How Glocalization Helps Elevate Consumer Goods Brands in Vietnam

Businesses, especially foreign direct investment companies, must recognize the importance of investment to create added value. In markets with distinct regional differences, such as North, Central, and South Vietnam, localization needs to be implemented intensively.

In each region, it is necessary to have local people who can meet the different requirements of customers. For instance, DKSH has achieved strong market penetration and healthy growth despite the challenging COVID-19 conditions in the past two years due to our in-depth understanding of the local market.

To anticipate similar challenges ahead, businesses need to have a solid business model that allows the company to be flexible while minimizing risk. By continuing to invest in digitalization, businesses can identify opportunities to invest and obtain the best results in the consumer goods industry. Companies that optimize their operating models will gain crucial competitive advantages.

The strategy of glocalization is the key to business success especially in today’s demanding market situation. As companies increasingly demand a higher level of local market understanding, this is something that many multinational companies struggle with in Vietnam.

From the perspective of a global enterprise, businesses often want to apply a standardized operation model groupwide. However, in Vietnam, consumers and local cultures are different, and businesses must find a way to reconcile global and local factors to best serve their customers.

Working with the right business partner is important as an experienced partner will help implement the right services standard based on having detailed local market insights, creating the right development orientation for each different market.

Glocalization also helps bring value to the growth and sustainable development of businesses, markets, and local communities. When working together with a business partner, it is essential to consider the existing capacity of both sides and the added value each will provide before collaborating.

A good example of this is DKSH’s success in collaborating with Sanofi to create a localized Lactacyd product range, which saw the company chalking up increased sales over 20 times in the past decade.