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2020 Nov 08
ベトナムのモバイル決済とデータ社会の可能性

背景

過去数十年にわたりデジタル変革の波はビジネスを大きく変えてきました。この流れの中で、とりわけ決済のソリューションやプラットフォームがより大きな役割を担いつつあります。各国でモバイル決済が一気に浸透し、多くのビジネスで方法を大きく変える必要が生じています。

ベトナムについては、インターネットやスマートフォンの普及率が高く若年齢層が多いことや、金融包摂がまだ進んでいないことなど、モバイル決済が普及する条件が整っています。一方、モバイル決済市場は発展の初期段階にあり、参入余地のあるタイミングでもあります。

クライアントは日本におけるデジタル決済ネットワークでの事業経験があり、金融、小売、ICTの各企業をグループ会社に持つことから、この分野の可能性と重要性を予想しました。この機会を確認するため、クライアントと弊社B&Companyは、以下の目的を主に、ベトナムでのモバイル決済に関する調査を実施しました。

  • ベトナムでのデジタル決済の状況を把握し、中長期的なビジョンに基づいて当面の戦術を策定する
  • ベトナムでのモバイル決済の成長性や考えられる将来の戦略を評価する
  • 本事業へのクライアントの参入可能性を評価し、パートナー候補との協力関係を構築する
顧客 :非公開
分野 :市場調査、コンサルティング
業界 :フィンテック
期間 :2018年

 

課題

本プロジェクトは、包括的な市場調査や既存・潜在事業者の評価だけでなく、戦略構築やコンサルティングも含まれました。さらに、ベトナムではモバイル決済が新たな分野であるため、他国の事例を分析し、べトナム市場の参考になる市場発展パターンを示す必要がありました。

これらのため、調査チーム（クライアントと弊社の日本・中国・ベトナム）は課題を切り分けた上で緊密に連携し、デスク調査や当局、業界専門家インタビュー等の調査を実施しました。

採用した方法

B&Company社内に加え、モバイル決済や中国の状況に詳しい専門家を外部から加えて担当チームを構成しました。

  • 設計（調査計画策定）

全体を分割し、4ステップでの検討フローを設計／実施しました。

1) 各国のモバイル決済の状況を調査し、複数の典型的な事例を抽出
2) ベトナムのモバイル決済市場の状況を分析する
3) ベトナムのモバイル決済市場の将来動向を予測する
4) ベトナムのモバイル決済市場での戦略的オプションを抽出する

では世界各国とベトナムを比較するため、国別の状況をパターン分けしベトナムに適する事例を抽出しました。

ではベトナム現地調査として、デスクリサーチ、政府当局や主要決済企業へのインタビュー、小規模小売業者や消費者のアンケート、グループディスカッションなど、多くの手法を組み合わせて実施しました。

  • 実査（フィールドワーク）

プロジェクトチームを小グループに分けて並行して調査を実施。週に1度のミーティングにて、進捗共有と次工程を決定。インタビュー候補の確保には社内外の人脈を活用しました。

  • レポーティング（コンサルティング）

中間・最終報告に加え、適宜クライアントと弊社は進捗状況や得られた結果を共有、オープンな議論を行い方向性をすり合わせました。

結果

  • グローバルなモバイル決済市場の状況・典型事例

世界中でモバイル決済市場が急成長していることを統計データが示しているがその方向性を決める要因を調べると、各国の金融インフラの整備、現金以外の決済方法の浸透、ITリテラシー、需要などに応じて、様々な成功モデルが存在した。以下、4つのモデルに集約できた。

1) 米国モデル：非接触型決済を活用したモバイル決済。NFC（近距離無線通信）技術の導入コストが相対的に安い先進国で多い。
2) 中国モデル：主要なモバイル決済事業者がインターネット関連事業者である発展途上国で多く見られる。QRコードが、価格の低さと技術の簡易さから基盤となっている。
3) EUモデル：銀行で提供されるサービスの1つとしてモバイル決済が広がった。銀行の普及率が高い先進国で多く見られる。
4) ケニアモデル：MNO（モバイルネットワークオペレーター）がスマートフォンや銀行口座を持たない低所得層でも使える携帯電話ベースの技術を活用したモバイル決済サービスを提供している。

  • ベトナムのモバイル決済市場の状況・将来動向

推進要因：若年層が新しい技術に適応していて、スマートフォン利用やEコマースの安定的な拡大がモバイル決済のための大きなプラス要因。また、ベトナム政府は非現金決済の1つとしてモバイル決済を拡大しようとしている。
課題：依然として日々の決済で一番利用されているのは現金である。銀行口座の保有比率の低さに代表される金融インフラの整備状況が障壁となっている。
多くの事業者がベトナムのモバイル決済市場に参入しているが、大成功を収めた事業者はまだいない。海外からの事業者も参入を試みているが、ベトナムの規制に阻まれており、ローカルのインターネットやMNO事業者に優位性が出てくると思われる状況。

