ANT Consult

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ANT Consult

Business in Vietnam

ANT Consult

Consultant in Vietnam

ANT Consultting

Vietnam Management Consultants

ANT Consult

Vietnam Law Firm with English Speaking Lawyers

Thứ Tư, 6 tháng 12, 2017

Risks in Business Activities of Enterprise: The Arising Causes


Risk is something that nobody expected but we have to accept to live together with it. Identifying risks and creating solutions to prevent it and also minimize losses when it happens are what businesses should do. That is positive solution instead of accepting risks.

So what “risk” is? There are many definitions of risk, in which there are two main points. First, risks are unexpected events. Second, when risk occurs, it causes losses to people and society. The business operations of enterprises are very diverse. In theory, such operations are always come with risk. Instead of statistic the risks (very difficult), we should approach the issue from the step of identification the causes of risk. It will help businesses to have better prevention against the risk. Here are some common causes of risks that businesses often encounter.
There are 8 main causes of risk. First, that is the natural environment, such as storm, flood, drought, earthquake, volcano, tsunami, sea level rising and the earth “hot” up… These risks often have some common characteristics: the ability to forecast and predict is low, happen suddenly, cause damages on a massive scale, not just for one region, one industry, one community but for the whole economy, a number of countries or the whole world. The prediction and forecast of these natural disasters are difficult but they active as a rule. Hence, enterprises can proactively prevent or choose appropriate solutions.
The second risk is the risks from social environment, social structure and population. That is the change of value, standard, human behavior, the scale of values in society and the social characteristics… They are source of risk for commercial operations and investment activities of enterprises. However, a society that encourages nurturing the creative values and the inspiration investment would certainly the good protective shield for businesses.
Thirdly, there are risks come from the environment where the cultural background is low… A society where there is low literacy, lack of cultural norms, morality is not enhanced then how well the law will be enforce? Once the laws are not enforced effectively, a thousand risks may occur. There will be a stunning political rights, the rising of kinds of crimes such as theft, looting, rioting, economic fraud underground, reneged contract, counterfeiting, piracy, inciting religion, ethnicity and hatred… As a result, the kind of snatching, fraud and deceptive business will dominate.
Fourth are the risks from political environment, where lack of institutions to protect the freedom, democracy, property rights of people in general and businesses in particular. Political environment includes the stability in politics, security and safety for enterprises and people. A country that usually has national policy changes, coups, wars, riots, ethnic and religious conflicts, intervention in markets that lack of standards, policies were dominated by the interest groups, discrimination, corruption… are causing serious risks to businesses, causing them to lack of business confidence, lose investment momentum and can harm the economy and society.
Fifth are the risks come from economic environment. A strong economy is an economy that has high resistance with the ability to resolve the crisis in the best way in the direction of transparency, low cost, high sustainability. An economic environment where there are often crisis, inflation, erratic pricing, instable supply and demand, exchange rate changes frequently, shortage of goods and services, uncontrollable monopoly, fair competition is only on paper… along with the lack of technocratic skills shall be considered to be major risks for enterprises. Furthermore, on the other hand, the challenges come from an economy with high competitiveness, the drastic changes of technical science and information technology would also be the risk for enterprises that lack of the ability to adapt to changes.
Sixth are the risks that resulting from the regulatory environment that lack of transparency in three fields of legislative, executive and judicial. This is also the danger of healthy businesses. A system of legal documents should be issued with the effective participation of the business community, according to the criteria of sustainable, friendly, fair and easy to apply. An effective law enforcement system should be operated under the motto support, promote and facilitate business. A system of reliable justice, respect for justice and ensuring effective law enforcement with a society that respect for ethic and law would be an ideal environment to encourage investment and development of business. Conversely, a business environment where the law is inconsistent, contradictory, overlapping, change suddenly and shady, law enforcement lacks transparency, openness and efficiency, the application of the law lacks fairness, property ownership right and the right to protect the contract are not only abused but also the cost is too high… are sources of risk, causing severe damage to the business.
Seventh is the risk coming from business partners. They can be investors, joint ventures, cooperation or customers of the business. Have you ever questioning that where do they come from and are they reliable in terms of skills, experience, financial strength, legal and corporate governance. When establishing a relationship in business, both parties should understand and trust each other before coming to the steps of negotiating, signing and implementing contracts. Regarding business contract, it should be made very carefully because each paragraph stalking the risks that businesses need to take into consideration such as terms, payment, tax, limitation of liability, termination of the contract ahead of time and contract dispute resolution…Hence, the contract should be made carefully by a professional unit.
Eighth is the risk coming from the enterprise itself such as business attitudes towards risk, mistakes in business strategy and enterprise management, the weakness of the managers and employees, lack of ethics and business culture, lack of motivation, lack of internal unity…The most important thing is to regularly inspect and test the control systems of corporate is effective or not. Corporate governance is the whole system of rules and regulations. Good corporate governance will help the strategic decisions of the enterprise to be issued in the most enlightened and effective way, along with the best elimination of risk. Good corporate governance ensures utilizing all resources of business.
Before conducting business operations, businesses have to conduct risk analysis from at least 8 reasons above, then who dares to ensure that doing business is easy.
ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing corporate intelligence, risk advisory, management consulting services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:
We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.
We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

