Prof. John Quelch: This is the 7^th time I have come to Vietnam. I have followed the economic development of Vietnam over the last ten years and I would say it is a very impressive story in terms of GDP growth. What I have noticed in the last year or a year and a half, I think the economy is a little less buoyant than the previous period. I think a little bit more concern particularly regarding inflation repressor in the economy. Frankly, marketing has increasingly become more sophisticated as you have multinational cooperation, brands competing directly with local brands in many products category. I think the marketing becomes more professional as well. And perhaps the competitiveness and productivity challenges facing Vietnam are a little bit more robust than they were the last time I was here.

Prof. John Quelch: First of all, I would say is the level of entrepreneurial activities in Vietnam remain impressive and I think that many young Vietnamese clearly have the strong will to launch and build their own businesses. This entrepreneurial culture among young people is extremely important for the long-term health of the economy. Education institutions can play very important role in facilitating economics growth because entrepreneurial talent that is not grounded in management knowledge and understanding of financial economy. They are not going to be successful or contributing as much as when an entrepreneur has a frame of reference on the basis of which to build his or her business. So my point is quality high education, training and leadership and management on an entrepreneurship can be very helpful to the effectiveness of business people, especially young entrepreneur.

Prof. John Quelch: I think there is a long way to go. One of the fundamental misconceptions is that you can make money just by creating a brand. Actually, the brand is simply the articulation of the overall value proposition. What is very important is that you have to differentiate the value proposition. Vietnam National University Hanoi, for example, obviously already has very strong name recognition in Vietnam. The question would be what is VNU image and what is VNU reputation. You can have 100% percent brand awareness that is only the entry ticket. What you need is very strong positive reputation, the brand awareness. Ultimately, as in businesses, it depends on the quality of the products that you are actually offering the market place. So in the case survey university, it’s quality of the program and the degree to which the program and neighbor consumer to, another word student, to secure excellent jobs and to become excellent productive citizen who are themselves then leaving recommendations for the brand itself.

Prof. John Quelch: I think that the very important component is the link to practice. So I’m always very keen that high proportion of students conducting projects are engaged with projects of companies and private sectors and government agencies as well. Where they can learn the practicalities of business and management and at the same time hopefully be giving some useful ideas insides on a voluntary basis to the organization that sponsors the project.

Prof. John Quelch: So far, this is the first time I have visited VNU and the University of Economics and Business. I am impressed by the enthusiasm attending to the seminar. What I discovered here is the interest level and the enthusiasm for marketing is pretty high, that makes a lot of senses because we are talking about the economy which is still very much in the developmental stage in where there are a lot of upside potential in terms of domestic consumption. You are likely here obviously to be leading in your understanding of the evolutional Vietnamese market place and Vietnamese consumer particularly, when it comes to understanding young consumption behaviors, young consumers and marketing. Young students are extremely concern to a lot of values, in research terms as well as in society by focusing on those particular issues.