CMC Corporation on May 8 launch of its office in Seoul, South Korea. On this occasion, VietNamNet talks with CMC Chairman Nguyen Trung Chinh to explore the development strategy of one of the leading ICT companies in Vietnam.
31 years is a long journey in CMC Corporation’s global expansion strategy. Could you share the changes and development that CMC has undergone during this time?
After 31 years of operation, CMC currently has 10 subsidiaries with four strategic business areas, including: Digital Infrastructure, Technology and Solutions, Global Bussiness, and Research & Education. With more than 5,000 employees and annual revenues of around US$400 million, we have achieved a regional scale.
CMC’s goal by 2028 is to turn itself into a global conglomerate with around 15,000 employees and a billion-USD annuall turnover. Over the past 31 years, CMC has developed capabilities to master over 20 core technologies, satisfying the requirements of thousands of partners and clients. Particularly, CMC was ranked 12th globally for FaceID technology by the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the United States (NIST). This is the pride of CMC members.
CMC Corporation is honored to have a presence and collaborate with over 30 countries worldwide, spanning across continents from Asia to Europe and Americas, including long-standing markets such as Japan and South Korea. Especially, through the CMC Japan, we have been bringing CMC’s technological capabilities to the global market with many innovative technological values.
When launching CMC Japan, the goal was to bring CMC’s technological capabilities to the global market, particularly in Japan, with innovative and transformative technological solutions. Has CMC achieved this goal?
CMC Japan was established in 2017, with only over 50 employees. At present, we have nearly 1,000 high-quality technicians serving the Japanese market. CMC has become a leading Vietnamese ITO company in Japan. CMC will become a member of Keidaren (Japan Economic Organizations Association) very soon.
Over the past 6 years, CMC Japan has successfully completed all set targets in the Japanese market, including the targets for sales and personnel. We currently have major clients among the top 500 global companies, including Honda. Owning over 20 core technologies, including Computer Vision Technology, Natural Language Processing, Voice Processing Technologies, etc. CMC collaborates in consulting and providing digital transformation solutions for Honda, supporting smarter design and manufacturing processes with the new technologies we possess.
Personally, I believe that our journey with CMC Japan has just begun, and there are still many opportunities and challenges ahead for CMC to progress and conquer.
As for South Korea, what are CMC’s prospects for this market?
CMC has had partnerships with many South Korean companies in Vietnam for 20 years. Similar to Japan, South Korea is a highly-developed country in Northeast Asia, which experiences shortage of high-quality IT manpower. Meanwhile, Vietnam has a young population and abundant IT workforce. This is an important complementary factor and foundation for expanding our cooperation and development in this market.
On the other hand, South Korea is one of Vietnam’s comprehensive partners. South Korea has a deep cultural similarity and closeness with Vietnam. This demonstrates our cultural and historical ties.
Moreover, it is important to mention that Korean strategic partners of CMC for the past two decades are our valuable assets, for example Samsung SDS, SK Telecom (telecommunications), CJ Olive Network (ICT), Kookmin Bank (banking), GS Retail (retail), LGU+, SK Telink, and Hyundai (IT). Especially, five years ago, Samsung SDS signed a strategic investment agreement with CMC and became a major strategic shareholder.
With these factors, CMC evaluates South Korea as a promising market with many opportunities for sustainable cooperation and value.
Could you tell us more about the cooperation between CMC and Samsung SDS?
Samsung SDS is a major customer and strategic partner of CMC. We provide products and services directly to this partner.
We have participated in numerous projects with Samsung SDS. We have worked together to deliver services to clients and even collaborated to compete with others. This collaboration has taken place not only in Vietnam but also in Singapore and South Korea.
This August marks the 5th anniversary of our strategic partnership. Over the past 5 years, despite the Covid-19 epidemic and economic downturns, both sides have achieved positive results.