  • 戦略的オプション

モバイル決済市場への新規参入余地はまだある。インタビュー結果からは人口の大多数が、現金以外の決済方法を受け入れるのに5年以上かかる見込み。それでも将来的には、データ社会とそれを支えるモバイル決済の実現・普及可能性は高い。コンビニエンスストア、タクシー予約などの日常生活サービスに加え、病院、公共交通、スマートシティなどの分野でも、モバイル決済が採用され、便利な生活が実現されつつある。最終的には、各国同様、データ社会に移行しモバイル決済やその他のデジタル化が人々をつなぐ基盤となっていくことが想定される。

2020 Nov 08
住宅金融の改善に向けたデータ収集調査

背景

ベトナムは政治的に南北統一を果たした後、急速にグローバル化が進展し、継続的に高成長を遂げている。しかし、いくつかの国際協定を締結した後、それらが国内消費を押し上げるうえで障害となり、大規模な設備投資（CAPEX：Capital Expenditure）は減少し続けている。

住宅は人々が最低限の生活を維持するのに必須といえるが、先進国に比べ、ベトナムでは住宅投資が少ない。人口増加、経済発展、都市化の進行にもかかわらず、質・量の両面で住宅不足に直面している。

高度な技術を保有し、実績のある建設会社が不足していることもあるが、限られた住宅金融制度が住宅供給不足に大きく拍車をかけている。政府は、低所得者向けに30兆VNDの住宅購入支援制度を導入しているが、多くの人が貯金と家族や親戚からの借入金で住宅を購入し、金融機関を利用しない。金利が高いだけでなく、銀行口座を持っていない人が多いことも住宅金融制度が普及しない理由といえる。

三菱UFJ銀行はこれらのボトルネックを踏まえ、国際協力機構（JICA）と弊社（B&Company Vietnam）の2社と連携して、ベトナムでの住宅投資の発展に資する住宅金融制度の強化に関する調査を実施し、将来必要な金融政策についてベトナム政府への提言を検討していた。

顧客 :JICA & 株式会社三菱UFJ銀行
分野 :市場調査、コンサルティング
期間 :2016年

 

課題

住宅、賃貸、住宅金融制度の全体像を徹底的に見直すには、現在までの法的枠組みと今後の方針や政策のほか、消費者の需要を含む住宅市場の現状などを把握する必要があり、そのためには大規模な調査の実施が不可欠といえる。

また、回答者選定、住宅金融制度の最適な実装設計（特に、現在の状況と将来の需要を推定するための計算式をどのように適用するか）、複数の情報源と調査手法を組み合わせたことによる情報収集と分析の各チーム間での連携などに課題があったが、本調査で得られた実用的な統計データは、コンサルタントが全体像を把握し、住宅金融制度の適切な予測モデルを構築するうえで中心的な役割を果たした。

ソリューション提案

不動産関連の各分野で必要な情報を収集するために、現在の法的枠組みや住宅金融制度の条件に関するデスクリサーチ、住宅金融制度の需要に関する消費者調査の2チームに分けて調査を実施した。

デスクリサーチについては、政府、金融機関のほか、住宅市場の各利害関係者（住宅購入者、建設企業など）を区別しながら分析するべく各分野を並行して実施したことで、全体像を確立できた。

消費者調査については、街頭アンケート調査（対象者1,200人）とオンラインアンケート調査（同2,000人）の2つの手法を組み合わせた。経済面での住宅金融制度に対する需要を特定・分析する際の調査設計を統一するため、過去の住宅購入経験、将来の需要・計画、住宅金融制度の利用意図に基づいて、対象者を4つのグループに分類した。また、借入比率（LTV）、返済比率（MR）などの典型的な指標を設け、仮定した予測モデルの分析に向けてアンケートの内容を決定した。

各調査の専門家による多くのアイデアを参照し、住宅金融制度の予測モデルの推定に用いる計算式を慎重に選定したことで、調査結果の統合・分析における互換性の問題はなかった。

