How to Operate Your Vietnam Business Remotely During COVID-19
The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered the world’s largest ever work-from-home experiment as businesses are called to consider how to effectively utilize their employees while also minimizing physical contact.
That issue has now begun to impact businesses across the world, where the infectious nature of the outbreak means the avoidance of gathering in public, which includes staff working in offices or traveling to the workplace using public transit, in addition to the banning of other public gatherings.
The situation remains challenging, with staff working from home and businesses disrupted. It also appears the situation will remain with the global business community for a while. So how can businesses across North America, Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia manage not just their own reductions in office and factory workforce, but also manage their Vietnam subsidiary operations as well?
Under these circumstances, most options for the standard operation of businesses using traditional methodologies are temporarily unavailable. Managers at foreign-invested entities (FIEs) in Vietnam have had to move very quickly to pick up the slack. This has meant the establishment of new workflows that mitigate staff travel while also ensuring that work timelines are met. The way employees collaborate remotely has had to be re-assessed.
In this article, we look at the methodology and technical solutions when operating a business that is under lockdown or needs to start preparing for the eventuality.
Appoint and empower a Chief Information Officer
Businesses need to appoint a responsible person to act as a Chief Information Officer (CIO). This can be a high-stress role as the CIO has responsibility for the infrastructure on which the remote office heavily relies, the smooth sharing of information across the organization, and the security of that information.
It is vital that a CIO is able to coordinate with all staff, be aware of their location and situation, and is able to accurately disseminate company information, instructions, and assistance where required.
Enforcing the security and efficiency of your corporate IT assets
Foremost in the mind of the CIO at such a time should be the security of confidential corporate information.
Employees are working from home.
- Can they rely on the existing corporate infrastructure in place to do their jobs?
- Is their organization reliant on centralized, physical servers located in server rooms at HQ or in data centers?
If so, are your employees at home and in China able to access those servers sufficiently quickly to do their work under current circumstances?
If the company does not put in place an explicit short-term policy and take necessary measures to allow employees to do their work and meet deadlines, the inevitable consequence is that those employees will start to fall back on “non-corporate” channels of information exchange.
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This article is produced by Vietnam Briefing, a premium source of information for investors looking to set up and conduct business in Vietnam. The site is a publishing arm of Dezan Shira & Associates, a leading foreign investment consultancy in Asia with over 27 years of experience assisting businesses with market entry, site selection, legal, tax, accounting, HR and payroll services throughout the region.
We are pleased to introduce our Covid-19 portal, dedicated to providing businesses with an extensive roundup of the latest developments, policy updates, and solutions to help manage your business operation during the outbreak. Checking in daily to keep up to date with new updates!
- How to Operate Your Vietnam Business Remotely During COVID-19
- Dezan Shira & Associates’ Covid-19 Portal