Continuous improvement is everyday work

From an initial engagement when VFC needed to restructure and define its development strategy, Mr. Dũng joined the company as a financial and accounting advisor. After successfully fulfilling this role and earning the trust of the Board of Management, he officially became a “member of the VFC family” in the position of financial manager.

In more than 12 years with the company, he has held several key positions, contributing not only his expertise but also helping preserve and pass on the enthusiasm and dedication that previous generations at VFC built up for today’s young team.

One of his most notable achievements is VFC’s breakthrough growth in 2022, when the company’s revenue increased by 50% compared with 2021 and earlier years. In 2023, revenue continued to grow steadily, rising by a further 15% over 2022.

To Grow, You Must Recognise Your Strengths

Looking back on VFC’s 50-year journey, the company has gone through countless difficulties before reaching the current stage of strong development and breakthrough growth. Success has come from VFC’s vision and sound strategy, in which pushing past limits and fostering innovative thinking are indispensable elements and have gradually become part of the company’s culture and a daily, weekly habit of all VFC staff.

According to Mr. Dũng, VFC has been able to accelerate its development thanks to a consistent strategy from the leadership that focuses on leveraging the company’s historical strengths and “core roots” to create the best possible value.

For example, fumigation is VFC’s core business, giving the company a clear market share advantage over competitors. Supported by a specialised, long-serving team, VFC’s business plans have remained stable, helping maintain customer trust. From that foundation, the company can expand products in ways that still revolve around this core, instead of spreading itself thin across too many unrelated fields.

He further explained that in VFC’s strategy, there are four fundamental core values:
- Reputation with customers, partners, and regulatory authorities;
- A strong product portfolio, providing farmers with effective solutions for pest and disease management;
- A highly skilled, committed team in agrochemicals and fumigation, aligned with the company’s strategic direction;
- The ability to mobilise and manage financial resources effectively.

These are the pillars that create a solid foundation for VFC. From this base, VFC also emphasises continuous improvement to move forward.

In practice, when implementing improvement, VFC always follows a full process of planning, implementation, inspection, and adjustment. It is specifically at the adjustment stage that innovation arises and efficiency is enhanced.

For example, in management, VFC has shifted from a decentralised model to a more centralised one. This transition was not carried out all at once, but in stages, allowing departments sufficient time to adapt.

Speaking about integration and consolidation, Mr. Dũng noted:
“When making changes, we do not change everything at once but follow a specific sequence. We use the earlier changes as experience for the subsequent ones and share the initial results so that colleagues can build trust in the change process. That is how we ensure transformation delivers the desired outcomes.”

Regarding staff capabilities, he emphasised the importance of regular reviews to identify skills gaps and address them through support, training, and coaching. At the same time, he stressed the need to pay attention to organisational structure and to differences between generations and labour groups – factors that must be clearly understood to design appropriate policies.

Preserving and Advancing the Legacy

There are not many companies in Vietnam with a 50-year operating history like VFC. To sustain and grow such a business, Mr. Dũng believes that generations of leaders must be truly exceptional – committed, visionary, courageous, and willing to sacrifice. These are the values passed down from previous generations that later generations must preserve and develop.

“How do we preserve them? We must safeguard what is truly core – the company’s fundamental values – and treat them as our foundation. To ‘develop’ means building on that foundation while adapting to changing market conditions and government policies, turning these into advantages for the company and seizing opportunities for growth,” he added.

At VFC, people remain the decisive factor and are difficult to replace in many processes because VFC is, at its heart, a service provider. To retain customers, there must be honesty and dedication in service delivery and product quality; this is the tradition that VFC’s workforce has always upheld.

On this point, he said:  “By nature, the services we provide are created by people, not by technology. Technology is used to make our processes and customer connections faster and more seamless, but it cannot replace the human role in service delivery.”

In contrast to consumer sectors, where technology adoption can be very rapid, agricultural inputs are always closely associated with State-oriented policies. For VFC, a key criterion is the ability to quickly grasp opportunities and implement projects. To do this, the company must thoroughly understand the time lag between government policies and real market demand.

As a successor generation who respects and is grateful to the predecessors who built the company as it is today, Mr. Dũng hopes that future generations will be fully aware of their responsibilities and carry forward these achievements.

 “For the younger generation, my responsibility is to work with the Board of Management and fellow managers to share the best of what we have – to strengthen our traditional foundation and to implement new ideas and directions. The goal is to help colleagues understand, adopt, and operate these changes effectively so that together we can contribute to the company’s development,” he confided.