This article was first published on Singapore Economic Development Board’s (EDB) Insights, titled “4 Takeaways from companies actively building ventures in Singapore”. EDB is a government agency under Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry and is responsible for strategies that enhance Singapore’s position as a global centre for business, innovation, and talent. Get the latest insights, stories, and analysis on how companies are growing in Asia delivered to your inbox here.

Find out more about Corporate Venturing in Singapore and EDB‘s Corporate Venture Launchpad programme. You may also contact the EDB New Ventures team for more information.

At EDB’s Corporate Venture Launchpad community event, key executives share their corporate venturing tips gained from their journey to unlock new avenues of growth in Singapore.

To stay ahead of the curve amidst market disruptions, companies are embarking on corporate venture building where established companies build new capabilities beyond their core businesses. A 2021 Leap by McKinsey survey found over half of 1,178 business leaders across regions and industries placed venture building as a top-three priority, while a fifth-ranked it number one.

Recognising this, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB)’s corporate venturing arm, EDB New Ventures, launched its pilot Corporate Venture Launchpad (CVL) programme in 2021.

The CVL pilot supports companies new to corporate venturing in Singapore by helping them build their new ventures quickly and effectively. Corporates can partner with appointed venture studios who bring venture-building experience, methodologies, and multi-disciplinary talent, as well as receive support such as access to industry networks, expertise, and risk-sharing capital from EDB New Ventures.

Also read: Lalamove: Driving growth in eCommerce with last-mile deliveries

Last month, executives from the programme’s appointed studio partners and participating companies, alongside EDB New Ventures, gathered to wrap up the first edition of CVL. More than 70 event attendees heard first-hand insights on what goes on in a venture-building sprint. 

Core members of various corporate venturing sprints and other key executives who have been successful in building a venture engine — which serves as an internal arm within the parent company and with the capabilities put in place to build a portfolio of new ventures — were also present to share their learnings and best practices. They are:

• Belina Lee, CEO, Mandai Global and Deputy CEO, Transformation & Growth, Mandai Wildlife Group
• Eileen Tan, VP, Digital Customer Experience and Analytics at SATS Limited
• Jochen Lorenz, Head of grow platform (ASEAN), a Bosch company
• Michael Pareles, Open Innovation Lead (APAC), Bayer Crop Science
• Suresh Sundararajan, CEO, Olam Ventures

Insights as shared by the panel of experts

These are some of the key takeaways shared during the event:

1. Make it make cents for senior management

Management’s support and alignment can make or break the venture. To secure senior management’s buy-in, it is essential to identify a clear impetus for the company to build a new venture. This largely depends on the maturity and nature of the business.

The main concerns of any business boil down to two things: money and talent. Building a compelling case means satisfying these priorities. SATS’ Eileen Tan explained that the CVL programme helped her company in both ways with co-funding and the promise of external validation.

The finite sprint timeline also supported their proposition: “Instead of asking management for, say, $1 billion upfront, you’re saying, ‘Give me eight weeks, I’ll prove to you that this concept is valid and a viable business opportunity.’ If at the end of the sprint, it’s not successful, that’s where you [can] stop.”

For more experienced corporates keen on building a venture engine, it necessitates a different ballgame of consensus building with leadership over time. Management should note that not all new business ventures serve to improve the core business. Such ventures should be able to create value on a standalone basis.

Once a common understanding is reached, Olam Ventures’ Suresh Sundararajan explained that the next step is to project how much capital will be needed over the next three to five years.

On the value of having external input during the concept validation of a venture, Eileen Tan, SATS Vice President, Digital Customer Experience and Analytics explained, “A lot of times, when you [build ventures] internally, there’s internal bias and a parent-mentality. You need some balance, having someone external to validate that thinking. Partnering with EDB, [and] with someone from the venture studio who has been there, done that, helped with check-and-balance and managing expectations from senior management.”

2.     Assemble the dream team

Once past the hurdle of convincing top management, the next and perennial challenge most companies face is finding the right talent. All panellists at the event were emphatic that there can be no compromise on securing good talent. More importantly, this is the point at which the corporate should already consider who will run the venture if or when it launches.

From pulling a member from the core business to initiating the hiring process, building a venture team can be a daunting endeavour. It can take time to figure out who has the makings of an intrapreneur — a corporate executive driving innovation internally.

