Compete on the “ocean” with a high-quality product ecosystem

Regardless of whether we are doing a website project for a Japanese fortune teller or a Thai cryptocurrency exchange, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM's slogan is always "Work for your smile".

In 2005, Ngo Van Tau and Nguyen Tan Minh, both Japanese students studying information technology, joined the Vietnamese Youth and Student Association in Japan - VYSA, worked part-time for several Japanese software companies, and decided to establish a company together.

Both decided to choose to open a software company called RUNSYSTEM, simply because information technology is an available strength, less risky when starting a business, and making software saves money on initial investment in facilities and equipment.

RUNSYSTEM comes from the name of its founder Ngo Van Tau: “Tau” means “Run”, translated into English as “Run”. RUNSYSTEM implies the willingness to support the operation of information technology systems for customers.

The company's headquarters is located in Hanoi , managed by the "big boss" Ngo Van Tau, with 3 initial employees who were all students with little experience. The "little boss" Nguyen Tan Minh stayed in Japan, taking on the role of engineer connecting with Japanese customers.

Thanks to the “matchmaking” of the company where the two international students worked part-time, RUNSYSTEM quickly received its first order from a Japanese medical information company, worth up to 300 million VND, quite a large amount at that time. With the motto “Global software quality - International software quality” from the very beginning, the young startup quickly won the trust of customers.

During 2005 - 2006, RUNSYSTEM had several other Japanese customers, mainly ordering websites and electronic information portals.

“Back then, we made quite a few websites for famous fortune tellers in Japan, charging people who wanted to access them to see feng shui and numerology. There was a fortune teller who just appeared on TV that night, but by night the website crashed because there were too many visitors, so they wanted us to support them with a solution to ensure the website did not have any operational problems,” Mr. Nguyen Tan Minh recalled with a laugh.

Just like most startups, the initial stages of RUNSYSTEM's business were quite difficult: Sales experience was zero, and they didn't even know how to write an attractive company profile; Due to lack of experience, they often gave customers incorrect quotes, resulting in losses; They couldn't recruit enough people who knew Japanese and had IT skills and experience, so they had to accept seeing orders slip away...

After receiving his engineering degree, Mr. Minh continued to study for a master's degree, studying and working at the same time. There were customers who asked him to come to their offices so that he could discuss work immediately when needed, so Mr. Minh had to try to time his commute from his school to the customer's office. Mr. Minh's practical experience was summarized by himself: When you are just a small business, working with customers who are also small businesses is more comfortable because they can make decisions faster and are not forced into complicated processes like large businesses.

In March 2007, Mr. Minh received his master's degree, qualified to establish a legal entity in Japan. RunSystem's Tokyo branch RUNSYSTEM was officially launched.

In 2008, the company's business results increased significantly compared to 2007, with customers from other countries in addition to Japanese customers. However, during the period 2008 - 2010, due to the global economic crisis, order growth slowed down. "There was even a partner, a Danish company, specializing in 3D products for training in natural disaster and fire prevention. The day before, they said they were operating normally, but the next day, they sent an email announcing bankruptcy, leaving us unable to react in time," Mr. Minh recalled.

2009 was the first year the company suffered a loss, had to cut the salaries of the board of directors, then cut 10% of employees' salaries.

The company once tried to release mobile games in the Vietnamese market, but the results were not as expected because the "weapon" offered was not strong enough, so they had to give up.

At that time, Japan's GMO Internet Corporation invested heavily in the game sector. After listening to the advice of a human resource broker, it planned to buy a Vietnamese company to expand its game development team in the Vietnamese market, and targeted RUNSYSTEM.

At the same time GMO Internet raised the issue of investment, RUNSYSTEM also had another option from a startup with a very special product in Japan. However, realizing that GMO Internet had many products that they could deploy in Vietnam such as payment gateways, hosting domains..., the two founders of RUNSYSTEM "decided" to join the ranks of GMO Internet in 2011, with the name GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM.

Under the "steering" of General Director Ngo Van Tau and Deputy General Director and Director of GMO RUNSYSTEM (Tokyo) Nguyen Tan Minh, within 5 years (2011 - 2016), GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM's revenue increased 6 times, and its staff increased 3 - 4 times.

“We gradually became smarter, knowing how to sell and close deals. Before, we only knew how to go fishing, not knowing the best time to pull the line, and sometimes even lost the bait,” Mr. Minh humorously said.

To date, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM has more than 900 employees, with 4 offices in Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, and 1 subsidiary in Tokyo.

For many consecutive years, the company has been honored in the Top 10 Enterprises exporting software and information technology services, according to the vote of the Vietnam Software and Information Technology Services Association (VINASA).

Not stopping at outsourcing (outsourcing services) - doing whatever the customer says, in 2012, the leaders of GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM determined to research and develop more creative and high-quality products; establishing a separate R&D team.

Grasping the digital transformation trend in 2014 - 2015 in Japan, the company quickly researched and developed products and services to support organizations and businesses in digitizing data. Starting with SmartOCR - a solution that applies artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize characters in documents (printed or handwritten text) from image data, documents, photos, etc., launched on the market at the end of 2015. Next is SmartRPA, a robot that helps bring digitized data into customers' storage systems or continue to use it for other tools. And a number of other products and solutions.

Vietnamese enterprises' products confidently compete with many domestic and international competitors in terms of quality. For example, SmartOCR and SmartRPA, when applied in the Japanese market, are rated higher than many similar products of Japanese companies.