結果

データ集計の統合・処理・分析の結果、ベトナムの不動産市場全般、特に賃貸住宅と住宅金融制度の強化に資する可能性を見出すことに成功した。

  • ベトナム政府は、現在の不動産市場や法的枠組みを検討し、2020年までの住宅金融政策に取り組み、2030年までの国家戦略方針を策定している。実践的な文書の不足により政策が機能していないが、ベトナム国立銀行（SBV）などの金融機関との連携により解決の見込みがある。
  • どの所得層にも住宅需要は大きく、2大都市（ハノイ、ホーチミン）の中年層、中所得層の需要に対し、2035年までに10万戸以上（150兆ドン以上）の供給が必要になると推定された。住宅金融制度は依然として消費者の信頼を得られず、また、経済力の欠如が想定以上に消費を引き下げ続ける可能性もある。
  • 政府の方針や補助金の欠如により、賃貸住宅、リース住宅も供給不足と低品質に直面している。推進努力を以てしても、システム全体を整備し、効率的な実装には時間を要するだろう。
  • 調査結果に基づき、政府、金融機関などの積極的な参画を提案する新住宅金融制度を考案した。まずは、住宅と借主の適格性に関する具体的な条件を構築し、全国規模で適用すること。次に、優遇制度を設け、金融商品を整理し、長期資金を創出すること。これらにより、住宅金融制度の担い手の金融機関への移行を推進した。
2020 Nov 08
ブランド・アジア：企業ブランド価値評価調査

背景

ブランド・アジアは、日経BPコンサルティングがアジアの各国調査会社と協力し、2012年から開始したプロジェクト。本プロジェクトは、アジア11地域にて個々のブランドが持つ好感度、役立度、品質などのイメージを測定。地域差の有無やイメージ傾向などを把握、主要なブランドの総合力を横断的に算出し、評価することを目的としている。

2012年には、アジア8地域（日本、韓国、中国、台湾、インド、タイ、ベトナム、インドネシア、）21都市での主要60グローバルブランドとベンチマークとして各地域で選定した40ローカルブランド、計100を各地域で調査対象とした。2015年にはアジア11地域（マレーシア、フィリピン、トルコが追加）31都市120ブランドに対象が拡大された。

調査結果の客観性に留意し、回答者の属性は20～59歳の男女と広めに設定、各国状況により3つの調査手法（街頭調査、電話調査、インターネット調査）を組み合わせ、実施された。

ベトナムの調査は、2012―2015年いずれも弊社（B&Company）が実施。対象都市はハノイ、ホーチミン。2015年の有効回答数は、街頭調査、インターネット調査の合計984件。本調査結果により、ブランド力に影響を与える市場内外の要因を読み取り、ベトナムでの現在にいたるブランディング戦略への示唆を得ることができる。

顧客 :株式会社日経BPコンサルティング
分野 :市場調査、ブランド評価
業界 :食品・飲料、日用品、衣料など
期間:2012年-2015年
対象:アジア11地域

調査設計上の課題

当初、各国の主要業界、主要ブランド、対象都市を決定するための統一的な考え方について議論がなされた。選択されたブランド、都市は各国を代表するものでなければならない。一方、調査対象のブランド数は一部の国で異なり、またサンプルサイズなども不統一が避けられなかった。

2012年の対象10業界は、日用品、食品、IT・家電、自動車、金融、インターネット関連、飲食、スポーツ関連用品、小売、メディア、だったが、2015年までには地域ごとの事情をより反映するため一部対象業界の入れ替えが行われた。

多地域にまたがる毎年の調査プロジェクトとして、一定期間内で品質を保ちながら効率良く調査を行うため、日経BPコンサルティング社を中心とした各国調査会社は緊密な連携を図り、全ての調査会社で一貫性のある方法を取れるよう努力する必要があった。

採用された方法

分析方法は、日経BPコンサルティングが手掛ける日本最大のブランド評価調査「ブランド・ジャパン」の手法を踏襲した。認知度評価に加えて、15項目にわたるブランドイメージを「アウトスタンディング（卓越）」、「イノベーティブ（革新）」、「フレンドリー（親しみ）」、「コンビニエント（便利）」の4因子にまとめ、ブランドの総合評価を算出・分析した。各国が共通のフレームワークを使用し、幅広い業界、ブランド間の比較が可能になった。

結果

  • 全体

ほとんど全ての業界で、発展途上国に比べ、先進国でブランド総合評価が高かった。特に、金融業界では先進国の方が27%高かった。一方、小売業界は発展途上国の方が16%高かった。スポーツ関連用品、インターネット関連用品、飲食の3業界は、認知度評価と総合評価で最高の評価を得た業界となった。影響力のある情報源として、テレビが依然として最も効果的なマーケティングチャネルといえる。7ケ国で1位、残りの4か国で2位に評価された。その他で影響力があるのはWebサイトだったが、特にタイやベトナムでは小売店の店員からの情報が重視される傾向にあった。

  • ベトナム

ベトナムは他の地域に比べブランド認知度が全体的に少し低かったが、金融業界ブランドでは先進国より高かった。通信業界ブランドが認知度と総合評価ともに最高位だった。

乳製品市場のマーケットリーダーであるVinamilkが、総合評価のトップ3（Google、Hondaとともに）にラインクインした。飲食（Highlands、Trung Nguyen、Kinh Do、Vissans）、通信（Viettel、MobiFone、VNPT）、金融（Vietcombank、Bao Viet）等サービスよりの業界では、ローカルブランドが消費者に広く認められ、高評価を獲得した。しかし、Google、Apple、SONY、Samsung、Hyunndai、TOYOTA ､Hondaなどの国際ブランドが依然としてグローバル製品・サービスの市場を支配している。

