Executive Interview
Executive Interviews
An Interview with
Do Van Long
Founder & CEO
Vietnam Blockchain Corporation
Vietnam Blockchain Corporation (VBC) is a technology company specializing in providing Blockchain solutions, services and consulting in the following fields: Supply chain, Smart Cities, Fintech, Public Services, Logistics, Sharing Economy, Agriculture, E – Commerce, Healthtech and Smart City.
Publish Date:
14 June 2021
Tell us about your background, and what are you most passionate about?
I have had 19 years of experience in executive management roles, C-level and Chief Technology Officer for E-commerce, Travel, Hospitality and Finance. I specialise in creating innovative enterprise solutions related to ERP, CRM, SCM, Financial solutions, Business Intelligence, and now Blockchain Services & Business Strategy development.
To realize VBC’s vision on making Vietnam become a Blockchain Country & Expert Hub, I have worked mainly on blockchain business strategy development in Region, researched on digital transformation trending, expanded blockchain technology knowledge to community, and connected VBC to most of business partners and Universities/Institutes along Vietnam for blockchain education. I also have created Blockchain Lab projects for feasibility studies, then increased their productivity to the market. As a result, VBC proudly to be known as one of the leading Blockchain Corporations in Vietnam and Region, also build “very first” blockchain products for both economy & society around the world.
Describe a time you had to make a tough decision (e.g. budget cuts, organizational restructuring, market withdrawal, etc.). What did you do and what was the result?
The new era of technology always comes with challenges of Proving the effectiveness results, which need more time to research, development, maturity and get profit on the market.
Some bad practices (such as scamming onICO and cryptocurrency) which have failed in the past and let people understand differently about key technology behind many potentials and valuable applications for the daily life with blockchain technology.
Also, the new technology needs resources capacity, especially for human resource capacity to continuously develop the solutions based on technology innovation. There for, a lot of investment was gone when put in the new Startup Tech because of too much challenges could not be solved, especially in the difficulty of the Covid time.
What should be done:
- Re-Newing strategies at business: maximize the functions, minimize the costs and lean growing
- Training programs to educate the market and create the demands
- Standardizing the process, easier and more flexible to be applied in big ranges of companies
How would others define your communication style? Do you prefer to be close to your employees or maintain a healthy distance, and why?
I chose thefriendly communication but not always close to employees. We have weekly meetings with Team Leader to catch up and update the situation of projects and give the decision making on challenges. Let each leader work with their member for more better transfer direction and manage the team closely.
In addition, monthly small staff-party to update to all member on results and issues of the company let them clearly understanding what they are working on, listening on all questions and give out thefeedback or receive the suggestion from all them carefully and choosing the suitable way for applying back the solutions to company.
Working closely to direct Leader are necessary, understanding their capacity, behavior, family situation help to support them better. Let leader act to be close to their member on the same way and give the advise when need.
I don’t prefer to be close to all employees for keeping the healthy distance, because being close to everyone can cause someproblems in the office, especially communication between managers and employees should not over communication and over management
How has the industry been changing in recent years? What do you think are the biggest challenges your industry will face in the next 5 years?
Blockchain technology has many potential use cases. These are many of its emerging applications across the business of Fintech, Supply chain, Logistic, Healthtech and Agricultures,… Blockchain along with its implications will revolutionize the way of current business operation using information technology to build the trustable, transparency and immutable and securable information.
It used to be hard for people to totally understanding the Blockchain technology at the very beginning, however after many best practice and use cases to show benefits for enterprise and society from our hard working last 5 years in Vietnam, the current perception on blockchain technology seems to be higher and more positive.
According to many reports, users which are considered as suppliers, providers, consumers, or stakeholders, investors and so on mainly agree that applying blockchain technology into their companies or organizations is a great idea to develop.
What personality traits make a good leader?
Working hard with heart, experimenting on solving the problems and presentencing with the vision and mission help me to build long term development for company, member, partner and customer.
To talk about business values, I would prefer a win - win solution. For any people involved in our business, they should receive a pleased and positive value. To be in details, firstly - our customers should always receive good services and products, in the working process for a blockchain project, there will be more than a partner (former users, end users or other types of participant of a project) and our responsibility is ensuring that any side from theproject would have all pleasure, satisfaction and high product quality.
More over, our employees who together directly build up different projects and solutions should have rights to develop their creativities and knowledge, supporting a both friendly and professional environment is one of our business’s main tasks. Frequent training and workshop or team building activities are also applied.
Last but not least, never stop inspiring and coming up with new ideas is another key point, our major is providing blockchain solutions to a big range of issues. On this hand, we love to spread creative inspirits for our members and clients.
What does the future hold for your company?
Vietnam Blockchain Corporation is the Pioneer high technology company in Vietnam, and we aim to build Vietnam become a Blockchain Country for next 5-10 years, in which VBC is the Expert Hub to match supply and demand for business with Blockchain solutions
VBC plans to work on several key strategic initiatives such as a wise supply chain on modern Agriculture solution, finance management system and smart city while advancing towards our vision of making Vietnam as the next big blockchain success story in Region. Besides, Catching up with many changes in the world to giving continuously innovative and effective solutions for helping society like our current growing project: COVID PASS – which help people using technology to protect the citizen come back to normal work after Covid time in Vietnam and go aboard with a Blockchain Safety Certificate