Profit or "green" strategy?

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In the context of consumers increasingly focus on food safety, quality, enterprises need to build their brand associated with the "green" factor. Photo: HUU LINH.

Wasting of money

So far, the word "brand" may not be too unfamiliar to any enterprises. In the way that Mr. Vu Xuan Truong - Brand and Competition Research Institute commented: "We have had nearly ten years of implementation of the National Branding Program. The most obvious change in branding is the awareness of business owners has increased rapidly. If you ask ten enterprises if branding is important, then certainly nine enterprises would say that it’s important”. In fact, the brand not only helps enterprises create images but also create commercial value for them.

In the narrower approach, the brand understood closely is to gather the customer's perception of a service, product or a company in the sense aspects such as: Description identity, brand personality, brand value. Or in other words, the brand is the whole feeling of customers about a service, product, company... and those feelings often formed over time. Especially, in the context where consumers increasingly focus on food safety, hygiene, and quality, a brand building associated with the "green" factor - using friendly materials, technology, launching "clean" products, ensuring the environment would be a top priority.

Although a warning of brand’s role, especially the brand associated with green development in a small part of enterprises have changed, but the process from awareness to action is still a long way. Mr. Vu Xuan Truong said that the development of the brand is only attracted by a number of large enterprises and investment, while most small and medium enterprises today do not focus on even though they accounted for 97% total number of Vietnamese enterprises.

Why is there this situation? According to Mr. Truong, enterprises are in the conflict between the two goals of profit and sustainable growth, green growth. In addition, most of Vietnam enterprises are small and medium having difficulties in technology, human resources, capital – those are a huge obstacle for enterprises to implement green development strategy.

As an enterprise which follows the green development strategy, even Traphaco Joint Stock Company is not a small business, but the cost of doing green development is also a problem. Ms. Dao Thuy Ha, Marketing Manager of Traphaco JSC said that to succeed as today, Traphaco has chosen the path of green quality. Traphaco's strategy is to develop from nature, ie selecting natural resources to develop products, then building green areas. "The story of creating green products will be expensive, costly and at the same time, it is necessary to have the efforts of enterprises", Ms. Ha’s sharing may also be the concern of many enterprises when embarking on the green development strategy.

"Soft" weapon to win

The choice between profit and green growth is a problem for many enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. But even though costly and difficult, experts still advise businesses to choose green growth because green growth strategy is an indispensable trend that businesses must look forward to.

Economist Luu Bich Ho said that in the world there are not so many developing countries at a low level as our country require rapid development, green development as the developed countries. We need to understand that we should not be too "urgent", impatient. However, if we do not care from the beginning to green growth then we would have to pay more in comparison with the growth. "What is the price that China had to pay for the non-green development, even brown, red growth, we all saw. The air of major cities in China is heavily polluted, unsafe food sources” said Mr. Ho. Therefore, if we want to be a success, then following this path patiently is the way, since green development, green consumption, green enjoyment (such as air) is long-term development.

In fact, building brand in general, building brand in association with green development is the process of building consumer confidence. The confidence starts with the product itself, from the enterprise itself. However, in our country, there is still the situation where the quality of products from consumer goods and foodstuffs to services are good at the beginning, but then the quality is gradually reduced which makes customers lose their trust.

The example that Mr. Ho mentioned may not be the exception: "I eat weekly at the famous bun cha in Hanoi, but I start to lose faith. The price does not change but the quality is getting worse”. The cause of this situation is explained by Mr. Ho is due to business in Viet Nam is not in line with the meaning of modern market economy. "Modern market economy is that people always protect their credit, the credit takes first place. We are able to speak, to understand but cannot do it because we’re too interested in immediate benefits. If you only care about immediate benefits without preserving the brand, then the ultimate benefit will be lost. We need to figure out how to make enterprises understand the credit should be placed on the top”, said Mr. Ho.

Agreed with this view, some other experts also said that consumers are very sensitive and intelligent. The lesson about cheap Chinese goods no longer having "living land" is an example. Also related to beliefs, in other aspects, Mr. Truong said: "Clearly consumers have faith in goods having a good origin, materials such as "luggage-carried" goods they choose to buy. When will Vietnam produce green labeled products that consumers would buy at the first sight, without any hesitation?

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It can be said that the "green" strategy is an indispensable trend that has been talked about around the world and embarked on 30 years ago. The "green" strategy is actually a "soft" weapon for the brand to win. That was the McDonald's brand winning when it comes to branding campaigns (everything was turning green like the traditional yellow logo turned blue, wrapped in paper bags instead of polymer bags, input materials changed). This trend is also being updated very quickly by Vietnam enterprises, such as Ecopark green area, Dien Quang light bulb using solar energy... This will be the long-term strategy that enterprises must determine to follow. This strategy cannot be implemented over a night, so the perseverance and determination of the owners are very important.