Building a leading position of vietfund management

TRệễỉNG ẹAẽI HOẽC Mễ TP HCM HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES SOLVAY BUSINESS SCHOOL MBMM1 PHAM NGUYEN MAI TRAM BUILDING A LEADING POSITION OF VIETFUND MANAGEMENT MASTER PROJECT MASTER IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT Tutors Name: Dr Nguyen Minh Kieu Ho Chi Minh City (2011) Page | Statement of Originality This work has not been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university To the best of my knowledge and belief, the project contains no materials previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the project itself Pham Nguyen Mai Tram March 03, 2011 Page | Acknowledgements The author wishes to acknowledge to the following people for their supports and assistances during the preparation of this project Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to my tutor, Dr Nguyen Minh Kieu for his extensive assistance, guidance, advice and encouragement throughout the project study I highly appreciate to program coordinators - Ms Bao Tran, Ms Mong Thuy and Mr Serge for their assistance I would also like to thank the respondents who filled their valuable information to my survey campaign, and to my friends working for the multi-national companies shared me their opinion and perceptions for this research My special thanks to Mr Pham Nguyen Vinh Corporate Communication Director of Dragon Capital and Mr Pham Khanh Lynh Deputy CEO of VietFund Management for their valuable advices, guidance and significant assistance Finally, I would like to send my sincere appreciation to my husband Geoffrey Klein, my daughter and son for their sympathy, sharing and encouragement during the time I was very busy with daily works and study It will be my concrete foundation of my professional career and happy life Page | The comments of Tutor I am writing to confirm that the project entitled BUILDING A LEADING POSITION OF VIETFUND MANAGEMENT prepared by Pham Nguyen Mai Tram has satisfied the requirement for a Masters project in Business and Marketing Management I, therefore, recommend that the project will be presented HCMC, March 03rd, 2011 Dr Nguyen Minh Kieu Page | Executive summary The creation and positioning of a brand is an important topic for Vietnamese companies that are trying to attract and maintain their customers With competition becoming fierce, companies are organizing strategic plans to differentiate themselves from their rivals My project is to develop a better understanding on how an organization is identified through its brand To achieve this goal, the questions are looking at the various attributes of position as well as a description of a companys brand personality This project has three main objectives of exploring the brand personality characteristics of VietFund Management (VFM) brand in investors minds, finding out its brand position in the market, and proposing implementation of improving or maintaining its brand position to be a leader of fund management in term of total asset under management, professionalism and activeness By using a Brand Personality Scale (BPS) as a framework, the questionnaire survey was conducted in sample size of 150 investors trading at securities companies; a literature study was performed to help build a framework for the questionnaire and data collection The findings in Chapter showed the major brand personality characteristics of VFM brand and its position in the market are different with the ones which VFM assumed Implementation plans for enhancing VFM brand personality characteristics are discussed and recommended in Chapter with the aim of achieving the development strategies of the company in the new decade of 2011 2020 Page | Table of Contents Acknowledgements Executive summary List of Tables List of Figures CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of project 1.2 Project objectives 10 1.3 Scope of the project 11 1.4 Methodology 11 CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 12 2.1 Brand 12 2.2 Brand personality 13 2.3 Brand position 15 CHAPTER 3.1 3.2 3.3 OVERVIEW OF THE FUND MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY AND VIETFUND MANAGEMENT (VFM) 17 Overview of fund management industry in Vietnam 17 Introduction of VietFund Management 17 Major competitors in the market 18 CHAPTER 4.1 4.2 PERSONALITIES AND POSITION OF VIETFUND MANAGEMENT COMPANY 21 Brand personality characteristics of VFM 21 Brand position of VFM 25 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION 28 5.1 Conclusion 28 5.2 Development strategies of the company 28 5.3 Implementation 29 5.3.1 Short-term plan (1- years) 30 5.3.2 Long-term plan 31 5.4 Limitations of the projects 32 REFERENCES 33 LIST OF APPENDICES AND ABBREVIATES 34 Page | List of Tables Table Aakers brand personality dimension with related items 15 List of Figures Figure Brand as an Interface 12 Figure The components of Brand Identity 14 Figure Respondents type. .22 Figure Respondents age. 22 Figure Respondents career and jobs. 22 Figure Communication channel 23 Figure Personality characteristics of VFM 24 Figure Comparison of Personality characteristics with competitors 25 Figure Position map of brands .27 Page | CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter shows readers the