Michel Dauguet and the "Localization Dream"
Witnessing a changing Vietnam. After earning a
university degree in business administration, he
came to Thailand in 1991 to do economic
research for the Indochina region. At that time, he
paid close attention to Vietnam's development. "I
knew Vietnam was opening its doors and many
things were changing here." He persuaded his
wife, a Thai national, to come to Vietnam with
him.While working for a law firm in Hanoi in 1995,
he contributed capital to set up Pacific RIM JV
- one of the first companies providing information publications on
business, laws, tourism and foreign investment on the Internet and
CD-ROMs.
In early 1998, the company faced a lot of difficulties due to falling
demand in the wake of the regional economic crisis. General director
Dauguet was forced to temporarily halt the company's operations. He
gathered his employees and told them Pacific RIM could no longer
operate but that he would stay in Vietnam to find partners to set up a
new company.
He wished everybody luck in finding new jobs and promised to meet
those still wanting to work with him again in September. Time passed
and the date he promised to meet his staff came. He could not have
imagined that all his employees were present at 8:00 a.m. "It was quite
a moving scene," Dauguet said. "Never before had I had such a
devoted staff. They returned and joined me in building a software
development company." Those employees are now employees and
programmers and managers of the software-making RIM
Technologies Vietnam.
Vietnamizing RIM Technologies. At the moment, 80% of the earnings of
RIM Technologies Vietnam come from software-making subcontracts
for foreign companies, and the remainder from writing software for
Vietnamese companies. Last year, the company turned a profit thanks
to big and stable contracts from European, Canadian and U.S.
partners though the information technology (IT) industry was on the
decline. Not disclosing any concrete figures, Dauguet said his
company's turnover doubled annually during the past two years, and
the company expected to maintain its growth rate this year. In March,
RIM Technologies Vietnam launched a software product designed to
manage documents on ISO quality control, called GEDYS Quality
Manager, and planned to increase the local share of its earnings to
30%. Earlier this year, RIM Technologies Vietnam set up a division
specializing in IT solutions for the domestic market. Dauguet said, "I
see that the Vietnamese market still has many chances for software
development companies, especially those products targeting
business."
Dauguet often says, "RIM Technologies is 100% foreign-owned but I
tell my employees this is a Vietnamese company and is owned by
Vietnamese people. I'm training people to replace me, RIM
Technologies will change its nationality one day." At the moment, RIM
Technologies has 50 software programmers in HCM City and Hanoi,
two of which come from India, and the remainder being locals,
including a Vietnamese technical director.
Dauguet said, "I feel Vietnam is changing daily, even hourly. Life is
improving and so is my company. It is improving to become an actual
Vietnamese company."
By Nhu Hang - The Saigon Times Weekly - April 06, 2002.
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