Hello Trang!
We started with 3 JV's in Home and Personal Care and one fully-owned company in Foods. The opportunities were huge, the task was immense, competition very intense and mostly international. We were all fighting for early leadership in our chosen markets. The leading team included senior managers from our JV partners and during the startup phase, a large number of expats (40 expats from 18 different countries).
The whole company was intensely driven by the vision that "Together, we are building a brighter future" (remember, it was 1995!). The mission statement was signed by every single member of the company, by senior members of our JV partners, and even by representatives of the local authorities. The statement included clear strategic thrusts with challenging targets that would deliver the vision. Things went well and the Five Year Plan was achieved within the first two years of operations.
Some Vietnamese board members acted as key advisors to the Chairman in the areas of Corporate Responsibility, relations with the partners, with the Government and with local authorities; on issues of Corporate Conduct and HR policies. Less visible but of critical importance was their contribution to investment plans, local brand strategies and their advice on brand communications in order to avoid cultural mistakes that could destroy our new brands or the re-launched local brands.
As a "multi-local multi-national company" our natural approach was to customize international mixes to the local needs and culture. We took advantage of the 2 years it took us to negotiate JVs with our partners and to obtain the business licenses to learn about the market, absorb the culture and fine-tune our brand mixes including formulation, packaging, supply chain, sales strategy in order to offer brands with clearly superior benefits to the consumer, particularly in terms of relevance , affordability and availability.