objectives of the project and how the project is organized in order to describe real problems that VietFund Management is facing In the first chapter we explore what is the definite of branding and positioning and there attributes create a iconic brand To understand of these concepts, the paper will also discuss relevant theories of branding personality and brand positioning in the next chapters Finally, the research questions will be addressed 1.1 Background of project Vietnam stock market was established in 2000 and has known as an emerging market for domestic and international investors Ten years after Vietnam stock exchange began, it's become a symbol of what the country is trying to achieve: a market-based economy The stock market has grown significantly only two stocks were traded in the beginning, compared with 586 today on both the Ho Chi Minh Stocks Exchange and the Hanoi Stocks Exchange and is attracting a growing number of domestic investors The market capitalization of Vietnam's stock market total is $33.2 billion, 40% of the country's GDP Number of securities companies and fund management companies were established to offer wide range of financial services to individual and institutional investors in Vietnam and abroad This expanding causes market competition higher and higher by time over time In addition, the global financial crisis has made strategic leaders concerned with how to turn around their fortunes restore their countries and companies to profitability Strong market forces are subtly at work with most nations seriously strategizing for what the new world order will look like in the future The building of strong brand of products, services or business is one of the ways in which a company can develop and sustain an advantage over its competitors, and thereby maintain or increase its sales or market share (Hankinson & Cowking, 1993) If brand owners use their products correctly, the Page | payoffs can be substantial However, if brands are mismanaged, the results can be damaging Successful brand-building strategies create a distinctive market position for a company, protecting it against the five basic competitive forces: rivalry among existing firms, the bargaining power of supplier, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitutes, and the threat of new entrants (Hankinson & Cowking, 1993) To build a competitive advantage of ones rivals, branding uses our human desires to attach meaning and feelings to objects and concepts Understanding of the importance of brand building, after years of development, VietFund Management (VFM) has positioned itself as a leader in fund industry replacing of the first domestic fund manager in Vietnam However, with this fast growing market, the big question is that if VFM brand is strong and competitive to other fund management companies in Vietnam, and VFM is still a leader of financial services market Brand positioning is much more than an advertising claim or slogan It is a discipline that defines an enterprise and shapes the very fundamental beliefs people have in a product, service, and company To strengthen the good image in mind of investors, partners, the important thing VFM should is to position or re-position its brand among competitors in the mind of investors, and bring its unique advantages for employees, business partners and investors 1.2 Project objectives This project has three major objectives: (1) explore the brand personality characteristics of VFM brand in investors minds; (2) find out its brand position in the market; (3) propose implementation of improving or maintaining its brand position if the company still wants to be a leader of the market Page | 10 1.3 Scope of the project The scope of this paper has been limited to setting the necessary research agenda by simply applying a qualitative survey that will capture the emotional and physical needs of investors toward VFM brand based on its typical brand personalities, then bring its position in a matrix map of market The survey was taken place in some securities companies in Ho Chi Minh City 1.4 Methodology The project outline is developed on the basis of the real concerns of VietFund Management (VFM) The process of collecting, analyzing the information which was collected from questionnaires, and reporting were processed by using MSExcel The questionnaire contained core questions addressing to issues such as target segment of audiences, personality characteristic, and current position of the brand Targeting the investors who are male or female investing money to stock exchange and trading at securities companies in Ho Chi Minh City Sample size is approximately 100 150 respondents, in which 10 - 15 people at each of selective securities companies According to the objectives of this project, the questionnaire was organized main parts: the respondents basic information, brand personality and brand position The investors who were trading at securities companies may be more aware of the brand VFM and would have more experience with and greater preference for fund certificates In order to reinforce the coverage of the questionnaire survey, the survey was conducted during the stock trading time from 8:30am to 11:00am by directly delivering to respondents and returning back to the author after