For CMC, our average growth rate has remained at 15% per year, which is quite impressive. Within five years, CMC’s market capitalization has tripled within five years.
Currently, CMC is still the main provider of GDC services for Samsung SDS, and Samsung SDS is an important partner of CMC in providing solutions for smart factories, and cybersecurity. Basically, we have both fulfilled the goals set over the past 5 years.
What are the short-term and long-term goals of CMC?
In the immediate future, CMC will focus on strengthening its core products, services, and traditional partnerships, such as with Samsung SDS. Additionally, we will continue to expand CMC’s presence in South Korea from now to 2028.
On May 8th, we officially launched CMC Korea, including the opening of the office and the introduction of the company’s headquarters in Seoul. CMC Korea will be a South Korean company, meaning we will invest in and become a part of South Korea, contributing to the prosperous development of both South Korea and Vietnam.
Currently, CMC has around 1000 employees in South Korea. We plan to increase the number of employees there to 3,000 by 2028.
There are several South Korean companies operating in similar fields to CMC, which experience strong development momentum with significant investments. In your opinion, what is CMC’s competitive advantage compared to those firms?
Firstly, CMC never builds its development strategy on price-based competition or on offering low costs. Secondly, in its strategy for international market competition, CMC develops its capability by creating value-added technology services that it can provide to clients. We do not want to use the term “selling,” but rather, we aim to be a provider of high-quality technology services and products that CMC possesses.
For example, the Global Delivery Center (CDC) model is CMC’s global service delivery model for partners and clients. It is noteworthy that currently, the service quality of CMC – from Vietnam – is proven to be better, not cheaper, in terms of professionalism and quality. Therefore, if we talk about human resources, which are simply basic skills like Java, .Net, in terms of price per day or per person, it actually has no competitive value compared to other competitors other than being cheap, which is a dead end. We compete by creating value for clients based on the technological capabilities and experience we have accumulated.
Our strategy is that although the market is always competitive, in reality, CMC cooperates with almost all technology partners in South Korea. Sometimes we are their competitor, but still with a cooperative spirit. Because in reality, no company owns all technological capabilities, and every company has a need for cooperation and connection with others. That is why CMC ventures into the world with the spirit of the Vietnamese nation, passionate about connectivity and sharing success together.
What services does CMC plan to provide to Korean partners, and are there any general principles for cooperating with new partners?
For South Korean companies in Vietnam, we provide them with IT solutions, smart factory management solutions, information security solutions. In terms of infrastructure, we offer Cloud infrastructure, Data Center infrastructure, network connectivity infrastructure between Vietnam and other countries…
For example, with Samsung, we are cooperating in various areas, besides providing the GDC center to assist Samsung in providing global services. All connectivity tasks, including from Vietnam to India, Vietnam to the United States, are provided by CMC. With other South Korean investors in Vietnam, we provide similar services.
CMC desires and intends to cooperate with Korean IT partners to meet the IT needs of the South Korean market. I am aware that the IT market demands in South Korea are very diverse and open. Currently, we have partners in many fields, such as financial- banking, insurance, systems provided for factories (smart factory solutions), or AI, Cloud, Security solutions… CMC will prioritize areas such as Automotive, Finance – Banking, SMEs…
CMC is considered a “major player” in the technology and telecommunications industry in Vietnam. Is this an advantage for CMC Global to conquer the global market, particularly South Korea?
After over 31 years of development, we now master over 20 core technology platforms that meet the collaboration needs of thousands of partners and customers worldwide. This is the pride of CMC.
It is also a favorable platform for CMC Global as it ventures into the world. This means that we will invest to make CMC Korea a Korean company, contributing to the prosperous development of South Korea.
Over the past 800 years, Vietnam and South Korea have established close relations. Mr. Ly Long Tuong and the Ly family of Vietnam came to Korea to work and contribute to the development of this country. I hope that this tradition will be continued by CMC to further develop a sustainable relationship and contribute to the development of South Korea.