Mandai Wildlife Group’s Belina Lee explained that while Mandai Wildlife Group initially had an internal startup team made up of members from the parent company, “It [was] difficult having a start-stop momentum”. Members had to manage the demands of their original job scope while working on the venture sprint, which led to breaks in the sprint. Eventually, a full-time core team was assembled, together with subject matter experts that were called in where needed to provide insight.

Also read: How Singapore startups explore opportunities in Japan—and vice versa

Meanwhile, Bayer Crop Science’s Michael Pareles, mused about his unique experience, “Internally, there are some people we put on sprints for their mindsets and, of course, their expertise. At other times, we also bring in external talent. When we worked with [the CVL appointed venture studio], they helped bring in people with an entrepreneurial mindset.”

Ultimately, different strategies are needed depending on the existing core team and venture opportunity. The CVL programme helps corporates by providing partnerships with appointed venture studios and filling talent gaps through access to industry networks.

Another crucial insight shared was that talent should be kept and not just found. To have them take ownership over the venture, Bosch’s grow platform’s Jochen Lorenz recommended that talent be incentivised and compensated adequately. If treated as an employee, they will act as employees — not intrapreneurs.

3.     Minimise barriers, maximise autonomy

While pre-sprint processes are crucial, momentum must carry through during the sprint itself. To maintain agility, sprint leaders should create a space of autonomy for the team to fully use the sprint’s short period.

In the case of building their respective venture engines, both Sundararajan and Lorenz agree that corporate ventures should be run as independently from the company’s core business as possible so that things can move smoothly and efficiently.

Governance from the corporates should be minimal, and the venture team should only go back to the board for business updates at pre-agreed intervals. The only exceptions are critical decisions that the board ought to take as warranted by business conditions, for example, a major pivot in strategy or capital infusion which was not planned for, Sundararajan quipped.

Also read: Scale your business across Southeast Asia with SLINGSHOT 2022

“Everything else is done with an open mind and should not be influenced by existing corporate systems and processes. Even in areas like corporate functions where one would typically prefer to leverage on the corporate, both should objectively decide on what is best for the venture rather than imposing pre-set processes. It is a fine balance of autonomy, outcome, benefits of standardisation, and control,” Sundararajan explained.

On the best practices of corporate venture building, Lorenz shared, “Build your venture as a separate legal entity, with separate management. It starts with separate processes. It also goes away from the usual kind of KPIs you have. The multinational looks for perfection, high [yield] return, and productivity increase with stringent processes. A startup looks for validation, for exploration with high agility.”

4.     Prepare for lift-off, Keep the Momentum

As the sprint draws to an end, the next challenge is ensuring there is no drop-off in momentum after approval is received.

Lee explained that it is important to do scenario planning even before the sprint to ensure that the team can act quickly once approval is gained. “Once we have the green light, we’re ready to go. We don’t have to ask, ‘What are the next steps?’ and then start planning.”

Building a new venture is by no means simple. While these tips bolster a venture’s chances of success, nothing is guaranteed in corporate venturing. Not all concepts might be validated, and not all new ventures can scale successfully. However, with a clear roadmap in place, risks can be mitigated to allow the team to move forward with confidence.

Ventures made possible

Promisingly, at least 40 corporate ventures have successfully launched in Singapore (as of January 2020). EDB New Ventures’ Michelle Tan, shared how the interest received on the CVL is owed not only to the conviction of the corporates but also to the quality of the appointed venture studios and the work that they do. 

New Ventures will be launching an enhanced version of the programme on 26 July 2022.

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Disclosure: This article is produced by EDB. This article is distributed by e27, sponsored by EDB.

Get the latest insights, stories, and analysis on how companies are growing in Asia delivered to your inbox here.

Find out more about Corporate Venturing in Singapore and EDB‘s Corporate Venture Launchpad programme.

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There has been a negative sentiment globally against cryptocurrencies since the plummeting of stablecoin UST and its sister coin Luna in May this year. Consequently, several other popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, also saw a drop in their value.

Many speculations were in the air about the events that led to the fall of UST and Luna – until blockchain analytics platform Nansen came up with an accurate analysis of the events that unfolded. Following this, the platform rose to prominence.

But how did Nansen dig into the reasons for the crashes?

e27 spoke to Ingrid Sia, Head of PsyOps at Nansen, about this.

Below are the edited excerpts from the interview:

How did Nansen manage to dig into the details and come up with a perfect analysis? What are some of the new vulnerabilities that could lead to more such disasters, and how can they be prevented?

Nansen provides extensive on-chain data by enriching it with proprietary wallet labels. This entity address tracking and analysis gives us informative insights in conducting post-mortems on major on-chain events, such as the collapse of UST, where we identified the activities of entities with a high level of detail and granularity.