“Until now, I still remember what Mr. Watanabe - Director of GMO Ad Marketing Company shared about SmartRPA when applied to the business: “The biggest benefit is that it can significantly reduce the number of people in reporting. The cost of automation by robots is also lower than the cost of labor. The interface is very intuitive and easy to use, allowing for modifications and also very convenient for instructing new employees. Therefore, we decided to switch to using SmartRPA instead of other RPA products we are using”. These confidences have really motivated us to confidently improve the product and bring Vietnamese products to conquer more large markets”, Mr. Minh continued his reminiscence.

The advantage of labor costs makes GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM's product prices competitive. The company often decides quite quickly on building products, so it can take advantage of market opportunities. For example, AI applications that input text to create websites or input text to create videos are brought to market in just 2-3 weeks from the time the product idea is conceived.

Currently, the product and service portfolio of GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM is quite thick, with about 40 products and services, divided into 3 lines: Software export services, software testing; Internet platform services such as domain name registration, hosting products, servers, websites, and cloud computing servers, online surveys; Digital transformation solution ecosystem that comprehensively supports business activities such as SmartOCR, SmartRPA, SmartKYC, Smart Gift, Smart Store, WowCRM, ERP, Kaike accounting software... and AI application products such as Mira web, Mira bot, AI Easy content...

“We try to create an ecosystem of related and complementary products. If customers need a product, they can use it right away in the ecosystem without having to go to the trouble of finding it elsewhere,” said Mr. Minh.

Kaizen thinking - continuous improvement is applied to all technology products and services. In 2021, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM is a Vietnamese company that supported the completion of version 1 (version 1) of the virtual currency exchange in Thailand. At the end of last year, version 2 was completed, and is currently working on a new version of the mobile app.

The R&D team is very diligent in researching and applying the latest technologies. For example, blockchain, there is currently a 5th project related to NFT (encrypted token on blockchain, representing a single asset - PV) signed with international customers in Japan, Thailand, Singapore.

There are still many potential customers who want to use the virtual currency and NFT products of Vietnamese companies. For example, in Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean... and many countries that have not banned or do not have these products, or are quite open, allowing comfortable investment and business.

“We are still continuing to Go Global – looking for opportunities from the world market. But looking at the English-speaking market, it is indeed a “red ocean”, with no “green” signals for us to confidently enter. Recently, through discussions with some VINASA enterprises, we learned that there is a project in the US that has attracted more than 20 competitors, including enterprises from Ukraine, South America, Eastern Europe... Previously, we were only afraid of Indian competitors, but now South American competitors are also very formidable in the US market when their prices are not too high compared to Vietnam. Therefore, we will focus on searching and exploiting from markets in the “non-English” block or niche markets. Of course there will be language barriers, but we have done it with Japanese, so we can do it with other languages,” Mr. Minh revealed his future direction.

“Work for your smile” is a special guideline on GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM’s Go Global journey. “You” here includes the company’s employees, partners and customers.

The company team is ready to implement the formula T+8 (reply to customer emails within 8 hours of receiving the email), or 100+1 (complete work beyond customer expectations)... just to bring satisfaction and satisfied smiles.

Besides the 3 common competitive factors of businesses: Quality - Cost - Delivery, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM also emphasizes the Emotions factor because satisfied customers will stay with the company for a long time.

Having worked closely with GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM in many major projects such as deploying MB Bank's Internet Banking application and digital platform for corporate customers, Ms. Tuong Thi Anh Tuyet, Digital Banking Division - MB Bank shared: "I am very satisfied with the professionalism and dedicated working attitude of the GMO team. You have made many very positive and effective suggestions, helping MB Bank to refine better products, improve customer experience in the digital transformation process".

Representatives of Mitsubishi Electric Software (Japan) also expressed their trust and gratitude to the GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM team for supporting the development of the HEMS smart home control system integrating battery storage devices, serving the building's energy circulation model. Over 11 years of cooperation, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM has contributed significantly to the success of Mitsubishi's technology projects.

Looking back over the past 18 years, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM's Go Global journey, through projects such as the Japanese fortune teller's website or the Thai cryptocurrency exchange, has become a journey of efforts to spread smiles and create goodwill for Vietnamese businesses, Vietnamese products, and Vietnamese brands in the international market.

Currently, GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM is continuing to strive to realize the 2030 vision with quite high goals: By 2030, it will reach 100 million USD in revenue; Have 5 number 1 products in the Vietnamese market and 5 leading products in the international market; Continue to be the number 1 company in Smiles, bringing happiness to employees and customers.

“With a growth rate of 20-30%/year, the revenue target is completely feasible. We are still continuing Kaizen to become the No. 1 enterprise in Smile. As for products, the company currently has Top 1 and Top 2 products in the Vietnamese market. We are “nurturing” 2 products SmartOCR and SmartRPA with the goal of targeting more markets, becoming the leader in the international market or a niche market,” Mr. Minh analyzed the ability to realize the 2030 aspiration of GMO-Z.com RUNSYSTEM.

Looking ahead to the long future, Mr. Minh left open his concerns: “We also want to do a lot of things. But if we want to enter foreign markets, we must at least test the domestic market. In fact, it is very difficult for us to test in the Vietnamese market with a large population of about 100 million people, simply because there are still some legal barriers. The legal corridor often does not keep up with reality, for example, regulations on blockchain and virtual currency.”

Article: Dawn

Photo: Le Anh Dung

Design: Nguyen Hong Anh

Vietnamnet.vn