本調査結果では、ベトナムローカルブランドがブランディング、マーケティングに注力してきた結果、国内消費者の一定の評価を得られたことが示された。特に、「フレンドリー（親しみ）」、「コンビニエント（便利）」の2因子は高評価を得ている。

ただし、競争力あるポジショニング戦略を構築していく上では「イノベーティブ（革新）」、「アウトスタンディング（卓越）」の2因子について、より関心を払っていく必要がある。製品・サービスの独自性を高めながら、より高付加価値ですぐれた品質のエコシステムを確立することが重要であることが確認された。

結果の詳細は「 完全版（英語）をご参照ください。

2020 Nov 07
Brand Asia – An Inclusive Evaluation on Major Brands
This case study was consolidated in September 2016

Project background

Brand Asia was a survey project initiated from 2012 by Nikkei BP, the renown Japanese company specializing in consulting and marketing solutions, in coordination with several prestigious research firms in Asia. The project aims to evaluate the overall strength, visual trends, customer perception and other influential factors on a list of largest brands in selected Asian countries.

In 2012, the survey was conducted in 21 major cities from 8 Asian countries, collecting opinion about 100 brands in each nation, which consisted of 60 global and 40 local brands, except for the case of China with total of 60 brands only. To 2015, the survey’s scope was expanded to cover 31 cities of 11 countries around Asia (with Malaysia, the Philippines and Turkey being added) and 120 brands for each country.

To ensure the objectivity of the findings, the survey was scattered out to both male and female respondents, aged from 20 to 59. The fieldwork combined 3 different methods, which were Street Catch, Telephone and Internet Survey in order to complete the target sample under designed schedule.

In Vietnam, B&Company was entrusted by Nikkei BP’ to carry out the survey in both 2012 and 2015 in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh city (in 2015, 984 responses were collected in the 2 cities via Street Catch and Internet Survey). This result helped contributing to the final conclusion of the big project, as well as to providing cross-region comparative analysis and detailed evaluation on global/local brands.

Client :Nikkei Business Publication Consulting Inc. (Nikkei BP)
Type :Market Research, Brand Health Check
Industry:Telecom, Electronic, F&B, Retail, Automaker, Internet-based, Food, Home Appliance, Finance, Restaurant, FMCG & Airlines
Time:2012 & 2015
Scope:China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam

Challenges

From the design stage, a thorough metrics had to be established to determine key industries, major brands and surveyed cities for each country. Evidently, the realistic situation would vary case by case, in which selected brands and cities should represent the typical trends of the nation at that time. As a result, it turned out that some country candidates were nominated with a higher or lower number of brands and uneven sample size accordingly. However, this unbalance was inevitable and must be compromised with. The same attempts were put to best identify 10 core industries to be focused on in each year. In 2012, the categories were FMCG, Food, IT/Household Appliances, Automobile, Retail, Finance, Internet-based, Media, Restaurant, Sport-related products, while there were some minor changes in the 2015 package, of which the reclassification included Telecom, Electronic, Drink, Retail, Automaker, Internet-based, Food, Home Appliance, Finance, Restaurant, FMCG and Airline. Those adjustments were essential to reflect the changes of context.

Running the project year after year on a wide geographical area created a number of difficulties in management and implementation. It led to the needs for a strict cooperation between Nikkei BP and research agencies in each nation, in order to conduct and monitor the collection simultaneously at the highest efficiency and quality. Consistency and timeline were prioritized, which required a consolidated method to be applied among all partners.

Solutions

To overcome aforementioned organizational issues, B&Company along with other executing firms proactively joined with Nikkei BP from planning to deployment, including identifying survey targets, running interviews, data analysis and making country report. The specialization assignment by country was the key to keep each local research advancing under schedule as well as to facilitate the whole progress.

At the same time, the analysis was carried out using a united method from “Brand Japan”, which was known as the largest brand evaluation model in Japan. In Brand Asia project, the brand image was constituted of 4 main factors (Friendly, Convenient, Innovative, Outstanding) which were then broken down into 15 specific items. Thanks to that, all analysis teams in each country could follow the same framework to maintain a common conformation while saving much time to make comparison between different groups, industries or brands.

