Cooperating with FPT Digital for digital transformation, Thien Long is approaching the goal of becoming the leading company in Asia in the stationery industry, with a revenue of billions Dong from 2025.
Thien Long digital transformation with “the architect” FPT Digital
The fierce fluctuations caused by Covid-19 did not make it difficult for Thien Long. In 2021, at the milestone of its 40th birthday, Thien Long is in the Top 15 companies with the highest revenue growth in the world in the stationery industry, according to Plimsoll (UK). An important factor that helps Thien Long “turn risks into opportunities”, taking long steps towards the goal of billions Dong in annual revenue from 2025 is digital transformation.
During the two years of the pandemic, schools switched to online learning, many businesses switched to working from home mode, and exports stalled following the lockdowns both at domestics and international. As a business in the field of stationery, Thien Long faces unprecedented difficulties.
As soon as the pandemic appeared in Vietnam at the beginning of 2020, Thien Long Chairman, Mr. Co Gia Tho determined to bring this corporation into the digital transformation journey with the message: “With the expectation of reaching trillions in sales. In the next 5 years, Thien Long must drastically change its management thinking and business strategy. Digital transformation will help Thien Long achieve that expectation. We are determined to digitally transform, Thien Long Group will be a great success!”.
Ms. Tran Phuong Nga, General Director of Thien Long determined: “Digital transformation is not only about finding technological solutions but also needing to change from the foundation, which is a new management and operation mindset. Thien Long will transform digitally with the transformation of governance model, restructure the corporation to create a new value chain.
Thien Long’s Board of Directors has chosen FPT Digital Digital Transformation Consulting (a member company of FPT Corporation) to accompany and create a comprehensive digital transformation roadmap.
Applying the FPT Digital KaizenTM methodology, the “architect” FPT Digital together with Thien Long drew a picture of the future with a focus on optimizing operations, and at the same time developing a strong market on the basis of “Thien Long digital core”.
Describing this picture more clearly, Mr. Le Vu Minh, Director of Digital Transformation Consulting FPT Digital said, first, digital transformation will strengthen and develop intrinsic strength throughout the value chain from product development to supplying to logistics, doing business according to the criteria of increasing the satisfaction and benefits of stakeholders. Next, all of Thien Long’s activities are operated on the two-speed information technology system “Thien Long Digital Core” including core system and satellite system, capable of connecting to ensure smooth data. and instantaneous. “The transformation process aims to increase work efficiency while allowing rapid expansion of new categories with minimal change costs, forming a new value chain for the Group,” emphasized Mr. Minh.
In order to realize the future vision, the short-term 1-2 years to the medium-term 5 years have been shaped with specific goals with 100% unity in Thien Long. That is the roadmap for implementing initiatives and solutions built and connected synchronously with Thien Long’s existing system, adding capacity on value chains, gradually realizing the goal in the first 5 years.
Success from the first step
Looking back at the past year of 2021, Mr. Le Vu Minh shared: “The Thien Long digital transformation roadmap was built to ensure that it goes along with the business strategy, to meet urgent operational tasks as well as to solve it immediately and accelerate the growth opportunities presented”.
Ms. Tran Phuong Nga said, through the process of assessing the level of digital maturity that FPT Digital carried out with all Thien Long’s member units, all production and business activities were analyzed and exploited groups of problems that exist. However, not all issues need to wait for digital transformation to be resolved. There are several shortcomings can be overcome immediately, improve productivity or reduce costs quickly, called “quick-win”. The victories through each step create more confidence and determination to transform in the Group.
Thien Long has passed the age of 40 with a long history of innovation and creativity, promoting research activities, producing many materials, molds and assembling production machinery by itself.
Assessing the first stage of digital transformation, Ms. Tran Phuong Nga said: “The rate of automation in factories has reached more than 78%. Some operational processes in the digital transformation roadmap have been digitized by Thien Long’s team to save considerable time, costs and human resources.
Not only “picking sweet fruits” in operations, in product and customer service, Thien Long has made great strides. The new STEAM & DIY (Do It Yourself) product line, developed in cooperation with leading brands in the world, is multi-functional, which is both stationery, fun and creativity, bringing a variety of experiences for users. In the roadmap of optimizing and developing the ecosystem, Thien Long has initially cooperated with many large corporations such as Nova Group, Nguyen Hoang Education Group, and cooperated to expand product distribution on sales points of FPT Retail company. Diverse cooperation programs not only help Thien Long expand business opportunities but also contribute to the community, creating new value chains according to the set roadmap.
“In the past two years, with digital transformation roadmap designs from FPT Digital, Thien Long is rapidly and sustainably reaching the trillion-dollar mark, moving towards the No. 1 position in Southeast Asia and the leading position in Asia in terms of manufacturing and stationery business,” said Ms. Nga.
