VietNamNet Bridge – A rash of ‘golden cups’  sponsored by PR firms  may be eroding the value of Vietnam’s prestigious business awards.

Businessmen are eager to compete for serious, prestigious prizes

Talking with the CEO of Truong Thanh Woodwork Group on Vietnamese Entrepreneurs’ Day (October 13), a reporter from Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper asked Thanh how many prizes he and his company have received since it was founded in 1993.

“You know, I can’t remember,” Vo Truong Thanh answered.  “There are too many prizes for businesses and businessmen now, I think, too many meaningless prizes and titles. Sometimes we have been entered in competitions just because… the organization board was too zealous, but we still won prizes.”

A jumble of sound-alikes

Some 100 different prizes for businessmen are sponsored by prestigious and less prestigious organizations, a big number of prizes, which explains why their names all seem to be the same.

Several dozen are ‘golden-something.’  In the science and technology field, there is only the IT Golden Ball award granted by the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Youth Union. However, innumerable ‘golden cups’ are reserved for businesses and businessmen.  These include the Golden Lotus Cup, the Techmark Vietnam Gold Cup, the Gold Cup for Safe Pharmacy and the Golden Hand Cup.  The Vietnam Advertising Association gives a Golden Bell prize to member firms.

One organization, not satisfied to give out mere ‘golden cups,’ has upgraded to ‘super cups’, like the Famous Brand Name Super Cup and the Strong and Sustainable Brand Name Super Cup.

Besides ‘golden cups’, there are also ‘golden awards’ for businessmen, including the Golden Rose, the Golden Rice Plant and Golden Dragon awards.

It’s easy to confuse the Golden Lotus Prize of the Silk Land’ awarded by the Ha Tay Young Entrepreneurs’ Association and the Golden Lotus Cup granted by the Consumer Product Import-Export Trade Fair.  Both the  Central People’s Credit Fund and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development award a Golden Rice Plant prize.

Prizes first, and later the bill

“There are not many really prestigious prizes for businessmen,” said Nguyen Thi Mai Thanh, General Director of the Refrigeration Co. (REE).  “I have a lot of respect for the Gold Star award, the Thanh Giong Cup for outstanding entrepreneurs and the prize for outstanding Saigon entrepreneurs. Most of the                 rest are real yawners,” she added. “Organisation boards have been trying to persuade us to join the competitions.  There are so many prizes that I have to refuse most of them – especially the ones that are a disguised type of fund raising (the organizers grant prizes because they want to seek financial support)”

Not surprisingly, big enterprises are used to winning the prestigious prizes, and disinclined to compete for small and less prestigious prizes.  The organizers of obscure competitions, on the other hand, spend a lot of time trying to persuade big enterprises to ‘compete to get prizes’.  One businessman said he once had to listen to ten representatives from different organisations introduce prizes he’d never heard of. 

“They ring relentlessly to persuade me to join competitions for prizes,” said Thanh of the Truong Thanh Group.  “Strangely, I feel displeased if an unknown business wins the same prize we have.”

At Vinamit, a fruit processing company, General Director Nguyen Lam Vien has a ‘golden principle’ that he will only join serious competitions.  “Our PR division is in charge of screening out useless prizes,” he said.

“Too often, after we’ve been awarded a prize, the organizers then asked us to pay money for it,” Vien added.

“Of course we’re eager to compete for serious, prestigious prizes” says CEO Dang Thanh Tam of Tan Tao Industry and Investment Group.  “But I doubt there’s any business that could work up much enthusiasm for the jumble of awards that PR firms give out.”

Nonetheless, Tam thinks that prizes play a useful role in sharpening the competitive edge of Vietnam’s business sector.  “The meaningless ones will die off, and companies will vie for the good ones.”

VietNamNet/NLD

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