filling information This survey was taken working days at different securities companies Page | 11 Figure Respondents type Figure Respondents age Figure Respondents career and jobs Page | 22 In addition, to say that the brand position is to be actively communicated implies that there will be specific communication objectives focused on changing or strengthening the brand image or brand-customer relationship After comparing the relevance of different communication channels of brand, the pattern of results showed that similarity in percentage of choosing communication approaches as news on newspaper, seminars or product launching events, advertisements on newspaper and word of mouths Only small portion of respondents have known VFM brand through TV, website or face-toface marketing The data in the Figure will prove the above analysis Figure Communication channel In order to measure the brand personality more effectively, the author decided to use only typical traits for each of the dimensions instead of using the whole brand personality scale It was necessary to decrease the number of items used and the choice was made in favour of the one which most reliably, accurately and comprehensively represent brand personality dimensions The typical traits were used and classified in group of dimensions: Sincerity: Down-to-earth, Practical, and Friendly Excitement: Innovative, Transparent, Active Page | 23 Competence: Pioneer, Professional, Trustable, Diversified Sophistication: Upper class Ruggedness: no trait However, the results did not support the companys assumption that brand personality characteristics of Active, Professional, Effective, Diversified and Transparent in dimensions of Excitement and Competence are major characteristics of VFM brand As the data shown in the Figure 7, three dimensions of Sincerity, Excitement, and Competence shows significant positive correlation, in which the traits of Practical, Professional, Pioneer, Trustable, and Transparent are indicated as the major characteristics of VFM brand Figure Personality characteristics of VFM While comparing to other main competitors in the industry, the respondents highly evaluated that the characteristics of Innovative, Pioneer, Trustable, Practical, and Transparent which belongs to dimensions of Sincerity, Excitement and Competence Other characteristics which the brand assumed to publicly communicate were not Page | 24 indicated, especially Active, Professional, Diversified Percentages of the comparison were shown in the Figure below Figure Comparison of Personality characteristics with competitors In conclusion, the survey results proved that audiences of VFM brand are people who are employees or having their own business in the age group of 31 55 years old With human personality characteristics of these audiences, they expect to have financial products or services offering them significant financial values, effectiveness in management and trust Thus, the brand should acquire the major characteristics of Professional, Effective, Diversified To achive these brand personality characteristics, the VFM brand should have a clear branding strategy to enhance its brand personality The implementation will be mentioned in the next chapter 4.2 Brand position of VFM The aim of the empirical stage of the project was to develop brand position map through the main factors drivers These factors were defined as: Page | 25 (1) Asset under management It is a total value of asset through their funds which the companies are managing (2) Highly professional and trustable characteristics These are what customers expect to receive from the company or brand (3) Innovative product & service It is what the companies in the market offer through features and benefits to customers (4) Activeness It is how good of the companys experts in managing products or catch the trend of market timely and bring up-to-date benefits to their products and services (5) Competitiveness It is how well the companys product performs in the market, and the power of the company compared to other companies Applying these factors to the brand matrix map as in Figure 9, the high portion of agreement in the top position of activeness, competition, offering innovative products belonged to SSIAM, while VFM was occupied the competitive position in total asset under management in the investors minds Page | 26 Figure Position map of brands However, being the top in total asset under management, VFM brand is not strong enough to build the trust, professionalism and reputation as expected by investors in process of investing to financial products and services In order to achieve the target goal of being a leading fund manager in Vietnam in term of total asset under management and investors satisfaction, VFM should have very clear strategic plans in offering financial products with new capital, improving investment performance of current products to increase their net asset values, and implementing branding/marketing or investor relations campaigns The plans will be discussed in the next chapter Page | 27 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION After exploring the brand personality characteristics of VFM brand and finding out its brand position in the market in the chapter 4, conclusion on brand