This focus on on-chain intelligence storytelling enables our research team to produce high-quality reports backed by factitious events that are both transparent and immutable.

To prevent such events, we must first understand the underlying events that transpired before the UST and Luna depeg.

The crashes were the result of the mechanism of Luna, which undoubtedly led to a death spiral due to several factors:

• The correlation between UST and Luna’s market cap as investors viewed the latter’s market cap as an indication of the number of dollars that were backing UST
• The ability to mint/burn UST/Luna for the other asset to maintain the peg of UST.

The crux of the problem that led to the depeg was that multiple large entities attempted to bridge out of UST at once, causing the stablecoin to initially depeg. This led the holders to burn their UST for Luna and then sell Luna to exit the ecosystem, causing Luna’s price to fall.

Also Read: What lessons can crypto investors draw from the Luna, UST episode?

The decline of Luna’s price further spurred other UST holders and investors to exit the ecosystem in a panic since the market cap of Luna could not hold the massive amounts of UST wanting to exit the Luna ecosystem. This led to a larger depeg of the UST stablecoin through Luna, causing a death spiral.

This event was not preventable as the 20 per cent yield generated from UST was heavily subsidised by Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), who owned a huge amount of Luna, presumably used to generate UST to pay for the yield.

Although the protocol promised to use the collateral to generate yield across similar yield-generating protocols, many of such yields dried up as the markets slowed. Also, LFG was left paying for the generated yields out of pocket to continue incentivising investors to keep their funds in Anchor.

Moreover, the recent collapse of entities such as Three Arrows Capital and Celsius is attributable to opaque, off-chain (outside of the blockchain network) holdings. Theoretically, the transparency of the blockchain means that creditors can audit the holdings of any on-chain entity. However, data complexity and off-chain obfuscation make this ideal difficult to achieve.

While the debacle with Luna was inevitable, Nansen users could benefit from on-chain insights when such events happen through our real-time alerts that would notify users when entities are exiting a specific ecosystem. In particular, one of our users managed to save millions by doing this.

Is the overall macroeconomic situation also impacting the valuation of cryptocurrencies?

The global macro environment is one of persistently high (although tentatively peaking) inflation and slowing real growth. Since 2021, it has been a negative environment for risk asset prices, especially crypto prices, which tend to correlate with global money supply growth.

However, we note the following recent changes in data and central bankers’ tones:

a) the Chinese authorities have started loosening fiscal policy, mainly to prevent a systemic domestic mortgage crisis, and b) the US Fed Chair sounded slightly less hawkish at this week’s Fed meeting.

The current rally in risk and crypto assets could be just a bear market rally, as there is no sufficient proof that inflation has peaked, especially given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

However, there are some promising signs that the bottom in crypto assets is likely not too far down the road. According to bond market inversion statistics, the Fed pauses policy on average seven months after the yield curve inverts, which leads us to November 2022 (estimates have a range of a few weeks to 22 months, though).

Also, the US economy is showing signs of slowing. It will concern the Fed at a certain point, even if inflation is not yet back to its 2 per cent target.

How do you view the government regulations on cryptocurrencies? Do you think the current rules are disrupting its growth? Do we need very effective and innovative laws to protect users from scams?

No comments.

Where is the crypto industry headed? Does the industry hold a promising future despite the crashes, scams and hacks?

As a rapidly-growing industry experiencing 0-to-1 uptake in terms of users, use cases, and overall product-market fit, cryptocurrency is a new frontier where a new class of winners among individual traders and businesses is emerging.

Also Read: UST, Luna crashes: Can regulation alone restore investors’ confidence in cryptocurrencies?

Our goal is to empower that emerging class at the forefront of our industry. We hope that Nansen will become the information super-app of Web3, helping people become winners with on-chain intelligence tools.

DAOs are gaining traction. What potential do DAOs hold?

As on-chain entities/organisations, DAOs are exciting from an analytics perspective. Our recently-released DAO Paradise dashboards allow users to audit DAO treasuries, token distributions and other health metrics.

We believe this transparency is tremendously essential for the future of on-chain governance.

What is your view on CBDCs? Can they replace stablecoins in the future? What will be the overall impact of CBDCs globally?

