Starting a business is easy, sustainability is difficult

Except for some specific business types that require a minimum charter capital, otherwise, with 2 million or 500 billion dong, you can set up a business to start a business.

But start-up is not a story of spending money and starting a business of a product or service. The difficulty lies in maintaining a career, how to operate a sustainable business.

“Corporate lifespan” is a talking number and it tells us the development of each market, each economy. In Vietnam, just under 5% of start-ups “get” to celebrate their 2nd birthday – a very low percentage and a sad reality. In the US, this figure is about 50% and by the 5th birth, it is still 15-20% of businesses.

Hai Phong Cement Factory has a business life of 123 years

In the first 6 months of 2019, 50,780 enterprises withdrew from the market. On average, 8,463 businesses withdraw from the market every month. That was the time right before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the pandemic took place, in the past 2 years we have faced economic disruptions, market disruptions, many businesses had to leave the game.

Some of the causes of the “premature death” of businesses are due to the fact that start-ups are often prone to failure, poorly prepared business plans, do not carefully research and anticipate risks from market, leadership capacity and management experience are not enough, financial capacity is weak, etc. There are also some quite specific reasons such as it is often difficult or unqualified for domestic enterprises to receive incentives. compared with joint-venture enterprises, foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises and state-owned enterprises. In addition, it is also important to acknowledge that we are lacking in new, unique ideas that bring different trends, which are an important source of intangible capital for startups.

Systems management thinking

Systems management thinking requires seeing things in a wide, comprehensive perspective, with a correlation with the environment. Business leaders need to have “3 eyes”, which are bird’s eye, ant’s eye and fish’s eye to have a multi-faceted view.

– Bird’s eye: wide, sweeping vision, looking at the whole scene, seeing the big picture. See all the components of the system.

– Ant’s eye: meticulous, detailed, specific perspective on each action and phenomenon. See details of each component, how the part is working.

– Fish’s eye: see the alignment of the flow. The important feature of the system lies not only in the components, but also in the interconnection between them. This mindset requires identifying and promoting the connections between components so that the system can operate smoothly.

Along with that, breaking precedent is also a business leadership mindset to have. What made you successful in the past cannot make you successful in the future. A business cycle usually lasts 5-7 years, in each of these cycles there are internal factors (corporate culture, human resources, financial resources, machinery and equipment, …) and external factors (politics, policies, competitors, etc.) are relatively stable for enterprises to develop appropriate development strategies. However, after a business cycle, internal and external factors have many changes, requiring enterprises to restructure and break down the old system. Especially in the current era of information technology development, the time of a cycle will tend to decrease to about 3-4 years. suitable.

Short Vision – Small Aspiration

If you consider the top of Mount Everest – the roof of the world as a symbol of extraordinary achievements, how will you conquer that mountain? Those who plan to climb to the top of the mountain never think that they just need to climb to Base Camp and then plan to climb again. Before arriving in Nepal to participate in this journey, they had to carefully visualize and prepare carefully for the entire journey from the foot of the mountain to Base Camp and then to the top. The nearly 9,000m high peak is only for those who have a plan from the very beginning, they set big goals and carefully prepare for that big goal, not “get there or get there”.

Everest – a long and adventurous journey that always needs careful preparation

Of course a journey can be divided into many stages, each leg has its own strategies to suit each stage. But if the vision is broken, the plan is short-term, and it is not synchronized, it is difficult to go on a long journey.

Put in our context, isn’t a 10-year goal, a 20-year vision still not long enough? The lack of uniformity and consistency in macro policies is also a risk for businesses. Therefore, it is very difficult for businesses to calculate long-term, leading to the tendency to focus on short-term goals or the mentality of grabbing, hitting quickly, winning quickly. That will not create a sustainable national business ecosystem.

The Duomo in Milan was built over nearly 6 centuries with many different architects, but in the end it is still the symbol of the City of Milan, the pride of the Italian people. The Duomo was built in the Gothic style, however, each architect brought his own “something” that contributed to the building without spoiling the overall spirit. That shows the vision from the previous generation and the respect and inheritance of the following generations.

A business that wants to be sustainable in the long run as well as building such a great project, the question is, why do we do it? What do we start a business for?

When an idea pops up, we develop a plan, a strategy to execute that idea. But the plans laid out almost only go into depth to answer the questions What (What is the goal, what is the goal, scope, level, …), When (When), Where (Where is it). ), Who (Who does it) and How (How to do it). We forget that the first question to answer is Why – the answer is the mission of the business.

Hai Phong Cement Factory has a business life of 123 years

In the first 6 months of 2019, 50,780 enterprises withdrew from the market. On average, 8,463 businesses withdraw from the market every month. That was the time right before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the pandemic took place, in the past 2 years we have faced economic disruptions, market disruptions, many businesses had to leave the game.

Some of the causes of the “premature death” of businesses are due to the fact that start-ups are often prone to failure, poorly prepared business plans, do not carefully research and anticipate risks from market, leadership capacity and management experience are not enough, financial capacity is weak, etc. There are also some quite specific reasons such as it is often difficult or unqualified for domestic enterprises to receive incentives. compared with joint-venture enterprises, foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises and state-owned enterprises. In addition, it is also important to acknowledge that we are lacking in new, unique ideas that bring different trends, which are an important source of intangible capital for startups.

Vietnam is processing billions of pairs of shoes a year for big brands like Nike and Adidas, but we still can’t create our own brand – Photo: VNA

All aspects of product development such as technology, functions, human resources, etc. are available. The key to affirming a value that stands out from the world is a story, an intangible value, a culture that is breathed into the product, and the lack of businesses that are big enough to tell that story to the world.

Technology will eventually approach, whatever feature the iPhone has, other phone companies can also make the same feature. But the iPhone is not afraid, what they have is not only modern technologies but also cultural class.

“We have to sell culture and quality to the world, not just the product,” was the design concept of Art Director Giulio Cappellini when he embarked on elevator design. And so, the elevator is not only a means of transportation but also a work of art that brings greater cultural values ​​than its original function.

An elevator design designed by Giulio Cappellini titled “Golden Age” from the “POP Up” collection inspired by the classic Oscar-winning film “It happened onenight” in 1934 – a testament to the product that brings cultural values

Culture, if only appearing on the product, will not be enough, deep enough. It needs to come from the basic core of services and people of the business. It will need to be like a flow throughout the process of building and maturing to permeate each individual, each service of the business. At that time, corporate culture is no longer a cliché slogan but becomes natural and close. It also becomes an unwritten law, implicitly stipulating the ethics, behavior, and actions of individuals in organizations and businesses. In fact, the more the organization has a cultural depth and depth, the higher the stability, the more it creates the greater and more developed customer experience journey. That creates sustainability for businesses, employees and contributes to social quality growth.

Then, we will not have to follow and imitate anyone. We will shape our own game with our inner power.