An extract of the speech delivered by BIDV chairman Phan Duc Tu at the bank’s Creative Festival Day on 14 July 2019.

Human beings have experienced three industrial revolutions and are entering the fourth one which has witnessed the birth as well as death of many large corporations, companies and financial institutions in the world.

In the flow of history, many large enterprises with a long development history of tens or even hundreds of years had to dissolve. They no longer exist because they were not ready to change, did not adapt to change or did not make any breakthrough against the rapid changes and fluctuations of the market. We must not be allowed to make such mistakes! Charles Robert Darwin once said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change”. Therefore, an organization that wants to survive must always innovate itself to adapt and develop.

Building on the BIDV’s proud history of more than 62 years, we must continue to build it into a sustainable and prosperous bank. One of the most important solutions is that we must improve the ability of learning and creativity of the whole system, and each of us. Let me once again emphasize the direction and determination of the bank’s leadership, that is we must build BIDV into a learning - creative organization. Innovation is the life energy and the most valuable asset of BIDV.

The Industry 4.0 is putting pressure on traditional banking activities to change and adapt if we don't want to be left behind. New technologies and invention have fostered the strong development of Fintech and Bigtech companies which have truly encroached on traditional banking activities. However, technologies also create conditions for traditional banks to modernize, digitalize, and improve their competitiveness. Competition always makes us stronger, bigger, and better.

We are the largest commercial bank in the market, having a large customer base and diverse relationships. You can think of new products and solutions to serve 10 million customers. You can think of new ways to manage VND1,200 trillion of mobilized deposits and VND1,250 trillion of loans safely and efficiently. You can think of new methods to manage and incentivize the performance of 25,000 employees. You can think of new ways to improve and shorten the process as well as saving time and costs.

With a large scale, a small improvement will make a big difference. If each day, an employee saves 20 minutes, he/she will save 100 hours each year. 25,000 people will save 2.5 million hours, equivalent to 1,042 employees. If we improve our customers' satisfaction, every month we get VND10,000 more from a customer, meaning we’ll have VND1,200 billion more each year The advantage of the large scale provides us a huge room to study, research and benefit from such improvements.

We have time and resources for innovation. In terms of human resources, we have 25,000 employees, of which 13,750 (55%) are young and well-trained, highly adaptable and capable of doing research. If each of us spends 30 minutes a day thinking of creative and innovative ideas, the whole system will have 3,750,000 hours of research each year.

As a major financial institution, BIDV has financial resources and budget for research and development. With the annual cost of more than VND100 trillion, the research and development cost of several hundred billion just accounts for only 0.2%. Today I am also very proud to tell you that, the Board of Directors yesterday officially issued a provisional Regulation on Scientific and Technological Management, making BIDV the first financial institution in Vietnam to establish a Science and Technology Fund with a large budget for research and creative activities now and for the next 5 years.

We have time, room, resources as well as trend for research and development. It is a necessary condition. The sufficient condition is you and us. And what we must do is to create a creative environment, creative methods, motivations as well as pressures to inspire each individual, unit and the whole system, contributing to BIDV’s long-term and prosperous development. That's the source of excitement for us to work.

In general, creativity leads to changes that usually take place on two levels. One level is continuous improvement (or kaizen as called by the Japanese people), i.e. small improvements which take place every day at every job position. Another level is innovation, i.e. significant and big changes.

At BIDV, we always value both these levels of changes. The reality at BIDV shows that innovation and creation in the form of research topics are often carried out by departments and centers at head office, resulting in new products, services, policies, processes, applications as well as new organization and governance model. They sometimes completely change the way the system operates. These innovations are particularly important and indispensable for every financial institution to respond to changes in technology, markets, and laws.

With the spirit of “Desiring to learn - Being creative - Willing to change – Making breakthroughs”, the Leadership of BIDV is committed to always accompany you on the path of learning and doing research, continuing to create challenges as well as opportunities for you to prove your values, develop your passion for creativity, passion for work and continue to contribute to the sustainable and long-term development of BIDV.