Digital capabilities have no shortcuts

“The two areas we are most concerned about are online safety and digital content creation. Because they have the lowest scores in the 5 survey areas", Associate Professor Nguyen Quang Trung, Head of the Smart Transformation Management Research Group at RMIT University, commented on the results of the survey digital capacity research. in Vietnam was conducted recently by his team. “Safety is always important in many fields. In cyberspace, it is even more important," Mr. Trung analyzed. "At this time, according to our survey, safety in the online environment for people in Vietnam is still quite low," he added.

Sharing the same opinion, Mr. Hoang Quang Huy, Director of Palo Alto Networks Vietnam (PAWN), commented: "In Vietnam, the rate of internet users is high, which means the possibility of them being exposed to cyber risks is also high. much".
 
Improve digital capabilities
 
Big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence (A.I)... all of these technologies use data, which is considered a new gold mine for economic growth. However, survey results on digital content creation show that Vietnamese people are still weak in creating data. "Therefore, we need to know how to create and exploit data better," Mr. Trung emphasized.
 
Also according to this research result, overall, people's level of digital proficiency is average. On some other rankings, Vietnam's digital skills ranked relatively low. In 2022, Vietnam will rank 82/133 countries according to the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index and only 11% of the domestic workforce has high skills, according to Report of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

To improve digital capabilities, according to Mr. Trung, there will be no shortcuts. “In the past, we often said we had to take shortcuts in many areas. But in reality, for digital skills, especially with experience from countries that are successful in developing digital skills, we think there will be no shortcuts. Instead, we must build a methodical strategy and organize good management and implementation," he said.

From the model of four countries that have succeeded in developing digital capabilities for their people such as Singapore, South Korea, Estonia and Finland, his team offers a solution group of 6 main points. The first step is to start with education programmes, followed by government and government digital initiatives, followed by an inclusive strategy to leave no one behind, all the way to increased collaboration. public-private, then building a culture of lifelong learning and finally promoting innovation and flexibility. These are the solutions mentioned in the report and are also a long journey that requires careful planning.
 
The global digital economy is expected to reach 20,800 billion USD by 2025. The outstanding growth of the domestic and world digital economy motivates the Vietnamese Government to set ambitious goals for the future. By 2030, the Government aims for the digital economy to contribute 30% to GDP, e-commerce to account for more than 20% of total retail sales and 100% of businesses to apply electronic contract platforms. In addition, the proportion of digital workers in the workforce will exceed 3%.

Challenge and opportunity
 
According to RMIT, digital capabilities not only promote business growth but also create many other economic opportunities, including overcoming inherent weaknesses of the Vietnamese economy such as low productivity and a large number of workers. seasonal unemployment in the agricultural sector. Strong digital capabilities also help individuals and businesses have the ability to run online marketing, conduct e-commerce, analyze data, interact with customers and deploy new business models. .
 
It is estimated that Vietnam currently has about 14 million people in the rural agricultural sector recorded as having jobs, but many of them are seasonally unemployed (only work seasonally). This is also one of the reasons why labor productivity in Vietnam is still very low," Mr. Trung said. The number of workers in the agricultural sector alone is more than double the population of Singapore. Therefore, if there is a systematic training program to improve, develop and enhance digital capabilities, this force will create more wealth and labor productivity will increase significantly.

Currently, Vietnam is still in the golden population structure, but the population will age extremely quickly in the next 1-2 decades. Therefore, the challenge for Vietnam in the coming time will be huge if the current period is not well taken advantage of. Even the digital gap still exists between regions, between ages in the population and between ethnicities, especially ethnic minorities.
 
However, a report on PwC's digital readiness shows a more optimistic outlook on the future of digitalization in Vietnam. Nearly all (89%) respondents feel positively about the impact of technology on their work, higher than the 61% of the global survey. A similar proportion think technological advances will help improve future job prospects, which are believed to change in the next 6-10 years.

Mr. Le Minh Tuan, Deputy General Director of Transaction Advisory Services at PwC Vietnam, commented: "I think optimism is a good thing we have." That number shows that people care about technology and see it as important for themselves, and he thinks businesses do too. To accelerate on this positive psychological foundation, Mr. Tuan proposed that businesses should open a runway for those who are ready to develop themselves.
 
Businesses will tend to defend against risks. So the challenge lies in overcoming defenses to create runway for the next 5-10 years. "This is not easy but it is what we should do," the Deputy General Director of PwC emphasized.