the potential clients in English. However, one the significant potential clients had been reserved with the sales and felt like to make the trial with our machine. They came to our stall and asked much deeper questions. They took some samples but we were not able to conduct the trial immediately due to lacking the essential jig, so this task would be delivery to Taiwan and provided the results afterward. This night I had to depart for DaNang for another mission, so I had handover and say goodbye for the teammate for exhibition. I had took the grab car earlier because I was afraid of something happened due to the unfamiliar circumstance. There are the international and domestic airports in the similar area, but there were no big problems for me to find out the correct position. This was the first time that I took the domestic airline abroad, but I always there were no differences from taking the international line. After one and half hour, I arrived in DaNang city. Compare to the Saigon city, the pace here is much slower. There was no pick-up here, so I took the grab car again to the hotel where is not located too far from airport. One of our colleagues from Taiwan had been here for the previous works two days ago, so I sent the message to him and we will met and handover next day.