Risk Management in Enterprise

Risk and manage risk
Conceptually, risk is any uncertainty that may be harmful to the ability to successfully implement the business objectives of the enterprise. Businesses can identify potential risks to manage them. Fully understood, risk management is a process of a comprehensive review of the business operations to identify potential risks that may impact adversely to the operational aspects of the business. Based on that, the response solutions will be given corresponding to each risk. We can also understand that the risk management process is a process that is organized in a formal way and ongoing to determine, control and report the risks that can affect the achievement of the business objectives of the enterprise.
Requirements for operational risk management
To ensure that risk management activities are carried out as planned, the implementation must ensure the following requirements:
• Raising awareness about the risks as well as the ability to cope with risks appropriately throughout the enterprise;
• Formalize the process of risk management;
• Develop unified risk management processes in the enterprise;
• Transparency risks;
• Including risk management process as part of the internal control system;
In fact, well organized and efficient risk management activities will contribute to add value to the enterprise, specifically:
• Help improving operational efficiency and create competitive advantage;
• Contribute to the allocation and efficient use of corporate resources;
• Minimize errors in all aspects of business operations…
Recently, with the powerful impact of high inflation rate and economic recession caused by the global financial crisis to enterprises, people are concerning more about risk management activities. Many experts believe that well organized and effective operated risk management system will help businesses withstand and overcome fluctuations.
However, how to organize a complete risk management system is the fact that not many businesses are well understood. The worrying thing is many businesses supposing that with the use of insurance services, their businesses are making adequate risk management. That is completely incorrect.
Risk management policies and implementation
To establish risk management systems, enterprises should start from the development of risk management policy. This policy will define the approaching and managing of risk. In addition, risk management policies will clearly defined responsibilities for risk management throughout the enterprise to Board of Directors; The subordinate units; Departments; Risk management department (if any); the internal audit department – internal control. The implementation of risk management activities should be tied to business strategy, annual budget plan and the business cycle in the enterprise.
Risk Management Process
Basically, risk management processes typically include basic steps such as: confirmation of the business objectives, identify risks, description and classification of risk, assessment and risk ratings, response planning development, reporting an update on implementation, monitoring the process of implementation, review and improvement of risk management processes. Details of some of the main steps in the risk management process are as follows:
Confirmation of business objectives
Risk management activities are organized and implemented towards ensuring the successful implementation of the enterprise objectives. Therefore, at the begining the risk management process, the first task that business leaders need to do is confirming the operational goals of the business. This will be the base to ensure that risk management activities are held in the right direction.
Identify Risks
There are many methods to identify risk. Each method has different advantages and disadvantages. However, the following methods are considered using to determine the risk:
  • Organize risk assessment workshop;
  • Organize “Brain Attack” meeting;
  • Questionnaire;
  • Audit and inspection;
  • Based on industry norms;
  • Situation analysis
In fact, the method of determining risk that are used most in organizations is organizing risk assessment workshop. Attending the workshop are the Board of Directors and leaders of all departments. Members at the workshop will exchange information to give a list of business risks. In many cases, the result of the risk identification process is a long list of potential risks. However, this should not be too worried, the implementation of the next steps of the risk management process will help identify clearly the risks that are really the great risk to enterprises.
Description and classification of risk
After identifying potential risks, the next step is to describe briefly but specifically about the origin, cause, consequence and impact of each risks to the enterprise.
Next, we will implement the risk classification. There are many different types of potential risks for enterprises. They can originate inside or outside the enterprise. Based on the nature of the risk, they are many way to classify risk. However, the most common way is to classify risk into 4 groups as follows:
  • Financial risk: interest rate, exchange rate, credit source, cash flow and ability to pay…;
  • Strategic risk: competition, customer changes, industry changes, risks for research and development activities, intellectual property…;
  • Operational risk: the leaders, corporate culture, violation of management rules, financial control, information systems…;
  • Dangerous risk: environmental risks, supplier, natural disaster, risks for assets, contracts, products and services…
The classification of risks as above will help enterprises to manage risk in a systematic way.
Assessment and risk rating
Enterprise resources are limited while the number of the risks is great. So, the next step is to organize, evaluate and ranking risks according to priority level of response. Enterprises will analyze, evaluate each risk according to two criteria: the possibility of risk and the extent of the risks affecting the business if happened. The risk that the businesses need to prioritize response and prevent is the risk with high likelihood and degree of influence.
Develop response plans
Develop response plans is an important stage in the process of risk management. At this stage, enterprise should given the preventive measures and specific control should be taken to prevent and minimize damage if the risk occurs. There are 3 contents that must be determined for each specific risk when developing response plans:
  1. Measures that should be implemented to prevent risks;
  2. The completion deadline for those measures;
  3. The person that responsible for managing that risk.
Monitoring the implementation of measures
In the process of implementation of response measures, businesses need to build a system of reporting regularly to ensure strict control of the implementation process. Enterprises also need to ensure that all shortcomings in the implementation of risk control measures must be timely reporting to leaders.
At the same time, business leaders must also build a culture of risk management to every staffs in the enterprise. It is high time that the corporate governance should seriously view the role of risk management activities, consider setting up and maintaining a risk management system in business. Practical experience shows that, once the risks are forecasted, enterprises can fully develop and deploy effective response plans for sustainable development.
ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing corporate intelligence, risk advisory, management consulting services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:
We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.
We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