Results

  • Overall findings

The 2015 findings from total 11 countries showed an interesting insight, as the group of developed countries received more awareness in almost all industries compared to developing ones. However, the gap was narrow to insignificant. The analytics could point out that only 2 industries witnessed the big difference: While Finance brands were 27% more highly recognized in developed countries, Retail brands got 16% ahead in awareness in developing regions. Sport-related, Internet and Restaurant were 3 brand sectors reaching the best results in awareness evaluation and overall performance score. After taking measurements, television continued being the most effective marketing channel. In particular, it was ranked 1st among most popular medias in 7 countries, and came in 2nd in the other 4. Website was another influential source for consumers to rely on, while information gathered directly at stores/from sales staffs was especially common in Thailand and Vietnam.

  • Vietnam result

More profound findings on Vietnam case were presented by B&Company through Brand Asia Vietnam report. Although Vietnam results indicated somewhat lower level of brand awareness in general compared to its counterparts in the regions, there were some noteworthy findings. Interestingly, the awareness of Finance brands in Vietnam was even higher than in developed countries. Telecom maintained the 1st position for both awareness ratio and the total score.

The year 2014 had seen Vinamilk, the Vietnamese market leader in dairy product manufacturing, joining in TOP 3 in the overall score, together with 2 global giants which were Honda and Google. Other local representatives from F&B industry (Highlands, Trung Nguyen, Kinh Do, Vissans), Telecom (Viettel, MobiFone, VNPT) or Finance (Vietcombank, Bao Viet) also got positive marks and were widely recognized by consumers. However, local brands could not make a breakthrough in high-tech industries such as Electronic, Home Appliances or Automaker, as international suppliers like Google, Apple, Honda, Sony, Samsung, Hyundai, Toyota… still dominated the market.

From B&Company ‘s perspective, the survey result indicated that Vietnamese local enterprises had put more effort in branding and marketing. As the consequence, they could gain more attraction among domestic consumers. Specific figures illustrated that Vietnamese brands often received high evaluation for being “Friendly” and “Convenient”.

However, when it came to competitiveness, Vietnamese companies should consider more about “Innovative” and “Outstanding” aspect when making a positioning strategy. Representatives from B&Company reaffirmed it was crucial to establish and develop a high-quality, synchronizable ecosystem with more added-value while enhancing uniqueness in products/services. That was the way for local brands to imprint their image in consumers’ perception, in the context Vietnam had joined WTO and more ferocious competition from foreign rivals.

To read more about this project results, please follow this link.

2020 Nov 07
Data Collection Survey For Improvement Of Housing Finance
This case study was consolidated in September 2016.

Project background

Since the integration and globalization took place, Vietnam had been witnessing a continually high growth. However, after several international agreements had been signed and took effect, large scale capital investment and capital expenditures (CAPEX) kept decreasing, which raised an obstacle for kicking up domestic consumption.

Housing was a fundamental need for living, but in Vietnam, the investment and consumption for housing was much lower compared to developed countries. Despite the development of the economy, urbanization, and population, Vietnam still faced a shortage of residence houses in both quantity and quality.

Besides the lack of high skilled and experienced construction companies, one of the biggest difficulties was the limited financial accessibility, which led to the deficiency in housing supply. Although the Government released the 30-trillion-VND package in the stimulus project to support people with low income to buy a house, it was still insufficient as a majority of house purchasers in Vietnam was financed by individual savings or money borrowed from family or relatives, while loans were rarely neither trusted nor approachable. While there was an old common sense that loans incurred high interest rate, difficulties in accessing housing loans from banks or financial institutions was another reason.

Seeing through those botte-necks, the Bank of Mitsubishi UFJ, in coordination with JICA and B&Company Vietnam, launched the survey to obtain the information for the enhancement of housing loan scheme which was essential for development of housing investment in Vietnam, and thereby to make suggestions to Vietnamese Government for necessary policies in the future.

 

Client:Japan International Cooperation Agency Vietnam Office (JICA), The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.
Type:Market Research, Consulting
Time:2016
Status:Completed

Challenges

To thoroughly review the overall situation of housing, rental properties and real estate financing required a huge scale of researches, from studying legal framework, upcoming visions and policies, gathering information to comprehend current issues of housing market to conducting a mass survey to acquire necessary understanding regarding buyers’ demand and needs.

The survey conducted among consumers played a centric role in providing practical statistics for project consultants and advisors to catch the picture and build a proper forecast model. Therefore, it was crucial to prepare the most appropriate design for respondent selection and then implementation. Additionally, how to apply formulas to calculate and estimate the situation and future demand, hence provide the most relevant schemes to improve housing loans in Vietnam was another question. It also required a close coordination between the collection team and the analysis team to flexibly combine and swap among multiple sources and techniques to be able to build up the most insightful and reliable output in each segment.

Solutions

In order to gather sufficient information in various real estate related segments, the project team explicitly divided it into 2 main tasks, which were to conduct desk search about current regulations, conditions for housing loans and to carry out the mass survey among consumers to obtain people’s real demand for housing finance.