A few statistics on CBDCs (as of June 2022) show their importance:

105 countries or ~95 per cent of GDP study the launch of domestic CBDCs,

Ten countries have already launched a CBDC pilot, the largest in terms of users being the e-CNY from China,

South Korea, Japan, India, and Russia have made some progress, and the Eurozone set a tentative deadline of “a few years” for a digital EUR,

The UK and the US are relatively further behind and still in the “research” phase.

It is improbable that people would be comfortable with their remuneration and spending habits being transparent for anyone to see. We will probably see a version where the underlying blockchain technology is primarily used between banks and other centralised entities (such as governments) and is not open for anyone to peruse.

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With digital trade further accelerating in Southeast Asia, Singapore’s geographical advantage primes it to be the region’s e-commerce hub. The country’s revenue in the e-commerce market is projected to reach over US$7 billion this year, and the number of users is expected to amount to 4.1 million by 2022 as well, according to Deloitte.

On top of this, simplified COVID-19 measures and major easing rules have also contributed to brick-and-mortar sales. Retail sales increased 12.1 per cent in April year on year, largely attributable to higher tourist spending, and this positive trend is expected to continue as Singapore moves closer to normalcy.

As local retail industries, both online and offline, experience exponential growth, the storage sector must also evolve to support this trend. Beyond conventional storage spaces, there is much potential for the industry to cater to these growing businesses through capitalising on shared synergies between storage and retail.

The need for end-to-end storage solutions

As Singapore’s retail markets grow, so too do the demands of such businesses. Larger stock inventories would require more space, and busy entrepreneurs are seeking holistic, end-to-end solutions that cater to their logistics needs.

These demands largely lie in order fulfilment, where business owners discover inadequacies in last-mile delivery services, especially with the surge in demand. From their warehouses and storage spaces, these businesses often have to source a separate supply chain logistics provider to handle their delivery.

A third-party provider may sometimes cause more problems than it solves, due to inflexibility, service quality, logistical hassle and more. Furthermore, it adds another layer of cost and administrative work.

Additionally, e-commerce businesses find themselves without a conducive all-in-one space for daily storage cum logistical operations. Such tasks include packing, dispatching/receiving, stock-taking, and even photo-taking or live streaming for sales and marketing purposes.

Also Read: VFlowTech lands US$3M to scale low-cost, long-duration energy storage solutions beyond Singapore

Renting a separate studio or workspace eventually incurs additional cost and more travel time, challenges that busy entrepreneurs face as they establish their business.

What a one-stop storage solution looks like

Noting these pain points, there is the need for industry players within each part of the supply chain to successfully identify gaps which they can plug. With storage playing a huge role in end-to-end logistics, particularly for businesses within the retail industry, storage providers should look to introduce value-added services that can help make daily work processes even more seamless for businesses.

These can come in the form of onsite facilities that complement and optimise their customers’ operations, such as order fulfilment areas for packing, invoicing and stock taking, pick-up and return points for goods, and breakout areas for work discussions, photography and live streaming studios, and more.

Once they have established the support that they can provide to businesses for necessary day-to-day operations, storage providers should also look to extend in-house delivery services or collaborate with a delivery partner to achieve a suite of end-to-end offerings.

Another example of such services would be warehouse logistics, where businesses can outsource their logistics management responsibilities to the storage space. Business owners need not worry about warehouse storage and manpower issues, as the end-to-end warehouse management service would be handled externally, be it receiving of shipment, warehouse management, order processing, packing of orders or delivery dispatch.

This is particularly helpful for businesses when stock volume increases, and order numbers get overwhelming. These entrepreneurs can then concentrate on generating sales while leaving the time-consuming tasks of warehouse management to the storage provider.

Through these holistic, value-added facilities and services, the aim is for storage spaces to play an even more integral role in the supply chain and effectively morph into a one-stop integrated solution not only for storage but for overall business and extended operational needs.

The larger role of storage in supporting Singapore’s booming retail economy

E-commerce will continue to increase in popularity even after the pandemic. As many have discovered the slew of benefits that the digital economy brings, consumer behaviour and expectations have changed. As such, the market must constantly answer and anticipate these evolving needs.

Also Read: Why Singapore’s local supermarket– Melvados swears by old-fashioned business sense

While physical retailers are currently experiencing a bounce-back in sale figures, many have also seen the advantages of e-commerce and increasingly embraced it. In fact, many have switched to a fully digital presence.

With modernisation setting the perfect environment for business growth, the number of e-retail businesses in Singapore is set to rise, and they will need even more cost-effective options to store goods and fulfil orders as they pit themselves against their competitors.