Family Office Services

Vietnam has been considered as an attractive fit for family offices.
The Vietnam’s stock market has been around fifteen ten years. Fund certificates in various forms are available such as close ended fund, open ended fund, Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Foreign investors are now allowed to hold up to 49% shares in a listed company and this room has been in the process to change in the near future. Although Vietnam market is considered small for pension funds or the similar, this market is a right fit for family offices.
Further, foreigners are now allowed to make direct investment, hold 100% and conduct business in most areas after the new investment law’s effective date of Jul 1st, 2015. The real estate law has been passed with effective on the same date with new investment law, allowing foreigners entering Vietnam to buy real estate.
We are a local professional management consulting firm with family office service that assist foreign clients with asset management and consolidated reporting of all the family’s assets.
In particular, we provide wealth management and tax planning, trustee and corporate services, and support with indirect investment, direct investment, real estate and family governance.
We are your consultants and we could act as nominee shareholder, nominee director, or provide management service that help you achieve the goal, and stay in private status at the same time.
We look forward to helping you find the family office services you need in Vietnam.
ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing corporate intelligence, risk advisory, management consulting services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:
We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.
We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

RISK MANAGEMENT: A VITAL ELEMENT WHEN DOING BUSINESS

Risk management is a vital element when doing business but so far, not many enterprises concern about it.
According to a recent survey with 522 companies, there are only 43 comanies, accounting for about 8%, have the independent risk management department in their business. More noteworthy, the majority of these 43 companies operating in the banking and financial sector, which has nothing new to risk management. In fact, not all banks have independent and effective risk management departments. The negative problems related to the banking system in recent times somewhat showed the picture about the risk management of this sector.
Risk is understood as any events and situations that could harmful to the ability to achieve the business objectives of the enterprise. Risk management is organized in a formal way and is conducted continuously to identify, control and report the risks that may affect the achievement of the business objectives of the enterprise.
So why businesses are not interested in risk management? Part of this problem stems from the awareness of the leaders. In order to build and operate the risk management system in the enterprise, it needs the commitment of the senior leaders. If senior leaders do not aware of this problem, the administration process will be difficult to achieve the desired effectiveness.
Recently, there are many theories and systems of risk management but small and medium enterprises should be cautious when apply because system and theory are just general and they should be adjusted when applying to each business.
In order to form the culture of risk management, the leaders must along with the employees to implement it regularly and for each project. In theory, the risk management process is carried out in 5 steps: identify risk; evaluate its impact; determine the likelihood; action and measures; monitoring and evaluation.
ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing corporate intelligence, risk advisory, management consulting services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:
We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.
We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

BACKGROUND CHECK SERVICE IN VIETNAM


VIETNAM IS WORKING ON IMPROVING ON THE LEVEL OF TRANSPARENCY. IT IS ADVISABLE THAT FOREIGN INVESTORS TAKE EFFORT TO LEARN ABOUT THEIR PARTNERS BEFORE COOPERATING WITH THEM. IN OTHER WORDS, IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND AN INDIVIDUAL OR ENTERPRISE BEFORE JOINING VENTURE WITH THEM  IN VIETNAM SO THAT  THE INVESTORS MAY REDUCE THE MINIMUM RISKS THAT MAY OCCUR AS WELL AS EVALUATING THE POSSIBILITY OF COOPERATION IN THE FUTURE.

