On the occasion of Vietnam Entrepreneurs' Day, October 13, the stories of those working in the elevator industry suggest various ways for businesses to find their standing in the market. Some see opportunity in a particular need. Some spend years perfecting a single mechanical detail. Some return to heritage to develop designs, while others persistently absorb knowledge to gradually master technology.
Export is often imagined as tied to large factories, where businesses manufacture everything from components to finished products. In the global economy, opportunities to reach further also come from the ability to design, develop solutions, and organize production together with partners. An idea pursued to the end, a capability honed deeply enough, can open the way for Vietnamese products.
Selling products is an important result. The reason customers choose a business also reveals how far that business can go.
That is also what connects the stories below: discovering one's own value and persistently making that value the reason customers trust and choose you.
In a conversation with Elevator Magazine, Mr. Nguyen Duy Tan - Director of Sang Nghiep Elevator Company - spoke with great enthusiasm about round elevators. According to him, this product line has a smaller customer base than other popular elevator lines but demands high technical and aesthetic standards.
That very characteristic led him to see an opportunity suited to his company's capabilities and development direction.
Speaking about the story behind the "Made in Vietnam" C/O certificate of the Vietnamese round elevator exported to India, Mr. Nguyen Duy Tan expressed pride that the customer chose the product for its technical and technological value, rather than for its low price.
For those in the trade, that choice carries great meaning: the years of dedicated pursuit were understood and appreciated, so that the product they made could travel far on its own true value.
From an interest in an export order also comes a process of learning new methods and new procedures. The first official export to India involved many new formalities, forcing the company to research and meet them. Requirements for meticulousness and completeness were also higher.
Mr. Nguyen Duy Tan accepted those difficulties as a necessary step for the company to mature, and then brought those improvements back to serve Vietnamese customers. Competing with mass-produced popular products is very difficult; meeting a specific need with specialized capability is a path he believes can be pursued.
In its aspiration to conquer the market with distinctive values, GamaLift returns to Vietnamese culture as the source of creative inspiration. From the depth of heritage, the company wishes to create technology products with their own identity, bringing Vietnamese beauty into contemporary life and reaching out to broader markets.
That spirit is present in "Voc", the opening collection of the Orona × LaPass Signature project. The depth of lacquer, the elegance of the lotus, the beauty of artistic ceramics on the call panel together create an elevator space rich in identity.
Familiar materials and images are expressed through a new design language, so that each time one steps into the cabin is an occasion to encounter the thousand-year heritage of Vietnamese culture.
Behind that encounter is the connecting role of GamaLift, bringing Orona Elevator Group and LaPass together to develop elevator designs with their own stories. A European technology foundation combined with artistic thinking and Vietnamese craftsmanship opens additional expressive possibilities for traditional materials.
Every line and surface is placed in relation to function and the overall architecture, so that beauty becomes a natural part of the user experience.
Following "Voc", collections applying the arts of mother-of-pearl inlay, porcelain, phap lam enamel... will open other perspectives on heritage. Through the ideas of designers and the hands of craftsmen, each material gains a new life: present in the project, close to people through everyday contact.
Culture is continued through those very moments of looking, touching, and feeling.
From a space familiar for its transport function, GamaLift sees an opportunity to tell the Vietnamese story through design and technology. There, pride in heritage goes together with faith in today's creativity, nurturing the aspiration to bring products bearing Vietnamese identity to the world.
Traveling far with each product is the beauty of the materials, the skill of the craftsmen, and a part of Vietnamese culture that is discovered and appreciated.
There are also businesses that find their development path by narrowing the product scope, devoting their effort and intellect to doing one part of the work really well.
For Mekamic, that means pulleys and precision mechanical products - where the craftsmanship, patience, and self-respect of those in the trade are expressed in every detail.
From orders serving the domestic elevator industry, Mekamic's products have earned the trust and selection of Japanese partners. That "nod of approval" carries the pride of those in mechanical engineering: products made by their own hands and intellect have met the requirements of customers in a new market. From this milestone, the company continues to seek more opportunities in other markets such as Thailand.
To extend that journey, every shipment must maintain the precision and quality that built the initial trust. The care begins with the cast iron blank, through each machined cable groove, each assembly dimension, to the bearing assembly stage.
Within those tasks rarely seen by users lies the daily effort so that every product leaving the factory is worthy of the trust it has received.
"Good products do not come to us by themselves. They are the result of accumulated improvements day by day... day by day... Only improvement brings better, more positive things - both for customers and for manufacturers like us." - shared Mr. Mai Manh Hien, General Director of Mekamic Industrial Construction and Equipment Joint Stock Company.
A detail rarely seen by users can still be where a business builds its competitive capability.
For Vietnam's elevator industry, that capability also contributes to enhancing localization capacity and expanding domestic component options. A well-made pulley can contribute to the quality of many elevator systems.
And more importantly, localization capability also grows from those specific tasks.
The capability of the elevator industry is built from well-manufactured details, and also from the ability to understand and master how the parts operate together. From mechanics to control, each step forward opens more opportunities for Vietnamese people to participate more deeply in the product.
In the field of control, the Institute of Applied Elevator Engineering (VILEA) chose to cooperate with INTEC GmbH of Germany to absorb and gradually master elevator control technology. The two sides' announcement of cooperation in April 2026 has opened a process that Vietnam's elevator industry needs to pursue over the long term.
The VILEA-INT control cabinet solution brings that ambition into a concrete product, using the open communication platform CANopen-Lift, which allows technicians to integrate equipment from various suppliers. That structure opens more options when repairing and upgrading elevators, while also creating conditions for engineers to practice building configurations and gradually participate in designing and controlling systems.
For an elevator that needs maintenance, repair, and upgrading over many years, the ability to understand the control system is the foundation for serving customers over the long term. Technicians must be able to identify the cause of faults, assess the compatibility of equipment, and find solutions suited to each project.
Each problem solved is also a time when absorbed knowledge becomes the experience of the domestic team, showing how deeply we are participating in elevator technology.
According to VILEA, the VILEA-INT solution has been applied at Huu Nghi Hospital and the Formosa metallurgical industrial zone. One place demands high-frequency service, while the other places equipment in a harsh industrial environment. Those projects put absorbed knowledge to the real test, where the team must apply what they have learned to solve each specific problem.
The journey of mastering technology requires more than a signing ceremony or a product brought to market; it involves training, testing, and repeated adjustments. The precious achievement is that after each project, Vietnamese engineers can take on one more requirement, solve one more problem, and feel more confident in their decisions.
Four directions show that Vietnamese businesses have many ways to participate in and conquer the elevator market: meeting a special need, developing designs with identity, specializing in components, or absorbing knowledge to gradually master control systems.
Each choice stems from a different capability, but all require businesses to clearly understand the value they can bring to customers.
Perhaps, the journey of Vietnamese products going far begins there - from the moment a business recognizes the value it can contribute and has enough dedication to nurture it to the end. So that when a product enters a project or reaches a new market, what is welcomed is also the intellect, identity, and faith in the people who made it.
