In line with our commercial development strategy in the Asia-Pacific area, Pentalog will attend the 10th edition of the ASEAN forum organized by UbiFrance in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) between 27 and 30 November.

10th ASEAN Forum

Around fifty French companies will come together to share their experiences, best practices related to commercial development in the area in general and in each member state in particular. Moreover, many B2B appointments have been set with a view to encountering future clients/business partners.

If you are looking for a top-level partner in the field of IT services in the area, if you have a customer portfolio, but you lack production capacity, if you have a revolutionary idea, but you need an incubator to turn it into a concept, if you want to join our team or if you are just interested in Pentalog and you are in Kuala Lumpur in this period, feel free to contact me: tnguyenquoc@pentalog.fr.

We made it, we are achieving business development in Asia. The rumour was going around the block (well, the blog) for a long time now, but we wanted to wait for the first deal to be closed before letting you know more about it.

In addition to enhancing its production capacities by setting up the new branch office in Cluj, Romania, at the end of July this year and very likely another one in Tunisia shortly, the Pentalog group strives to increase sales in other parts of the world as well, namely in Israel, in the US, in Poland, and, of course, in Asia as we have been present in Vietnam for the past 3 years now!

We knew right from the very beginning that selling in Vietnam would be (quite) different from our trade habits in Europe, so we had to carry out proper market research in order to establish where, how and what to sell. The numerous meetings we had with our potential buyers enabled us to define some of the market requirements, the purchasing habits and, above all, the services which definitely set our IT outsourcing company apart from local players.

Our expertise in large-scale IT projects, our industrialized work processes, our certified quality assurance system, our recruitment and training capacity, as well as our highly proficient international team are so many of our strengths. However, the fast growing market in Vietnam has the following distinctive characteristics:
- Mandatory face-to-face contact (online purchase is still faraway), referral-based contact is strongly recommended
- Services are seldom purchased, instead customers look for solutions including customization and maintenance services
- Difficulty in defining the needs (and in the same time the fixed-price contract is seen as a standard), the customer does not have the required proficiency to follow up and control the project development
- A few issues related to the transparency of the supplier selection process, to say the least

Therefore, we most definitely have to add a client control and a project management support layer to our regular services. Already, we have been chosen by THE very first Vietnamese customer in the insurance business sector to assist them in their strategic portal project from scratch, namely to draw the list of requirements, to plan the progress and to implement it.

Apart from the Vietnamese market, we are also aiming at reaching nearshore destinations – with reference to Vietnam – like Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore in the near future. I am well aware that, in the past, we already targeted Japan and canceled it out because of the global recession, but this time we are definitely going to make it.

Taking advantage of the presence of our CEO, Frédéric LASNIER, in Vietnam, on Thursday, November 3rd, we set up a meeting in the Hanoi office with potential buyers from different business sectors: banking, telecommunication, consulting, industrial production… Our dear visitors had the opportunity to better understand Pentalog and the IT services we provide, to visit our production site which is in compliance with European standards, to have a chat with our employees and enjoy a lovely lunch together. Many thanks to them for what we see as a win-win situation as there are some promising collaboration opportunities underway following this meeting.

For further information on the services we provide in Vietnam and in the Pacific- Asia region, you are welcome to contact us in order to set up a meeting or a visit to our premises:
Phone.: 00(84) 43 79 50 699
E-mail: hightech@pentalog.vn
Website: www.pentalog.vn

As Alex already mentioned a little while ago in this article, Pentalog is beginning its conquest of the Japanese market in order to develop its client portfolio in Asia. Thus, it wishes to take advantage of its Vietnamese office whose production has now reached a certain level of maturity after two years of experiences on complex project platforms for European customers.