Initially, several desk researches on different topics were run separately and simultaneously, with the aim to dissecting the original questions through distinguishing angles of different stakeholders, including the government, home buyers, suppliers, financial institutions and the housing market itself. Therefrom, the project team would be able to establish a solid and entire landscape.

The consumer survey was combined of 2 methods, in which the sample for face-to-face street interview was 1,200 and for online survey was 2,000. To unify the design of the survey that was supposed to identify and break down financial needs of house purchasers, both offline and online collection targeted four same groups of respondents, based on their past experience of buying house, future demand and plan to buy a house and intention to mobilize money from bank loans. The content of the questionnaire was determined towards predefined models and in-depth analysis by specifying typical indicators, such as Loan to Value (LTV), monthly repayment ratio (MR)… Thanks to that, findings of desk research and survey were consolidated and assembled in forecast models.

That is to say, all formulas and models applied in calculation and estimation were carefully considered and picked up in prior to fieldwork implementation, so that they were compatible for analysis. In this project, many ideas from internal consultants and other experts were referred to in order to propose the most appropriate working models.

Results

After the data synthetization, processing and analysis, the project successfully extracted some concise but valuable key findings that could contribute to the enhancement of the Vietnam’s real estate industry in general and the rental housing and housing loans in particular.

  • Firstly, from reviewing current market situation, current legal environment and policies, the Vietnamese government had set a direction for developing a national strategy until 2030, in which housing finance policies were addressed until 2020. However, it required more sufficient instruction documents from related agencies, such as the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), so that credit institutions could arrange actions to correspond to the nation’s visions.
  • From market’s viewpoint, demand for housing in Vietnam was high, regardless of different classes or incomes. It was estimated that by 2035, there would be a need of more than 100,000 housing units to absorb the demand of middle-aged and middle-income groups in Hanoi and Hochiminh City, which’d value of more than 150 trillion VND. However, limited capital remained one of the biggest issues. While bank loan services were still unable to earn trust among consumers, economic incapability might continue to drag down the actual consumption compared with the expected figures.
  • In the meantime, rental housing, leasing and low-cost properties were also facing troubles instead of providing an alternative source for residence. It came from the lack of government legislation and subsidies, insufficiencies in supplies’ quantity and quality. Despite all promotion efforts outlined by the authorities, it would take time to complete the whole system and put it into a practical, efficient implementation.
  • Upon collected data and information, the project team came up with initiatives for a new housing loan scheme, which proposed more active participation from government, financial institutions and other organizations. Firstly, it was important to build specific conditions for eligibility of houses and borrowers and expand the elaborate idea on the nationwide scale. Secondly, it urged the revoke of the government’s role in supporting house financing, by issuing more favorable regulations, adjusting financial instruments, creating long-term funds… Financial institutions like commercial banks were also called to engage more in the implementation, while foreign assistance, such as from JICA, was paramount in drawing low-interest ODA funds to the domestic market.
2020 Nov 07
Product Concept Test: Evaluation on New City Car Model

This case study was consolidated in October 2020.

 

Project Background

After taking international integration and globalization, Vietnam has been witnessing a drastic economic growth, especially in several spearhead industries, including fundamental infrastructure and facilities development and distribution. Along with the improvement in personal income and living qualities, demand of essential goods and products that serve life purposes, typically vehicles and transportation, has increased substantially.

Being one of the biggest automobile manufacturer in Vietnam and internationally, the Client provides a wide range of automobile products, covering different segments to satisfy the fast-growing demand of Vietnamese customers. To aid for strategic decision making of business development, the Client has worked closely with B&Company in a number of research projects to understand customer demand, buying behavior in different car segments, evaluate potentiality of new product models or new business direction for automobile trading.

One typical example is the concept testing project in early 2020. The Client wanted to understand customers’ impression and demand for a new passenger car model in the A-segment, aiming to identify competitive selling points and thus define product launching strategy as well as target buyers for the new car model.

Client: Undisclosed
Type: Market Research, Market Understanding, Product Concept Test
Time: 2020
Status: Completed

Challenges

To run concept tests, it is crucial to help interviewees have the most vivid imagination and experience about the target concepts, so as to obtain the most accurate feedback about their impression, logical and emotional evaluation, the willingness to adopt and recommendation about the upcoming products. However, in many circumstances, it is challenging for automobile product tests because of either the difficulties in transporting car samples to testing venues or the requirement to maintain the business confidentiality. Therefrom, it raised a question for B&Company and the Client, which needed a proper research design so as to have the most appropriate implementation and insightful results.