In meeting these industry trends, the self-storage industry is set to flourish at an even quicker pace, projected at a 6.3 per cent CAGR for the forecast period of 2021 to 2026. Currently, there are more than 30 operators across 80 facilities island-wide, up from less than 10 operators just five years ago.

The self-storage market must continue pivoting and adapting its services to meet these changing needs, such as the implementation of holistic services while integrating more technology within their facilities to provide users with increased efficiencies.

With the industry growing alongside the e-commerce market share, the need for a physical space for storage, along with the full suite of value-added services will become a norm. In the future, storage spaces will eventually evolve into dispatch centres.

With Singapore’s plans to become a leading e-commerce hub in Asia, buoyed by government incentives and policies, the environment for e-commerce is ripe and set to thrive, with innovative storage solutions as its catalyst.

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Singapore-based early-stage VC firm Insignia Ventures Partners has announced the final close of its latest funds, totalling US$516 million.

According to a statement, this included US$388 million for the main fund IVPF III, US$28 million for an entrepreneurs’ pool that invests alongside the main fund, and US$100 million for Annex Fund I. These funds will focus on early-stage technology investments in Southeast Asia.

Investors in the new fund include unnamed sovereign wealth funds, foundations, university endowments, and renowned family offices from Asia, Europe, and North America.

“We could have raised a much higher amount, but we have learned that smaller, tighter funds do better,” Founding Managing Partner Yinglan Tan said.

“We see a once-in-a-decade opportunity to capture outlier returns, as the winners become very obvious when the tide goes out,” he went on. “At the same time, winners cannot just be defined by valuations and scale but are ultimately companies with sustainable unit economics and concrete value creation. A fine balance between speed and endurance defines our search for outlier returns.”

Also Read: (Exclusive) Sequoia Capital’s Venture Partner Yinglan Tan quits, launching a new VC fund

Launched in 2017, Insignia Ventures backs companies in the consumer, cryptocurrency, enterprise, education, fintech, gaming, healthcare, logistics, marketplace, and proptech sectors. It has invested in more than 50 companies, including unicorns such as auto retail platform Carro, Indonesian digital investment platform Ajaib, AI for business intelligence company Appier (listed in Japan last year), and GoTo (listed in Indonesia this year).

Insignia Ventures’s other investments are fintech firm Payfazz (now Fazz Financial), Indonesian commerce enabler Shipper, the Philippines’ first fully digital bank Tonik, mental health tech company Intellect, conversational AI market leader WIZ.AI, and open banking platform Brankas.

The VC firm aims to be more aggressive in “next-decade sunrise sectors” like web3, climate tech, healthcare and agriculture.

The press release mentioned that Insignia Ventures’s enterprise value is over US$46 billion on US$304.9 million of invested capital, with a loss ratio of less than 2 per cent. Its portfolio companies have also attracted US$7.7 billion in follow-on funding.

“The impact made by the biggest companies out of Southeast Asia in the past decade will be surface-level compared to the impact market makers of the next decade will be making. There is understated but critical alignment between the solutions coming out of these areas and long-standing problems in the region from end-to-end food sustainability to trust with institutions,” Tan added.

“The solutions to these problems cannot be solved by technology startups alone, and these sectors may still be early. However, the right founders matched to the right problems can move the needle, and that is precisely why we cannot waste a minute in this “golden hour” to back them.”

Insignia Ventures announced its maiden US$120 million fund in 2017 and launched its second fund worth US$200 million in 2019.

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Hiring offshore developers in Vietnam is a common strategy for businesses to scale up their tech operations without getting hindered by the limitation of local tech talent. It enables companies to save cost and time while also diversifying their manpower.

However, recruiting and securing tech talent overseas is anything but simple. It also requires a significant up-front investment to successfully build and grow a tech team in Vietnam. So we always recommend our clients consider these crucial aspects before deciding on hiring offshore developers.

The ideal place to hire offshore developers in ASEAN is Vietnam

The primary reason why many organisations prefer offshore tech teams over local hires is their cost-effectiveness. For a developed country like Singapore, hiring a full-time local software developer with five years of experience can be extremely expensive with an average cost of US$3,220.

On the other hand, a Vietnamese developer with the same experience and skill set only costs US$2,300 monthly or 40 per cent lower. Meaning firms can easily double the headcount with the same budget by building their own offshore tech team.

Apart from the cost factor, it is unquestionable that Vietnam possesses a fast-growth tech talent pool. A total of 400,000 local developers currently working coupled with 50.000 new tech talents join the workforce each year.