Since then, we have started specific operations: market analysis, active involvement on Japanese social networks, contacting and discussing with different professionals, adapting marketing materials in Japanese etc. As far as I am concerned, I had a lot of discussions with people who have experience on this market. The observations that I have made are rather convergent:

As regards the market, despite the ongoing crisis which brought about a decrease by 7.6% in offshore services in 2009, the volume is still considerable, reaching 8.6 billion dollars (~10% of the total volume of the Japanese IT market). Application development, maintenance and migration, BPO, embedded technologies and infrastructure and hosting services are some of the main outsourced services. China is undeniably the most important offshoring destination for Japan, holding a 50% market share, thus surpassing India, the Philippines or even Vietnam. Nevertheless, this dependence on China urges Japanese companies to look more and more for an alternative called the “China + 1” strategy. This new strategy provides Vietnam with an extraordinary opportunity, but also with a competition challenge with other low-cost countries (the Philippines, Indonesia etc.).

The Japanese offshore market, resembling “conservative” markets like France, is still too weak as compared to the overall market. Embedded activities are particularly difficult to outsource due to the risk of losing control over technologies. However, the lack of resources will compel the government to review their policy in the near future, which is yet another good news for Vietnam .

The Japanese also have a particular kind of decision-making process. From a cultural perspective, any cooperation must be based on long-term confidence, which is difficult to obtain rapidly (unlike in Western countries where it is possible to sign contracts in less than three months); on the other hand, former employees (senior consultants) are highly sought after for helping their former companies choose the right provider.

Although well ranked, holding numerous advantages, Vietnam has to meet challenges that are pretty much the same as for its other customer countries (including France where Pentalog Vietnam has acquired a great deal of experience):
- Plentiful resources, but a lack of business expertise
- Good developers, but a lack of good project managers
- A lack of Japanese speakers
- A low level of productivity, compared to Japanese levels. According to a study published several years ago, when working with a Vietnamese provider one had to double the estimation made for a Japanese provider. Of course, in the meantime the situation has changed.

All of this confirms Pentalog’s interest in opening an office in Japan. But we now have better knowledge as to the approach we are going to use. A large network of acquaintances made through recommendations and a “senior consultant” local manager are vital. We are soon going to make a trip to Japan in order to identify the right people. As regards the rest of the issues mentioned above, we are confident in our model which has already been proven in Eastern Europe and Vietnam:
- Strong emphasis on learning the language/culture of our customers
- Investing in project management and quality assurance training
- Metrics/bonus system allowing to monitor the performance of our employees and help them make constant improvement.

To be continued

Ngo Bao Chau, an authentic Vietnamese name, was pronounced at Hyderabad in India last Wednesday (August 19th) as one of the four winners of the Fields medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics (we could say that this is the Nobel of mathematics). His works deal with the Langlands programme (I will let you discover on your own what it is about ).

Vietnam is therefore the second Asian country to have won this medal, after Japan. Less than 50 people have been awarded this medal since its creation in 1936. This is a national pride for the Vietnamese people who are also trying to assert themselves on today’s international stage and not just through the painful war victories they obtained in the past.

We cannot forget France, hence the title of this post, where Bao Chau carried out most of his research work at the Paris-Sud University under the supervision of Gérard Laumon who had another student who won the Fields medal in 2002 (Laurent Lafforgue)!

Vietnam gave Bao Chau the necessary knowledge for his start, while France offered him wings to fly as high as possible. The precious grey matter does not belong to a single people, but to the entire humanity. Pentalog’s restricted case also proves that projects of worldwide clients can easily be carried out by French, Romanian, Moldovan or Vietnamese teams. It is from this diversity and internationalization that stems Pentalog’s strength, because we can draw the greatest assets from everyone.

My only regret is that the entire French press only mentioned Bao Chau as being French! He is first of all Vietnamese and was only naturalized in 2010.

PS: I take a small personal pride in having had the chance to attend the same primary and secondary school as Bao Chau

Well, no it isn’t yet the New Year for us

Vietnam (and other countries across Asia) is celebrating the New Year following the lunar calendar. In Vietnam this period is called the Tết. The first day of the year usually falls in January or February depending on the year. This year it will be Sunday 14/02 (and yes, a promising year for love!)

Tết is a special time for all Vietnamese, whatever they do, wherever they are. All Viets want to go home, and spend time with their family, relatives, and friends. Just look at the number of Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) returning back to Vietnam during this period of “chaos”: there are many people traveling on the roads now because all those who work in big cities return to their hometown.