personality and its position will be pointed out and implementation will also be discussed in this chapter 5.1 Conclusion The major findings of this project were listed as followings: (1) Sincerity, Excitement, and Competence have a significant positive influence on brand personality (2) Major brand personality characteristics of VFM include Practical, Professional, Pioneer, Trustable, and Transparent (3) VFM brand is top position in total asset management in fund management industry 5.2 Development strategies of the company Facing to difficulties of global economy generally and of Vietnam specifically for next few years, the lack of activeness, liquidity and transparence of the stock market, etc caused the competition among companies higher and higher Each company should have its own strategic plan of survival and development Being in the Top group of fund management companies in the market, VFM has had ups and downs in operation and development However, in this decade of 2011 2020, the objectives of the company are: To enhance the effectiveness of VFMs products and services through periodical Net Asset Value of current funds Investment to high technology facilities and expertise of staff To offer more new products which should be designed to match to investors needs, especially open-ended funds to public, and raise more money from international investors Page | 28 To increase the brand awareness and perception of VFM brand till 2014, and to be the leader of fund management in term of total asset under management, professionalism, activeness and competitiveness in the industry 5.3 Implementation Based on the findings of the project, the following recommendations are proposed for the company as a reference: (1) To enhance the major brand personality that matches to the expectation of target investors The characteristics as Practical, Professional, Pioneer, Effective, Diversified, Trustable, Transparent, and Friendly should be enhanced to distinct to other competitor brands when the companys target investors are local and international individuals and institutions from age of 22 years old to above (2) To highlight the value of brand personality that benefits a company The brand personality not only plays an important role, but also has profound influence on a companys performance By using various marketing approaches, a company may convey their brand personality to investors and have them believe and recognize the companys brand personality In addition, when the company plans its marketing activities, it should specifically highlight its brand personality in order to draw brand loyalty from its target investors (3) To give attention to investors insights that the company plans to open new innovative products which meets the investment needs of various investors The company also explains to investors the smart approaches with aims at achieving the good results of financial values with high activeness and professionalism of the companys experts Page | 29 The recommendation on branding activities is as below: 5.3.1 Short-term plan (1- years) In the first months, the company should focus on standardizing branding activities: a Public Relations Attend to the Trustable Stock Brand Awards Attend to the Annual Reports Awards by international organizations as ARC, the Financial Asia Building up communication channels with televisions and newspaper houses Maintaining of government relation Media monitoring of what is talked or mentioned in newspaper or TV Industry information gathering and management daily Routine press cutting and analysis weekly b Building network Building close relationship with PR team or marketing team of Securities companies, Real estate companies and banks in Vietnam Being a member of some clubs as CEO club, Media club, HR club c Standardizing all printed documents with clear messages Company brochure, trailer and profile Set up a sky sign logo at the top of the company office building Renew the company website In the next 12 months, the company should expand some activities to blow up VFM brand name to the market: Page | 30 To be main sponsor of major seminars on introducing Vietnam investment environment to foreign investors To hold quarterly IR events to bring new know-how or solutions in investment or financial analysis, or corporate improvement to investors and partners To be a speaker in popular investment forums as an expert in investment or funds management To issue research paper on stock market, investment to public Besides, direct market investment service such as direct posting service and telephone hot-line service should be considered to offer to investors Addition to the branding activities, the Business Development Department should design and bring more new diversified products to various segments: Portfolios Management services for institutional investors with specific portfolios, new openended funds as Provident Funds for employees, ETF for investors having stocks in hand, Bond Fund for foreign institutions The launching of these products should have a clear schedule and in time with the development of market and high level of perception of VFM brand from investors in order to secure the success of raising capital 5.3.2 Long-term plan To maintain the branding activities in the high