Normally in Vietnam, companies often carry out concept tests though face-to-face interviews, in form of either personal conversation, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) or Central Location Test (CLT). This project was originally designed in a similar direction, dividing into 2 offline phases in Hanoi and Hochiminh City for both qualitative and quantitative surveys. But this year’s unexpected Covid-19 outbreak had all schedules messed up and postponed. Despite timely reactions from the government, Vietnam still had to undergo a social distancing period right at scheduled time for conducting all the interviews. In addition, panic was increasing among people, making them hesitate to join a public event with a crowd or to have direct contact with non-acquaintances. All these factors forced the team to come up with alternative solutions to fulfill the research request and bring in insightful results to the Client within a tight timeframe.

Solutions

Having practical experiences through numerous previous projects, B&Company worked closely with the Client to develop concept package material, provide consultation regarding the structure and content of the interview, aiming to extract the most valuable and relevant information to draw up a whole picture of customer impressions, preferences, selection behavior and decision-making factors.

To overcome the effects of the pandemic, changing research scope was inevitable but B&Company thoroughly discussed with the Client to provide alternative solutions towards the project’s ultimate objectives. Accordingly, instead of carrying out offline group discussions, interviews were made via online video conferences, which required timely revision of related materials, and adjustments in procedure and fieldwork coordination. Thanks to the dedicated work from all team members, the consumer interviews were conducted successfully. Putting aside some limitation in communication technology and facilities, interviewees felt comfortable and willing to share via remote video calls. That was a huge effort to quickly react in such a complicated situation. Eventually, the project not only successfully protected community healthcare during the pandemic but also accomplished the mission for delivering satistactory results to the Client, as a good base to proceed next phases.

Results

After the project had been implemented, remarkable insights were achieved and served the ultimate objectives of the Client.

Through the interviews’ result, the team was able to sketch the portrait of car owners and identify buying behavior of target customers in the A-segment. Although there were distinguished characteristics among different purchasers, depending on their own experience, purposes, a majority of respondents shared similar images regarding key buying factors. In particular, the most 5 selected criteria when choosing a city car included: relevant price, prestigious brand, fuel-saving, enduring engine and numerous safety options.

The main goal of the project to test the new car model was concentrated and clarified in detailed key findings for the Client:

  • Recognized customers’ perception on the new model, by overall and by detailed aspects, as well as the willingness to purchase. Specific feedbacks on exterior design, interior design, size, equipment… were investigated to thoroughly review consumers’ perspectives towards the new concept.
  • Determined key attention hooks, competitive selling points of the new product. An evaluation was included to recognize and compare the advantages and disadvantages between the Client and other manufacturers in the same car segment.
  • Provided recommendations of product versions, price ranges and communication edges. The team run a price model to estimate the optimal price range for each version and presented in visualized graphs. Considering all findings, B&Company advised the Client upon pricing and marketing strategies for the new model.

All the above research findings were the valuable inputs for the Client to understand potentiality of the new product and to make strategic decision on the launching plan.

2020 Nov 07
Vietnam Mobile Payment Towards A Data Society
This case study was consolidated in August 2020

Project Background

Over the past decades, the business world has witnessed dramatic changes, thanks to tremendous motivations from digital transformation waves, among which innovative payment solutions and platforms play a remarkable role in the revolution. In many countries, mobile payment services have become an increasingly crucial part of people’ daily lives. Switching rapidly from being an emerging trend to becoming a daily favourable transaction method to many, mobile payment has consequently changed the way of doing business.

In Vietnam, the high penetration rate of Internet, smartphone, young population and low finance inclusion were good premises for mobile payment. Furthermore, the mobile payment market was only in its early stage, making it a good timing to enter.

As a major group in Japan with experience investing in digital payment networks and having resource in finance, retail, ICT, our Client was able to foresee the potential and importance in this field. From that perspective, the Client and B&Company agreed to start a research project about mobile payment in Vietnam, focusing on the following objectives:

  • Establish a knowledge base of this business in Vietnam and tentative strategic options from mid and long-term vision
  • Evaluate the growth potential of mobile payment services in Vietnam and possible future scenarios
  • Evaluate possibility for client to participate in this business and develop potential partnership
Client :Undisclosed
Type :Market Research, Consulting
Industry:Fintech
Date :9/2018 – 2/2019
Team :China, Japan, Vietnam

 

Obstacles

The project not only required overall market study, player evaluation but also included strategic planning and consulting. Additionally, the target business was quite new in Vietnam, which led to the needs for case study research and analysis of practices from different markets. It also raised another question of how to predict which model could be the most applicable in the case of Vietnam market. In order to do that, the research team (gathered from the Client team and B&Company) had to collaborate closely to choose the most relevant approaches and methodologies.

The fact that mobile payment record in Vietnam was young adds more challenges for the implementation, since related information and statistics were still limited. To be able to collect and combine data for a thorough and clear image over the market, the team had to look up various sources, conduct in-depth interviews with different major parties and players, then integrate collected data for further calculation and estimation at the highest accuracy. During the progress, communication was also a critical matter to keep the project running smoothly without any interruption or misinformation with the project team members based in 3 different countries (China, Japan, and Vietnam).