This is dues to the Vietnamese government’s prioritised investment in the IT industry and education, ensuring the country becomes the regional tech hub for tech firms and startups across the globe.

What businesses need to know before recruiting offshore developers

• The structure of offshore tech teams

Before starting searching for candidates, it is imperative that firms identify the optimal tech team structure. The answer often depends on the complexity and specifics of the projects which vary case by case. However, the common ground is it should satisfy the company’s particular needs within the given timeframe budget.

Also Read: 5 research-based tips to effectively manage your remote software engineers

For Tech JDI clients, the ideal member composition is often divided based on the expected headcount and their role responsibilities:

Very small tech team (one-three offshore developers)

Small tech team (three-five offshore developers)

Mid-size tech team (five-10 offshore developers)

Large tech team (10-50 offshore developers)

• Cost Of Recruiting Offshore Developers In Vietnam

Budget is the blood vessel that fuels your remote tech team expansion, thus, it is important to keep your budgeting right, clear out any hidden costs, and always expect future expenses when the team grows. Let’s take a car as an example, it requires fuel to run.

Similarly, hiring a developer and building your offshore tech team requires a clear budget to ensure it can scale and grow efficiently.

In other words, taking into account the developer’s salary is only one part of the picture. Firms will have to consider other recruiting expenses and hidden costs such as office space, benefits, compensations, and more.

Based on our experience, the average hiring cost for an offshore Vietnamese developer with five years of experience will include:

Hiring expenses	Offshore hiring
Age of the candidate (years)	31
Average working experience (years)	5
Headcount cost + admin cost
Monthly basic salary	US$2,574.00
Monthly SIHIUI (Vietnam) / CPF (Singapore)	US$604.89
Monthly gross salary	US$3,178.89
Monthly admin overheads	US$572.20
Monthly office expense	US$180.00
Headcount and admin annual cost subtotal	US$47,173.08

 

Leave benefits (accrued costings)   * Accrued Costings: The amount below is part of salary and admin annual cost subtotal
Medical and hospitalisation leave (30 days – Vietnam)	(-US$4,401.54)
Medical and hospitalisation Leave (14+46 days – Singapore)	N.A
Medical leave annual cost subtotal	*(-US$4,401.54)
*Vietnam medical and hospitalisation leave is a cost reduction when taken.

 

Welfare – bonuses
Annual wage supplement (13th month)	US$3,178.89
Performance bonus (paid in Q1)	US$3,178.89
Welfare – bonus annual cost subtotal	US$6,357.78

 

Mandatory welfare
Outpatient benefits cost	US$180.00
Group hospital insurance
Annual medical checkup cost	US$58.00
Mandatory welfare annual cost subtotal	US$238.00

 

Optional welfare
Company trip	US$240.00
Team building event	US$60.00
Company dinner	US$60.00
CNY / TET red packet	US$30.00
Public holiday x three days (VN) / 11 (SG)	US$90.00
International woman’s day	US$30.00
Birthday red packet	US$60.00
Marriage incentive	US$60.00
Baby incentive	US$60.00
International children day	US$18.00
Bereavement gift (funeral)	US$60.00
Optional welfare annual cost subtotal	US$768.00

Having a proper budgeting strategy allows you to choose appropriate offshore developers and the correct team size for growth and scalability. It is true that companies get to save hundreds and thousands of dollars when building their own offshore tech team in Vietnam.

Also Read: ‘Vietnam can be an excellent launchpad for regional, global startups’: says Eddie Thai

However, the misallocation of funds can also result in unproductivity. Set a budget and be determined in complying with the budget you set for your company.

• Hiring season in Vietnam

Hiring season can significantly affect your recruitment results. By understanding the nature of this recruitment season, firms can prepare for it in terms of budget planning, project planning, and resource planning. Thus, maximising their recruitment success and securing suitable candidates much faster.

Starting from March and lasting until the end of May is the so-called “golden period” when developers are more likely to switch jobs and look for new career opportunities. In contrast, recruiting them from October to January will become increasingly more difficult as this is the low hiring season.

During this period, developers are patiently waiting for the salary review, 13th-month, and Tet bonuses before they decide whether to stay or jump to a new place. Companies are advised to up their offers and benefits packages for a better chance to attract developers while competing against other competitors.

Final thoughts

When hiring Vietnamese developers for your remote tech team, there are many different factors that need to be considered, including the team structure, recruitment budget, and the current stage of the hiring season. Only those that can plan and execute accordingly will have a better chance of securing the best candidate.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

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