level, the company also needs to implement: Crisis public relation management: o Crisis identification o Crisis processing manual o Crisis management training o Suggestion for crisis event processing o Assisting to solve crisis event o Post-crisis management Page | 31 CRM management Development of interactive program with investors Annually, the Communication Department should process a brand survey to understand how well investors percept VFM brand and its position in the market, then have adjustments in development strategy 5.4 Limitations of the projects Even though, the project tries to be objective and prudent in its designs and survey methods, it is still restrained by limitations and deviations in its implementation This project has the following limits: (1) the restraint of the sampling coverage: the questionnaire survey was only conducted at securities companies in Ho Chi Minh City, thus, the viewpoints from the investors in other areas of Vietnam were not covered (2) Lack of popularity or information of fund management companies in the market Only fund management companies having listed funds in stock exchange while many other companies have managed various funds raised from investors domestically and abroad Thus, the survey results cannot influence enough the real problems of the surveyed company Page | 32 REFERENCES Aaker, D Building Strong Brands, New York, Free Press Aaker, J (1997) Dimensions of Brand Personality Journal of Marketing Research Aaker, D A and A Biel, 1993 Brand Equity and Advertising: Advertisings Role in Building Strong Brands, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc Doyle, P., 1990, Building Successful Brands: The Strategic Options, Journal of Consumer Marketing Fill, C (2002) Marketing Communications 3rd edition Prencie Hall Hankinson, G & Cowking, P (1993) Branding in Action McGraw-Hill Marketing for Professionals Series, Cambridge, McGraw-Hill Kotker P (2005) Principles of marketing 4th edition Financial Times/Prentice Hall Jobber, D (2001) Principles and Practice of Marketing 3rd edition McGrawHill Page | 33 LIST OF APPENDICES Questionnaire Form Im student of program of Master in Business & Marketing Management (MBMM), and working on final project on brand personalities and brand position Please take a few minutes to complete this survey Your answers for all questions mentioned below will be highly valuable to my project Thank you very much for your cooperation I Respondents information: Please stick to suitable blank What is your gender? Male What is your age? below 22 22 30 age 41 55 age over 55 What are you career? Student employee housewife Running your own business Retired people Female 31 40 age II Research questions: Have you ever invested money to stock market? Yes Have you ever bought fund certificates launched and managed by VFM? Yes No Have you ever invested money to stock market? Yes No Have you been working for securities companies Yes No Have you known some fund management companies in Vietnam? Please list out _ _ How can you know these companies? Newspaper Seminars/events Advertisement Word of mouth No Others _ Page | 34 What you think about VFM? Please stick to the characteristics which match to the company best Professional Active Innovative Pioneer Trustable Practical Effective Friendly diversified premium Transparent Others _ What you think about Prudential Fund Management Company (PVFMC)? Please stick to the characteristics which match to the company best Professional Active Innovative Pioneer Trustable Practical Effective Friendly Diversified premium Transparent Others _ What you think about Manulife Fund Management Company (Manulife AM)? Please stick to the characteristics which match to the company best Professional Active Innovative Pioneer Trustable Practical Effective Friendly Diversified premium Transparent Others _ What you think the below companies belongs to Top Fund Management Company? VFM VCBF PVFMC Manulife AM VietCapital MB Capital An Phuc Capital VietLong Capital Thanh Viet Fund Management SSIAM ACBF Others _ Page | 35 Which fund management companies you think it have the largest asset under management? _ _ Can you rank from to by filling name of companies which you think it is highly professional and trustable? _ _ _ _ _ _ Can you rank from to by filling name of companies which you think it is the most active in the market? _ _ _ _ _ _ Can you rank from to by filling name of companies which you think it is the most competitive in the market? _ _ _ _ _ _ Can you rank from to by filling name of companies which you think it has innovative products in the market? _ _ _ _ _ _ Thank you very much for your taking time to join this survey Page | 36 ... in Vietnam, only the largest companies named VFM, SSI Asset Management, MB Capital, Prudential Vietnam Fund Management, Manulife Asset Management and Viet Capital are considered as main competitors... brand position to be a leader of fund management in term of total asset under management, professionalism and activeness By using a Brand Personality Scale (BPS) as a framework, the questionnaire... Manulife Asset Management (Vietnam) Company Limited ("Manulife AM (Vietnam)") is an affiliate of Manulife Asset Management Manulife AM (Vietnam), licensed and operated in 2007, is an independently managed