Hashout in HCM
In September, Netcore organised a “Hashout” for our domestic customers in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City in Vietnam. The “Hashout” is a relationship building event where we take some of our customers and prospects to an international destination, combining conference and local sight-seeing. Previous events (pre-pandemic) have been in places like Bali, Moscow, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul. This time, Netcore’s marketing team chose Vietnam’s HCM City, which is Vietnam’s largest city with a population of about 10 million. With the start of a direct flight from Mumbai to HCM City, the flying time was down to just five hours – no doubt a key factor in the destination choice. Delhi already had direct flights to HCM City.
A direct flight makes a big difference when one is going for a short visit. The elimination of a hop means less stress about connecting flights, security checks and baggage transfers. It is also less tiring. I have flown the non-stop Air India Mumbai-Newark-Mumbai sectors for the past 15 years – skipping the stopovers in Europe that were the rule since my first flight as a student in 1988. The Mumbai-HCM City sector has flights from VietJet Airlines, a budget airline. (Even the water costs money!) But it does the transportation job well, and that’s what matters. I wonder why Indian’s domestic airlines who have permission to fly abroad haven’t capitalised on this. Indians are forever looking for new places to explore and Vietnam could be a good travel destination.
We landed on a Wednesday morning, with colleagues joining in from other Indian cities also. We stayed at Hotel Grand Saigon, right in the middle of the city. The bus ride from the airport took about half an hour amidst peak hour traffic. What strikes you first is the number of bikes. The first impressions were that of orderly traffic movement in a clean city. We had a mini-conference in the later afternoon on the first day, followed by a couple hours of a city tour and dinner. The second day was a full-day conference. We then went on a cruise in the Saigon river for dinner. The next two days were free format. Some chose to visit Mekong, others picked places to see in HCM. Since Netcore has many customers in Vietnam, I chose to meet some of them. I also saw the “Water Puppet Show”, which reminded me of a puppet show I had seen in Bangkok many years ago. The HCM innovation was the use of water. Saturday (Day 4) afternoon was time for the return journey. By now, everyone knew each other well.
While I had done some reading about Vietnam and its success prior to the visit, I started digging a bit deeper on its complete transformation in the last 50 years after the War. What is behind the economic success of the nation? Are there lessons for India?