I would like to use this post to wish you all a great year of the Tiger, only happiness, success, and health. I wish that the Tiger will be with you in this exceptional year.

Chúc mừng xuân Canh Dần 2010!

I would like to publish this article from Guy:

… survived the frenzied, dantesque, terrifying traffic of Hanoi. The first confrontation is frightening; one is paralyzed when seeing this steady stream of motorcycles in front of you. Impenetrable, insurmountable, and certainly not linear and spread out: everyone changes lanes or direction about 200 times per kilometer and keeps preferably to the right, just before turning left and crossing the complete flow of traffic. Or vice versa.
Sometimes at night on a one way street 30 m wide, fully occupied, you will find a bike with no lights going down the street the wrong way, nothing out of the ordinary; he just saved himself 500 m doing so. Signal lights are unknown.

The favorite vehicle is the super bike of local production, perfectly suited to its environment. Two or three brands share the market, but THE MUST is actually the Honda Wave (97 cm3, 4 stroke, a great gearbox without a clutch).

Wave or not, all these bikes are perfectly quiet (too bad we don’t have the
same in France!), they do not give off any exhaust fumes and are built to last forever. It must be said that motorbike pooling is widely practiced here, up to two adults and three children on the same bike. One can just as easily carry a 123 cm television not attached to the carrier or 50 live ducks. Scooters are also making inroads, especially amongst the girls.

If there were only 2 wheels vehicles, everything could be understood. But there are also the cars, more and more of them. And not just small ones, particularly in the better neighborhoods! In principle, the Hanoi driver does not tolerate anyone in front of him, motorcycle or car. So he honks almost continuously to clear the passage. Totally spent after 10,000 kilometers, the horn must be changed every oil change, along with the oil filter.

But you will mostly likely say to me, that such a way to drive is incompatible with what we know of the Vietnamese State, we would assume that they would make everyone go in the right direction and quietly! That is without knowing this proud people who advance whatever happens, all in the same direction, but each in his own way!

Days pass. You take a taxi four times a day, and then you walk; you begin to dare to cross the stream of traffic, putting at risk your life. Perhaps you make a trip on the back seat of a motorcycle, putting in danger again… And then things become more and more understandable, the monster becomes less threatening, all these motorcyclists are applying the same rule, a totally opportunistic way of driving, each person takes immediate possession of whatever space is being liberated in front of him, left or right. This asynchronous behavior that optimizes time and road space is possible. And no sign of aggression in all of this, just an obsession to win some time, so important to these people who never stop…

And I’m starting to dream. A dream of a less civilized western world, with fewer rules,
fewer prohibitions and obligations. Fewer radars. A world where we could drive more spontaneously, take more advantage of the moment, more in tune with the traffic and the weather. But I know that those looking after us are watching, and will give nothing.

Well my boy, maybe I’ll immigrate to Vietnam after all? But as long as they do not make me eat dog or cobra on the floor! Definitely not that!

Guy LASNIER

After the visit of the French Prime Minister in which Fred was a part of the official delegation, we had yet another busy week participating in the Vietnam Comm 2009 exhibition; meeting of businesses and graduates organized by the French Embassy, the inauguration of the IMAGINE-IT Center at the Polytechnic school of Hanoi and recruitment simulation interviews held at the PFIEV. Pentalog participates with enthusiasm at every opportunity in these French speaking programs which are increasing in Vietnam.

Thursday night we hosted a dinner to celebrate, “unofficially” the first year of Pentalog in Vietnam (I think it will be about December 31 that we will really celebrate, when moving into our new offices). Pentalog Vietnam today has: 40 employees, 4 active project platforms, the delivered quality level is now approaching the level of our Romanian / Moldovan colleagues, especially from a development perspective this is very promising for 2010 and not only for offshore (Fred will explain this in more detail).

What is extraordinary is to see how Pentalog is being recognized in Vietnam, and after only such a short period of time. Using tools such as the website, blog, social networks, and mailing list, in which we are extremely active and transparent in our communication vis-a-vis our customers, our partners, our employees, our future partners and our friends. People “external” to our company are informed almost at the same time as we are about the company’s activities. We maintain very few “secrets” for ourselves, everyone through our communications can already know 60% -70% of what is happening. I think, personally, it is difficult to find any other company that shares the same level of published information. I had confidence in our business model even before I met with Fred, and applied for a position in this Pentalog adventure which I learned about through this blog.