All in all, this was a considerably big project with a wide scope covering both global research and national study. To achieve the final goals, a lot of skills were needed to build up a plan and deliver good results, from research design, research skill, fieldwork coordination, data processing, teamwork to competent business planning and forecast. Thankfully, our team of international experts and enthusiastic local members, has successfully overcome difficulties and delivered an insightful report with market intelligence that promises to contribute to the client’s initiatives.

Approaches and Solutions

B&Company worked together with the Client to come up with the most comprehensible and effective solution for each stage.

  • Research design and planning

To better capture the whole image, we decided to approach from a big, general viewpoint to specifics through a 4-step scheme:

1) Study the world status of mobile payment and some typical case studies
2) Analyze Vietnam’s situation
3) Forecast future trends of the domestic market
4) Brainstorm for strategic options

To make comparison between global examples and Vietnam, our team agreed to use 5W1H model (Who-What-Where-When-Why-How) to evaluate each case and concluded what are similar and can be lessons for Vietnam.

More specifically, for Vietnam market study, our internal discussions led to the decision of an inclusive research, including desk search, in-depth interviews with government authorities and major players, surveys for micro retailers and Focus-Group-Discussion with customers.

  • Fieldwork implementation

The research scope and approaches required the team to be divided into sub-groups and conduct each part simultaneously. Weekly meetings and regular team check-ins were maintained to update progress and determine next steps.Despite the wide scope and heavy workload, the consultation from advisors as well as the attempt of skillful Vietnamese staffs were great attributes to the project success. Having deep expertise in conducting market research, we constantly discussed and utilized our internal/external resources and networks so as to find relevant candidates for interviews and carry out fieldwork with the best quality standard.

  • Reporting and consulting

Due to the project’s time pressure and demand to catch up with opportunities and prospective partnership, besides predefined milestones for interim/final reports, the executive team proactively organized a number of quick sessions to update the progress and new findings on-the-go directly with the Client. Being able to create a project team with our Client based on mutual trust, open discussion and idea sharing was one of the keys to the productivity and success of this project.

Notable Results

During the project implementation, we were sticking to the objectives, which were to evaluate the opportunity to enter Vietnam’s mobile payment market and outline the strategies accordingly.
Followings are some remarkable findings from the research results:

  • World status

Recorded statistics showed mobile payment was booming worldwide. However, there were different variations in practical success model in each country, depending on banking infrastructure, non-cash penetration, IT literacy or demand/trigger…At that time, it could be summarized in 4 main types of mobile payment development:

1) US type: Starting from OS-brand oriented mobile payment using contactless method, this type was mostly popular in developed countries where NFC cost was affordable
2) China type: This type was developed in many mid-developing countries, where Internet service providers were prominent mobile payment players. QR code was on the go, due to its low cost and easy technology
3) EU type: Mobile payment was an extended service provided by banks. This type was seen mostly in developed countries with high bank penetration ratio
4) Kenya type: In this model, mobile payment is supplied by Mobile Network Operators (MNO) using phone-based front-end technology, with the aim to support low-income consumers without smartphone or bank account

  • Vietnam status and forecast

We were all witnessing Vietnam’s modernization and globalization, which created both chances and challenges for mobile payment.Driving factors: With a young population very adaptive to new technologies, plus the stable increase of smartphone usage and e-commerce, there was a big chance for mobile payment. Vietnam’s government also planned to prioritize non-cash payments, in which mobile payment would be pointed out, too.Bottle-necks: Cash was still the most common payment method in every daily transaction. Infrastructure at an improper level, represented by low bank account ratio, was another hurdle.Many players had joined the Vietnam’s mobile payment market, but none showed an outstanding performance and great results. While a lot of foreign opponents intended to interfere but were restricted by some Vietnam’s regulations, domestic Internet services and MNOs had more advantages to develop in near future.

  • Opportunity for mobile payment and beyond

Based on what was found from the research, it could be seen that there was still room for new players joining the game. However, as long as the old cash habits of Vietnamese customers remained as a dominant payment option, the market would still be fragmented with no big dominators. Some ideas from in-depths interviews suggested it would take no less than 5 years until a majority of population will give up on cash and accept non-cash payment. That was such a long way to go.Nevertheless, we could see potential future mobile payment and related applications could bring to life, by enhancing a more convenient society architected by data gathering. From daily life businesses such as convenience store, vehicle booking… to public services like hospital, transportation management or smart city, mobile payment could be adopted and make life much easier. Eventually, the final destination of every country would be a Data Society, where mobile payment and other digitization shall become a bridge to connect and serve people.

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