Vietnamese developers are on the top compared to others in South East Asia?

Comparing to its neighbors in South East Asia, Vietnam is on the top not only for safety, investment flow but also for the level of information technology. Specially from the 4.0 revolution, Vietnam is considered as the most potential country in high-tech human resource in the region.
Adamo Digital - one of top software development companies in Vietnam

A potential outsourcing hub in the future for software developments
15 years ago, Vietnam looked outside India and started offering IT outsourcing services as global companies whose main competitive advantage is low-cost service.

15 years later, in 2017, 81% of IT companies said they planned an annual payroll rise of between 6% and 20% this year, according to the report of Vietnamworks. This number shows the results of high demand for software developers in Vietnam which is becoming the trends now.

Additionally, the number of tech jobs has doubled over the last three years, adding that Vietnam currently has around 250,000 engineers, but will need more than 400,000 by the end of 2018. Salaries have increased significantly in recent years and many companies have even offered generous bonuses to attract and retain employees. Up to 80% of the jobs that requires IT professionals with at least two-year experience would pay a maximum $1,160 per month.

Read more: Vietnamese Developers Are at the Top Amongst Southeast Asian Competitors

Surpassed China to become Japan's second biggest software outsourcing partner

In recent years, more than 10 Vietnam IT companies have made major inroads into the Japanese market, as the report of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). Also, with 20.6% market share in Japan, Vietnam become the 2nd biggest software and IT partner, with the top position in India.

In 2016, Vietnam's IT revenue reached $68 billion, posting an 11.49% yoy increase. The software sector alone earned $1.6 billion, with 58% coming from the international market. That is why Vietnamese government have been investing to develop the IT industry, with the aim of transforming its economy into a high-value, knowledge-based one.

Vietnamese government pays attention on developing IT education

Due to the investment and encouraging from the government, Vietnamese kids are exposed early on to computer and programming. And the result is proved from 2013 after the Google Engineer Neil Fraser's visit to Vietnam.

"Without knowing the source of the question, he judged that this would be in the top third. The class had 45 minutes to design a solution and implement it in Pascal. Most of them finished, a few just needed another five minutes. There is no question that half of the students in that grade 11 class could pass the Google interview process." Fraser wrote in his blog,

Computer classes start with the basics in Grade Two, by the following year students are learning how to use Windows XP - apparently ubiquitous in the country - and touch typing in English, while Grade Four sees them begin programming in Logo, "starting with sequences of commands, then progressing to loops".

By comparison, at San Francisco's magnet school for science and technology (Galileo Academy) 11 and 12th-grade students struggle with HTML's image tag, while loops and conditionals were "poorly understood", and computer science homework is banned by the school board, said Fraser.

Regardless, it doesn't really matter. The revelation, which is a little scary but also inspiring and incredibly impressive, is that the Vietnam education system is producing world-class programmers with very little resources.

Global technology giants are investing in Vietnam

"It is not surprising that Vietnam is being referred to as a global scale alternative, in the context of traditional locations such as China and India that have a cost overrun higher ". This is what PwC wrote about Vietnam as a promising outsourcing industry in 2017. Overall, seeing Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as major software outsourcing areas, PwC has made a lot of praise for Vietnam.

A lot of global technology giants like Samsung, Microsoft, LG, Intel are also investing heavily in Vietnam. It's not only because Vietnam is a potential outsourcing market, but also the young generation in Vietnam, follow their tradition, now keep working and learning to improve their skills.

From the research, Vietnamese programmers work 6 days per week, compared with 5 days per week in the West. In Vietnam, it seems to be popular to work 12 hours a day and 6-7 days per week.

In general, although Vietnam's information technology is still in its infancy, all these signs point to a bright future.

Competing China and India in the outsourcing market 

As the report from World Bank about International Labor Organization in 2017, the average labour cost in Vietnam is around 90% less than the US, 50% less than China and 40% less than India. Therefore, on the side of labour cost, Vietnam shows its competitive advantages with the similar quality.

Vietnamese students have talent in mathematics and science compared with others in South East Asian countries. One of a good example is that high Vietnamese student often achieves very high results in the Mathematical Olympiads and International Physics.

Of course, the fact that on the world map of technology, Vietnam Software Development Outsourcing is still at the 'potential star' and not the superpower, so these above examples and facts may be just a glimpse of many others competitive advantages that many foreign investors in Vietnam are experienced.

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