Despite the high risks of fraud, there are good opportunities in Vietnam. Namely, at the present, Vietnam has been strongly attracting direct investment capital from foreign investors. This leads to the demands of investigation as above – mentioned.
If the investors ignore this step of investigation, they may take heavy consequences because of their subjective. It may be a loss of money, time, effort and reputation.
Normally, most of the investors investing in Vietnam for the first time are using survey results from third parties, that is, the companies specializing in the investigation of market information.
Because, first, when investing in a whole new market, the investors do not understand clearly about the investment environment as well as the operating subjects in this new market. If the investors conduct the investigations themselves, the result may be inaccurate and not objective.
Second, the investors can save time as well as money to focus on other professional activities. With a team of experienced professionals, the companies specializing in this investigation field have full of capacity to meet all requests from the investors. Besides, time for the investigation is quick, and the price shall be much cheaper than the cost that the investors use to do their own investigation.
Therefore, if you are going to invest in Vietnam, we recommend you to conduct a thorough Vietnam background check, which includes the followings:
  • Research for records of enterprises or record of individuals in Vietnam;
  • Research for the reputation of the company or individual who shall be your business partners in Vietnam;
  • Research for the history of public information about the company or individual.
Before an investor wishes to set-up a business venture in Vietnam, it is advised to learn about the market, the business partner in Vietnam.  Let ANT Consulting help your business. Please contact us via email ant@antconsult.vn or call our office number: +848 35202779 (HCMC) or +844 39388751 (Hanoi).

GOOD RISK MANAGEMENT FOR ENTERPRISE – THE KEY TO SUCCESS

RISK IS AN INEVITABLE FACTOR IN BUSINESS OPERATION ACTIVITIES, HIGHER RETURN IS ALWAYS ACCOMPANIED BY HIGHER RISKS. COPING AND MANAGING RISK IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF ANY BUSINESS IF YOU WANT TO MAKE PROFIT AND CREATE VALUE TO SHAREHOLDERS. HOWEVER, IN FACT, THERE ARE A LOT OF BUSINESSES DOES NOT MANAGE RISK EFFECTIVELY AND FURTHERMORE NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE RISKS THAT THEY ARE FACING.

Risk can be defined broadly as any factors or events could drive business and production activities of the enterprise below forecasted. Specifically, the measures that are commonly used as capital risk, profit risk or cash flow risk, depending on the emphasis that are accounting balance sheet and statement of cash flows.
According to the Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade, in recent times, there are many corporate scams between Vietnam and foreign enterprises. In particular, the main behaviors are foreign companies purchase/sell goods or provide services for partners in Vietnam and the Vietnam partner fail to make payment.
Typically, a director has scammed 3 billion VND of foreign companies and he was arrested. Although his company does not have pepper but he still receives nearly 350,000 USD of the Egyptian company, then appropriated half. According to the investigation, a few years ago, Vinamex Co., Ltd signed contract with a Libya company in Egypt to sell 4 black pepper containers with price of 669,600 USD even though the Vinamex Company do not have condition to implement the contract and also do not have goods.
To obtain the money of partners, the Director of Vinamex forging multinational bills of lading, certificate of plant quarantine and then send to Lybia Company. The Lybia Company then transfer to Vinamex a deposit amount of 348,300 USD. After that, Vinamex’s director withdraws all money to pay for his company’s debt.
After months have been urging, the Vinamex Company buy a container of black pepper worth 174,150 USD and then send to Lybia Company. The remaining amount equivalent to 3 billion VND was appropriated by the Vinamex’s director. The Lybia Company has adopted Vietnam embassy in Egypt to submit the denunciation.
In fact, many business leaders often put heavy emphasis on the business activity, profit, and revenues instead of concentrating more on risk management. Improving risk management process will create a tight and effective control of the Board of Directors, on the other hand will help integrate the risk management process into every daily decision-making process.
Businesses do not improve the risk management process will be faced with a lot of different types of risks: financial losses serious, adverse effects on cash flows and the value of shares, as declining prestige with customers, employees and investors.
Businesses that do not improve the risk management process will have to face with a lot of different types of risks: serious financial losses, adversely affecting cash flows and the value of shares, decreasing prestige with customers, employees and investors.
In the period of global crisis had been predicted that almost bottomed out and started to show signs of recovery, although the recovery process can occur with different speed and characteristics depending on sector and location of the business, the fully preparation of business in all aspects including process and risk management strategy could helps business not falling into the passive and also have more possibilities to take advantage of growth opportunities after the recession.
ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing intelligence, information, management or support and administrative services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:
We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.
We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

Chủ Nhật, 19 tháng 11, 2017

Policy and regulatory research

At ANT Consulting, we assist client to search and analyze policy and regulation that have direct implications to the business of the clients.

We offer insights on the changing policy landscape and the risks and opportunities for investors and business person.  We utilize contacts within the public and private sectors to ensure accurate and timely information.  Overall, we assist client to make an informed and better business decision through local contact in Vietnam in a management report.
ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing intelligence, information, management or support and administrative services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:
We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.
We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +8428 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn
Let us help your business in Vietnam.