At the Vietnam Comm exhibition, without being put in touch with anyone, a man came up to me asking “You are Tuấn of Pentalog? I know who you are because I read your blog. There is no need to say more about how much pleasure this gave all of us at this time. This man is finally a Viet Kieu from France who has worked in Romania and trained some of our employees before they joined Pentalog to participate in our most important embedded development platform in the Telecom field. He is in Vietnam working on projects which can eventually lead us to work together one day.

Yes I am Tuấn of Pentalog.

It’s been a while since I have written a post on the blog since I became one of the official writers. This is because I need a certain peace to be able to write and this has not been the case lately. Today, it is a quiet Saturday, I am sitting in my living room and watching TV, and I have found the inspiration to write to you and share a few thoughts about the city that I would like to call “the mistress of my life”: Hanoi.

I would like to say that inspiration is not born of chance; today, Oct 10 is a special day for the city. We will celebrate not only 999 years of its existence but also the official 55th anniversary of its liberation from colonial occupation.

I cannot say that I am originally from Hanoi, because my father was from another town, 80km north of Hanoi. But I was born and raised in this city, I consider myself 99% Hanoian and proud of all its qualities and defects. My whole childhood is engraved with a quiet, peaceful Hanoi crossed by the Red River, with its narrow streets, houses with a strong colonial influence, lakes and especially the bicycles. I would do anything to return to the days when my father rode my mother and me on his bike, there were no traffic jams, no pollution, and no honking.

Hanoi in the years 1980 to 1990

Hanoi is like an Asian girl: shy, modest but with an irresistible beauty that you never forget. It can never really reveal all its secrets, and charms. She will win your heart the first time you visit her, you will see her and she will become the love of your life. But like all daughters of the modern world, she has entered a period of puberty, and rebellion. The city is changing every day, growing incredibly fast, and is enveloping the neighboring towns to become one of the largest cities in the world, in size. Traffic problems, congestion and poor urbanization are increasing. Everything is moving faster, and not for the better.

Hanoi during the historical floods of 2008

Yet my love for Hanoi has never changed. This city will further develop economically, socially and culturally, to deserve its place in history for a city celebrating its 1000th anniversary. But nothing will stop me from living here, working here and I love the idea that my children will grow up here. I have confidence in Hanoi, that it will still be more beautiful, charming and ever more modern and I am proud and happy to share this love for this city with you through this post.

Sword Lake in the center of Hanoi today 10/10/2009

This post has nothing to do with our offshore business and I do not know if Fred will allow me to publish it, but I try my luck anyway. Who would have ever thought that globalization would allow Hanoi, 55 years after the occupation, to appear on the Pentalog map. Only in Pentalog can the Vietnamese work side by side, with the Romanians, Moldovan and of course, the French. Let us put behind us the difficulties in the starting-up of our first draft in the branch; Hanoi is accelerating its development pace. We sent a team to Iasi for a second project, a few weeks ago. Now I have successfully built a great team of 4 people, for the first phase of an internal development project. The pilot project for a client will also start shortly, not to mention the opportunities that have a strong possibility to materialize. In short, we are getting closer to our target, and perhaps with a little luck, we will move ahead sooner than expected, since we have no more enough space in our current premises.

Hanoi, I love you! Now I will leave you to join Sophie, Mona and Seb and all the other Hanoians who are in the streets celebrating this anniversary.

The month of May was particularly rewarding for Pentalog Vietnam because the team made its first delivery to its first customer. We must say that the office in Hanoi had a very strong production start with 15 people initially, on a large development project using the latest Java technologies. A real treat for the developers who were more accustomed to maintenance projects or coding phases.

Whether in Europe or Asia, Pentalog is loyal to its quality mark. The working methodologies as well as the quality assurance system are implemented identically, thanks to the presence of Monica during the first 3 months and to spending 2 weeks at the office of Cornel, our technical manager. The client has expressed his satisfaction but we will not stop there, we will continually deliver better quality to our customers.

