National Quality Award is the "pedestal" to help businesses increase exports

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh Deputy Director General of the Directorate for Standards, Metrology and Quality (Ministry of Science and Technology).

The National Quality Awards have been held for more than 25 years. Could you tell us how the awards have had a positive impact on the awareness of the business community about improving productivity, product quality and service as well as production and business activities?

The National Quality Awards have been organized for the Vietnamese business community for a quarter of a century, the first thing is to change the perception of the business community about quality, improving productivity and creating the best products for consumers.

Over the past 25 years, the setting of criteria for the National Quality Awards has gradually approached the models of international awards, especially the awards that are connected in the Quality Awards Asia Pacific. We bring the valuable essence and requirements of the Asia-Pacific Quality Awards closer to the Vietnamese business community.

Over the past two decades, Vietnam has formed a movement of productivity and quality, a movement for enterprises to apply advanced management systems.

For example, about 20 years ago, it was a very big event to talk about which enterprises achieved the ISO 9001 quality management system. However, these management system standards have become very common, they are very normal requirements when businesses and partners work together. These standards are also part of the criteria for the National Quality Awards.

How have enterprises participating in the National Quality Award have changed over the past 25 years in terms of business type and size, sir?

The National Quality Award is known as the "queen" of all kinds of quality awards.

The Award given by the Prime Minister should not be achieved easily. A few numbers of companies that have won the awards is easy to understand. The award criteria are not limited to a certain size or type of enterprise, but from small and medium enterprises, large enterprises, manufacturing enterprises, and service enterprises that can participate.

However, the award considers the process for almost a whole year, it is not easy for all businesses to participate. In addition, businesses that have already won the award will be considered to participate in the award after three years.

In the past, it has recorded the participation of many different types of enterprises.

For example, in the last two years, there were multinational corporations participating in the award. Usually, multinational corporations will follow the standards of multinationals. Recently, they are also very interested in joining, like Nestle Vietnam.

The enterprise has a British director but understands the criteria of the award very well. They brought the best factories of the group, the most modern coffee factory in the world, to invest in Vietnam and selected them to participate in the awards. That confirms the response of multinational corporations to participate in the awards.

Besides, this year as well as previous years, many private economic groups with Vietnamese products also participated in the awards such as TH True Milk, Tan Hiep Phat.

It shows that many businesses make efforts to participate in this award. It is notable that the small and medium business community has many businesses also striving to participate and win awards, for example, the Center for Electrical Testing specializes in producing electronic meters. They not only won the National Quality Gold award but also won the Asia-Pacific Quality Award.

Do you think the National Quality Awards create a better "pedestal" for enterprises to promote the export of goods, especially in the context of Vietnam's increasingly integrated economy?

That is true because it meets the criteria of the National Quality Award, of course, the requirements of the world's advanced management system standards have also been met. Winning awards is almost a "pedestal" as well as creating infrastructure and awareness of access to the requirements of exporting countries to promote exports.

In addition, this award is also linked to the Asia-Pacific Quality Awards. The enterprises that won the Asia-Pacific Quality Award are affirming that the rise in quality and reaching a regional level will help businesses a lot in exporting goods.

In the future, how will the General Department of Standards, Metrology and Quality make improvements for enterprises participating in the National Quality Award, considering it a milestone to rise and increase the value of enterprises as well as the value of goods and services of Vietnam?

After more than a quarter of a century, enterprises participating in the award had more than 2,000 enterprises winning the National Quality Gold Award, of which 50 enterprises won the Asia-Pacific Quality Award. These are pioneering companies, at the forefront of productivity and quality movement. It must also be affirmed that more than 2,000 of these enterprises also make a great contribution to the socio-economic development of Vietnam.

The total revenue of enterprises over the past 25 years is estimated up to trillions of dong, providing jobs for millions of workers.

All of these 2,000 enterprises affirmed that in the consideration process, they made a great contribution to the state budget while ensuring all environmental factors and employment.

I think these are typical businesses. The Ministry of Science and Technology, the General Department of Standards, Metrology and Quality also look forward to continuing to replicate such a typical enterprise model so that there are more powerful and better enterprises in the business community thanks to the application of rewards.

In the future, we will continue to use the seven criteria of the award as a tool to be more widely disseminated in the business community, not only for businesses that feel capable of participating in consideration but also both small and medium enterprises, large enterprises, which have not grasped the award criteria, will have the opportunity to recognize and better understand the criteria to help businesses improve and apply them.

Second, we are looking for opportunities to bring businesses that have won the National Quality Gold Award and Asia-Pacific Quality Award to share and replicate the experience in the process of applying or sharing, including difficulties in the implementation process and the way to overcome them.

Third, we continue to expand the network of consultants and award evaluators to help the prequalification council of provinces, cities and the National Council consider, evaluate and select the best enterprises and submit to the Prime Minister for consideration and award.

Thank you Sir!