ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH --------------------- NGUYỄN ĐỨC ANH IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS: A STUDY OF VIETNAM POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS (VNPT) GIẢI PHÁP TÀI CHÍNH NHẰM NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG CẠNH TRANH: NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TẬP ĐOÀN BƯU CHÍNH VIỄN THÔNG VIỆT NAM (VNPT) LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH HÀ NỘI - 2020 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH --------------------- NGUYỄN ĐỨC ANH IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS: A STUDY OF VIETNAM POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS (VNPT) GIẢI PHÁP TÀI CHÍNH NHẰM NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG CẠNH TRANH: NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TẬP ĐOÀN BƯU CHÍNH VIỄN THÔNG VIỆT NAM (VNPT) Chuyên ngành: Quản trị kinh doanh Mã số: 60 34 01 02 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. HOÀNG ĐÌNH PHI HÀ NỘI - 2020 DECLARATION The author confirms that the research outcome in the thesis is the result of author’s independent work during study and research period and it is not yet published in other’s research and article. The other’s research results and documentation (extraction, table, figure, formula, and other document) used in the thesis are cited properly and the permission (if required) is given. The author is responsible in front of the Thesis Assessment Committee, Hanoi School of Business and Management, and the laws for above- mentioned declaration.
Date: November 2019 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis advisor, Assoc. Hoang Dinh Phi, dean of Hanoi School of Business and Management at Vietnam National University. Without his enthusiastic support, the goal of this project would not have been realized. I am gratefully indebted to his very valuable advices on this thesis.
I would like to give great thanks to all my respected lecturers during my two years of study at HSB. It is whole-heartedly appreciated that their great advice proved monumental towards the success of this study. I wish to thank all my colleagues and all my friends whose assistance was a milestone in the completion of this project. I would like to recognize the invaluable assistance that you all provided during my study.
Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents and to my sister for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Hanoi, November 2019 Duc Anh Nguyen ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES. viii LIST OF FIGURES. Structure of the dissertation.
BASIC THEORY ON FIRM’S COMPETITIVENESS AND THE ROLE OF FINANCE IN IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS OF ENTERPRISES. Theories of competitiveness and competitive advantage. Methods of measuring and analyzing competitiveness. External factors affecting competitiveness.
THE ROLE OF FINANCE IN IMPROVING ENTERPRISES COMPETITIVENESS. State investments on supporting industries. Enterprises’ financing policy. Enterprises’ investment policy.
Enterprises’ distribution policy. ANALYSIS OF VNPT COMPETITIVENESS AND ITS CONTEMPORARY FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS DURING 2014 - 2018. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF VNPT. History and development of VNPT.
Characteristics of VNPT activities. Business performance of VNPT in comparison with its competitors. THE COMPETITIVENESS OF VNPT DURING 2014 - 2018. Evaluation of VNPT’s competitiveness using Pyramid Model.
Evaluation of VNPT’s competitiveness using 5-Forces model. EVALUATION ON VNPT FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING ITS COMPETITIVENESS DURING 2014 – 2018. EXTENDING THE ANALYSIS. 51 CHAPTER 3: PROPOSAL OF FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS OF VNPT IN VIETNAM.
DEVELOPMENT ORIENTATION OF VNPT IN THE NEAR FUTURE. Opportunities and challenges to VNPT. Development orientation of VNPT. RECOMMENDED FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS OF VNPT.
Diversifying sources of capital. Improving VNPT’s credit and inventory management. Making investment decisions effectively. Innovating financial management team.
Creating a diverse and flexible price policy .67 REFERENCES APPENDIX v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1 AAG Asia - America Gateway 2 ABC Antecedent - Behavior - Consequence 3 ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line 4 AFTA ASEAN Trade-in Services Agreement 5 ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode 6 EOQ Economic Order Quantity 7 FTTC Fiber to the Curb 8 FTTH Fiber to the Home 9 GDP Gross Domestic Product 10 ICT Information and Communication Technology 11 IP Internet Protocol 12 ISO The International Organization for Standardization 13 IT Information Technology 14 IXP Internet Exchange Point 15 JIT Just-in-time 16 MRP Materials Requirements Planning 17 NGN The Next Generation Network 18 ODA Official Development Assistance 19 OECD The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 20 R&D Research and Development 21 ROA Return on Assets 22 ROE Return on Equity 23 ROS Return on Sales vi 24 SDH Synchronous Digital Hierarchy 25 SWOT Strength - Weakness - Opportunity - Threat 26 VNPT Vietnam Post and Telecommunications 27 VTF Vietnam Public Utility Telecommunications Service Fund 28 WDM Wavelength Division Multiplexing 29 WEF World Economic Forum 30 WTO World Trade Organization 31 xDSL Digital Subscriber Line vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 VNPT financial indicators 2014 - 2018 .2 Comparison in price of the same service provided by VNPT, FPT, Viettel 2019 .3 VNPT’s business result 2014 - 2018 (Unit: Million VND) .4 VNPT’s Accounting Balance Sheet 2014 - 2018 (Unit: Million VND) 40 Table 2.5 Strengths and weaknesses of VNPT’s competitors in the postal sector 45 Table 2.6 Strengths and weaknesses of VNPT’s competitors in telecommunications sector. 47 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Firm's Sustainable Competitiveness Pyramid.1 Organization chart of VNPT .2 Market share of postal providers by revenue 2016.3 Market share (by subscriptions) of terrestrial fixed-line telephone service providers 2016. Rationale Recent times have witnessed a rapid development of the telecommunications sector in many developing countries. This is due to the emergence of internet and wireless services, which enables the entrance into the sector of competitive service providers; and strong development of international trade in telecom services.
