Day 5

Today was an overall relaxing day, being Friday and such. The morning breakfast as typical at the hotel, and the bus ride all seem routine by now. Fortunately though instead of BC, Business Casual, we got to bust out those ties and look real nice. I packed about five ties unnecessarily so I was more than relived to wear one.

The drive to Intel was typical as well overall 45-60 minutes long but this time the final destination was quite remote. Intel’s 1 Billion dollar investment into this pre-fabrication factory was surrounded with gates and protection as most large businesses in Vietnam. After the photo shoot we went to tour their current up and running facility. Before entering this 900,000 sq ft facility there were 15 stations outside for workers to clean their hands before going to work.

Once behind the doors we walked down a long hallway with no windows then turn a left. This lead to another hallway but this time inside windows revealing 1 pre-fabrication station and about 875,000 sq ft of empty space. It was like Willy-Wonka’s factory as there were random staff wearing rubber suites moping and cleaning random locations in the hall ways and in the glassed off never ending building.

After this factory tour we were taken through the enormous office building with hundreds of empty desks, leaving a very creepy vibe. There was eventually a hallway where Intel has rooms labeled for staff to do the label. They ranged from “Chill-out”, “Play”, “Nibble” and “Work Out”. It seemed like this would be a fun place to work once people occupied the vacany. We finally entered a conference room labeled “Meet”.

In this room we were greeted by Rick Howarth, Intel’s Vietnam General Manager. He presented a very in depth power point touching base on why Vietnam had such an expensive investment from Intel and Intel’s company in general. This factory was created during the condensing of 3 other such factories located in South-East Asia. The main reasons he emphasized were the massive possible market in Ho Chi Minh City where 65 percent of all the population is under 30; there are 86 million people where only 10 percent have computers and as the economy grows this will skyrocket; surrounding countries have huge growth potential (Laos, Cambodia and Thailand); labor costs are so insignificant currently; stable political system compared to other surround nations; and lastly company policy states no more than 40% of revenue can come one country so Vietnam has open potential.

With all these reasons there have been drawbacks as hiring experienced workers has been very difficult since Intel is one of the first technical businesses in Vietnam. There is also, as many companies have complained, a high turnover so training employees and then losing about 20-30 percent of staff has been delaying expansion. This problem carried over to the construction of the building that normally takes 6 months. It took 2 years as the majority of construction workers received their yearly pay check and then returned to their families during the Vietnamese holiday every January.

One very interesting thing Rick said was on the first day the workers showed up with no helmets flip flops. This strongly violated Intel’s safety policy so these construction workers also had to be trained to become suitable for the valuable construction project. Training workers and losing them to the Holiday contributed greatly to the loss of productivity on initial construction.

Once Intel completed the construction in Vietnam they began to bring in about 120 million dollars in first years revenue. However this site is expected to bring in 15 to 30 billion dollars in revenue per year in about 5 years, once completed filled with proper equipment and about 4000 employees. This is exciting for Intel as they are no longer considered a growth company in the Stock Market. They obviously hope that this will help double their gross income from 40 billion to 80 billion.

After the extensive meeting, which we attended with a few of the University of Economics and Finance, we headed back to the hotel to eat at the buffet. Since my stomach has been acting up I found relief in seeing they had, what looked like a self –service ice cream machine. Once I had perfectly assembled my ice cream cone I tried the magenta pink looking substance. The first taste that popped into my head was the gelatin looking ice cream from Chincoteague Beach when I was little. Essentially it was delicious and very settling when added to the Snakehead fish and Silkworms I inhaled.

Next on our agenda was meeting Ngyugen Ngoc Anh, Monitoring and Evaluation Corridor of ACDI/Voca and Dinh Hai Lam of Success Alliance. The location was extremely close to our hotel so we walked to couple of blocks in the sweltering heat to find an air-conditioned room. There we all slowly, unintentionally, began to settle in and enter a state of delirium. Regardless of how tired we were Ngyugen Ngoc Anh and Dinh Hai Lam put together a great presentation of the Mekong Delta and briefed us before our day trip the following day.

In their presentation they talked about the process of producing coco from the coco farms located in the Mekong delta. The process went from growing in the fields, picking, drying the plants, drying the coco beans from inside the plant in the sun for 3 days, and finally

They talked about Vietnam being one of the largest producers of coco in the world and working directly with Mars company (M&Ms) for their production of chocolate. Also they discussed the United States Agency International Development (USAID) and World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) involvement for training Vietnamese farmers on how to produce Coco Plants and harvest them properly. This helps bring income to the lower class farmers, as growing Coco is the most valuable item, about 1.50 USD per pod.

After this presentation a few of us headed back to take naps while Mike Tirone and I when to the Ban Taun Market to get some more tourist shopping done. There he bought bargained for a helicopter while I bargained for an assortment of small items for friends and family. On our way back to the hotel we finally found the jersey shops of every soccer team imaginable. I had to get a Vietnam Jersey regardless of my lack there of appeal of the game itself.

Once we returned the guys set up plans to meet with Tony and his friends for an authentic Vietnamese Dinner. There we met all of the extremely friendly and excited Vietnamese UEF students that encourage us to try all kinds of new foods. We ate chicken blood, shrimp, pork, beef, and another unidentified meat. As usual the cuisine here always keeps you guessing. After the scrumptious meal, surprisingly, we went to the Vietnamese Ice Cream store very comparable to the US Cold Stone. There all the guys Mike, Matt, Justin and I shared 5 ice cream entrees with the 15 UEF students. I had such an amazing time talking and socializing with everyone, this was an unforgettable night.