So many stories and you may be wondering how we are at Pentalog Vietnam? Oh well for you, for your pleasure, we have filmed the videos below with the help of the Marketing Team in Hanoi and Chisinau. Pay attention to the special effects provided by the team of Michael Bay in their free time during the execution of Transformer 2.

While enjoying a public holiday (anniversary of the death of Hung kings, ancestors of the Vietnamese) I could step back and think of the recruitment process within Pentalog Vietnam during the last two months. (Thanks to Fred who has given a very nice speech to our colleagues in Hanoi before his departure, on intercultural communication and management, which encouraged me to continue this discussion).

At Pentalog Vietnam we will be almost 20 collaborators next week and we’ll be able to start the big project for our client – a European leader in the Tobacco industry. To achieve this, we interviewed nearly a hundred applicants.

Certainly, we pre-sorted the CVs first and our candidates passed online technical test, but still, I must confess that it was a bit difficult. Given the number of human resources available on the market, given the crisis that makes our task easier, as several companies have no more projects, one may wonder why the difficulty in recruiting? The reason is simple: Pentalog has very high expectations with an emphasis not only on technical competence of the candidate but also on his/her ability to communicate. We demand that our collaborators are capable of communicating verbally in English and, if possible, in French. We systematically conduct interviews in both Vietnamese and English. Those who refuse to speak in English during an interview or who cannot express themselves correctly in English will never join us, even if they are experts in Java, .NET…

Now Pentalog has about thirty French collaborators, two hundred Romanians, almost one hundred Moldovans and about twenty Vietnamese. Such an environment, with a functionally centralized organization and travels between offices, forces people to get out of their shell and communicate with the others.

Vietnamese outsourcing is in most cases based on a model of communication or a project; there are only one or 2 people who interface with the customer at the other end of the world. The rest of the team has never spoken directly with the customer; we call them “silent developers” or “code pissers”. Of course, they seek to defend themselves by saying “well, I write and chat every day with clients.” It’s good, but not enough! What do we do when there is a problem to be solved immediately in 5 minutes, or a point that cannot be explained in writing? Also imagine if the person who created the interface is incompetent?

A piece of information that I reveal to you Monica, because you often ask me why we do not see candidates from a limited number of companies. Because many candidates with good CVs, with good results on tests, reply to me when I tell them that part of the interview is to be conducted in English: “Is it possible to speak in Vietnamese only? I assure you that I can perfectly read documents in English.” The truth is that many companies do not encourage their employees to speak English. In time, this becomes a real handicap, which limits their evolution.
Here’s an anecdote: recently, when I talked about this problem with a dear friend of mine, who probably is a god in computer science, with over 15 years of experience, but not too good in English, he replied with irritation: “Go find your candidates in language schools!” This was a desperate attempt to defend!

All this upsets me very much! One who talks about globalization must talk about communication. One should no longer be satisfied with his technical skills but also with his language skills. An IT engineer who speaks English has probably twice as many opportunities for development and is two times more likely to remain intact in this difficult period.

At Pentalog Vietnam we continuously provide free English/French courses to our employees. I am happy to see how our men are rushing to follow this course and not because the teachers are very good-looking. They are well aware how much the command of one or more foreign languages contributes in their careers. Out of the current 20 collaborators, all speak English and seven speak French. Maxime is Franco-American and speaks Vietnamese perfectly with a Southern accent. Binh and Bach speak Japanese fluently. That is an international company! Of course, there is still a gap with our Romanian / Moldovan friends in the matter, but I hope we will catch up very quickly.

I am convinced that in order to transform Vietnam, which is “potentially” the first outsourcing destination, in the REAL destination, we must continuously improve our language level. Consider the case of a less typical person, that we dearly call our Uncle: everything he did had nothing to do with chance. Already confident in his communication skills, he spoke perfectly French, English, Chinese, Italian, German, Russian but also Thai, Spanish, Arabic…

So, don’t you speak English? Then, no thanks!