When businesses lead a thrifty life

At a ceremony opening a flower-arranging class of a flower enterprise, few people recognized that the podium on the stage, where company leaders and guests delivered speeches, is just a small cabinet covered by a table-cloth.

Instead of spending at least VND2-3 million to rent a podium, stereo system and furniture, like the previous opening ceremonies, staff of the flower company makes full use of furniture at hand to quickly organize the one hour ceremony. “Although renting fees are still affordable, the idea is to save some money for the business to overcome current economic difficulties,” says the company director after the ceremony.

Moreover, the flower-arranging class itself uses tables and chairs of the marketing department as its employees usually go out to deliver flowers in the afternoon and need the furniture for morning and evening meetings only.

The global economic downturn seems to spare no one in the local corporate community. Not only the small flower company mentioned above, but big State-owned or foreign-invested enterprises are saving each petty expense as they worry the economy may worsen this year.

Two months ago, Nguyen Khanh Linh, marketing and media director of Tin Nghia Co. in the southern province of Dong Nai, thought over and over about a groundbreaking ceremony to build a kindergarten for Long Thanh District.

The project finally got under way after much consideration by Tin Nghia leaders as to how to reduce expenses.

“We just set aside money for a modest hand-over ceremony after the project is finished. Ground breaking or inauguration ceremonies become so luxurious these days,” Linh says. As a big State-run enterprise, Tin Nghia would normally have organized a grand groundbreaking ceremony for the charity project to increase publicity.

Company leaders have urged employees to reduce business expenses in the last three monthly internal newsletters. Subsidiaries and departments with good economic practices along with exact amounts of money saved are quoted in the news-letters as examples for others.

“Money saving in our company is not idle talk and we will push up the policy to overcome further difficulties,” says Tin Nghia’s general director, Quach Van Duc.

Though different enterprises have different saving techniques, their main solution is to tighten the belt and cut off unnecessary expenses. A large corporation having a lofty annual turnover and four or five automobiles will sell two or three of them. Meanwhile, smaller enterprises with only two cars will sell one and hire transport for business trips.

A car rental service provider in HCMC says that the demand for automobiles with 4-16 seats of firms has increased sharply, but now mostly for business trips instead of vacations. “A foreign company with a few automobiles uses my service for business trips four or five times a month as they only keep one car for the management board to save expenses,” the service’s owner adds.

Another company regulates all employees, except for upper management level, to book air tickets of low-cost airlines for business trips to Danang or Hanoi. Booking should be done as soon as work orders are received to get the lowest possible fares.

Le Huu Phuoc, director of a garment and textile equipment provider in HCMC, calculates that his company can save at least VND10 million per month with low-cost airlines for around 10 business trips to Hanoi compared with traditional airlines.

Money saving policies apply not only to transport and ceremonies as many companies economize on electricity, office stationery, fax and telephone. They encourage staff to discuss business via Internet and emails. Document printing is also reduced.

Government offices also focus on saving money. The Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held a series of online meetings and conferences recently as a way to cut the expenses of traditional meetings. (SGT)