Tek Experts sees skill in Hanoi

December 10, 2016 | 15:29
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Tek Experts Vietnam, a subsidiary of multinational group Tek Experts, unveiled its new Hanoi headquarters in late November. The move aims to better serve the firm’s customers in Southeast Asia and internationally. Tek Experts founder Yaniv Natan spoke with VIR’s Thanh Tung about the new headquarters.
Tek Experts founder Yaniv Natan

Are there any particular reasons for Tek Experts to operate its new headquarters in Hanoi?

With offices and employees worldwide, Tek Experts provides industry-leading software support, application development, training and education, sales support, customer care, and software solutions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. We started our business in Vietnam four years ago, and we have since grown from a small team of only 20 to an operation that employs more than 250, and this is just the start of our journey. We have ambitious plans to grow the size of our Vietnamese operation to more than 1,000 employees in the next two or three years. We believe Hanoi is perfectly placed to help us better serve Tek Experts’ customers in Southeast Asia and internationally.

The new office, located at Lotte Centre Hanoi, is part of Tek Experts' plan to launch Vietnam as one of its strategic markets on the world map. We have invested heavily in our new site in Hanoi to become a world-class office space, which will provide our employees with one of the best places to work.

We have plans to grow and expand across the world, and now, we are able to offer exciting opportunities to people in Hanoi looking to pursue a rewarding career in the IT industry. We are excited to become an employer of choice in Vietnam.

How important is the Vietnamese market to Tek Experts?

Vietnam is the second biggest Tek Experts operation around the world, after Costa Rica, in terms of the number of employees. Currently, we have six global sites, in Vietnam, Costa Rica, the US, Malta, Bulgaria, and China.

In Vietnam, we really appreciate the diligence of local employees and it is also easy for us to find good IT talent. Our motto is to give employees a career and not just a job, so we provide them with continuous training and invest in developing their skills for the long term. All employees that join the company go through routine training development. The employees are not only trained technically, but are also prepped with the skills and experience to be good managers, to grow into other areas, and to have a long and rewarding career.

Do you believe a high salary is key to attracting high-quality talent in Vietnam?

Salary is always important, but we do not believe salary is the most important part of our offering. It is just one part that helps retain employees. Many companies assume that the only thing helping to retain employees is a high salary, but we think the whole package, including salary, promotion potential, career development, office culture, and atmosphere, and our company’s social activities are key to maintaining employees in the long term.

Still, we are proud that the salary of our employees is better than what is typically offered in the local industry. But we did not select Vietnam because of cheap or low-salary workers. We chose Vietnam because of its high-quality employees.

What makes Tek Experts’ policy of attracting talent different from other companies in Vietnam?

Competition means we have to try to perform better. Without competition, you will fall behind. We are attractive to our employees because we focus on three key things:

First, we focus on career development. We recruit fresh graduates and train them not only in technical aspects but also in commercial and social behaviours.

Second, we expose our employees to a multinational environment. They have the chance to sharpen their English, and other languages, and work with top companies in the world.

And lastly, we have a strong family culture. At Tek Experts, the environment is very open and friendly. Our employees enjoy many social activities. It is a fun and lively place to work, and we aim to create an atmosphere where employees want to come into the office in the morning.

How will the expanded operation help you connect foreign investors with Vietnam?

We know we can convince our clients to bring their investment and business to Southeast Asia and, in particular, Vietnam. We are very confident of this because we already deliver high-level services from Vietnam. What we can tell you is that our clients are operating worldwide, and we can influence them to bring business from other nations to Hanoi.

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