Telecommunications sector also recognized that a liberalized telecom market could generate higher growth, and produce better services. Thereby, this development resulted in significant improvements of their telecommunications networks and performance. In Vietnam, telecom market has transformed from monopoly based to competition-based approaches in the last two decades. In 2007, Vietnam was recognized as the world’s second fastest growing telecom market by the International Telecommunications Union.
Recently the market has about 70 operating telecoms companies, approximately 47% of those was granted licenses to provide telecommunications services whereas the rest established network infrastructure (Vietnam News, 2017). In general, it can be seen that the reforms have lifted the overall competitiveness of the telecom sector. Initially, there was only one service provider in Vietnam, namely the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications General Corporation (now the VNPT Group), who laid the first stone for the development of the telecommunications sector in Vietnam. VNPT remained its monopoly for years, managing all the infrastructures and all types of basic telecommunications services in Vietnam.
However, the rapid growth of telecom sector in Vietnam changed the landmark. The governmental decree in October 2003 gave all telecom provider the freedom to establish network and provide telecom services in Vietnam. As a consequence, VNPT lost 1 their monopoly position. In addition, for the past few years, while commitments concerning Vietnam’s telecom sector has been made in its Bilateral Trade Agreement with the US and within the ASEAN framework, more and more service providers began to emerge in the market and has been threatening the leading position of ringleader of the industry.
The competition from foreign companies such as Telstra (Australia), Alcatel and France Telecom (France), Siemens (Germany) has also become stronger. Although VNPT has currently been one of the top-five domestic telecom companies in Vietnam1, its market share is only 17.5%, much lower than other competitors, compared to Mobifone (31. In this context, in order to remain as one of the leading telecommunications companies in Vietnam, it is very much essential for VNPT to push much more effort on improving its performance and gain competitiveness in the market. One of the most important solutions to enhance the competitiveness is from financial perspective.
For these reasons, the topic “Improving the competitiveness through financial solutions: A study of Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT)” has been chosen for this master dissertation. Literature review There are broad and varied definitions of competitiveness concept based on different schools of thought and the level of analysis. 1 Five major service providers in Vietnam market are currently Viettel, Mobifone, Vinaphone, VietnamMobile and GMobile. 2 According to Michael Porter (1990), the leading researcher on competitiveness and competitive strategies, the concept of competitiveness can be understood as the company’s ability to obtain the market share and generate higher profit than its current average profit.
Under mercantilism, according to Krugman (1994), competitiveness is a different name of productivity, considering the rate of growth of one enterprise compared to the others in the same industry. In deeper research, according to the UK Department of Trade and Industry (2001), competitiveness is the capacity to supply the right goods and services of the right quality, at the right price and at the right time. On the other hand, Chikan (2008) defined the competitiveness of an enterprise is its capability to sustainably satisfy the requirements of customers at a profit. In addition to the concept, Reiljan, Hinrikus & Ivanov (2000) took the conflict of interest approach to competitiveness.
They also identified three different levels of competitiveness as (i) ability to survive, (ii) ability to develop, (iii) superiority. Of which, ability to survive is the lowest level of competitiveness, which is the capacity to adapt passively to the competitive environment without any significant change or development. The medium level of competitiveness is ability to develop, in which an enterprise is considered to be competitive if they can actively respond to changes in the competitive environment, thus improving their qualities and efficiency. Superiority is the highest level of competitiveness, in which an enterprise is considered competitive if their operations are more efficient, faster development or better qualities than other competitors, thereby influencing on the competitive environment.
Regarding the determinants of corporate competitiveness, Buckley, Pass & Prescott (1988) indicated that competitiveness has 3 dimensions including potential, process and performance, whereas Waheeduzzaman and 3 Ryans (1996) identified competitiveness as a buildup of many other disciplines (i. comparative advantage, price competition, strategic and management, including historical and socio-cultural disciplines). According to Vlachvei et al. (2017), dynamic capabilities, flexibility, agility, speed, and adaptability are recognized as the most important sources of competitiveness in the business environment.
In addition, Anca (2012) emphasized that there is a close relationship between the various levels of analysis of competitiveness (i. product, firm, industry, organization, etc. In particular, the quality of a product will determine whether an enterprise can survive competition, whereas a firm’s performance will determine if an industry or country can compete internationally. According to Michael Porter (1990), there are five forms of competitive advantage any firm may possess, including human resources, physical resources, knowledge resources, capital sources and infrastructural resources.
Although there are unsettled arguments from different schools of thought, most researchers agree that competitiveness is a complex concept due to the differences in definition and methods of measurement. Overall, the concept of competitiveness focuses on 3 major aspects: (1) Different parties (including individuals and organizations) compete with each other in order to improve their position in the market; (2) Competition between the parties aims to obtain specific benefits such as market share, a certain group of customers, potential benefit in order to generate higher profits or maximize the firm’s value; (3) The participants might use different approaches (via price, product, brand, marketing, quality of human resources, financial resources, capital resources etc.) to beat the competition. Regarding the competitiveness in the telecommunications sector, there is also a number of studies from various perspectives.