E-Commerce Strategies and Growth: Peacesoft Case Study Analysis

This case study analyzes Peacesoft, a Vietnamese e-commerce company founded in 2001 by Mr. Binh Hao, focusing on its history, growth, and strategic decisions. It investigates the company's evolution from a software solutions provider to a leading e-commerce platform, including the launch of Chodientu.vn and the development of the Nganluong.vn online payment system. The analysis examines Peacesoft's strengths, weaknesses, and responses to external environmental factors, such as increasing competition from global players. It explores the company's mission, goals, business strategies, including competitive and marketing approaches, and provides recommendations for future growth, particularly focusing on expanding into the Southeast Asian market and addressing challenges related to customer trust and payment security. The case study also highlights the importance of adaptability, innovation, and strategic decision-making in the e-commerce sector.

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E-Business, E-Commerce
Student Name
1/27/2020

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Investigate and Analysis company’s history and growth.............................................................................3
Strengthens and weaknesses within the company........................................................................................4
The External Environment...........................................................................................................................5
Comparison between internal and external factors......................................................................................6
Peacesoft Mission and goals........................................................................................................................6
Business Strategy........................................................................................................................................6
Competitive Strategy...............................................................................................................................6
Marketing Strategy..................................................................................................................................7
Cost.........................................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
There is a Company Peacesoft in Vietnam, started in 2001 in Hanoi by Mr. Binh Hao. It
has the perspective to become a leading one. The missions and goals of Mr. Nguyen were high
and he wants to fulfill his dreams anyhow. Peacesoft was started with a small amount but after
some time a turning point came and it becomes the first 100% capital Vietnam-owned company
to receive US $1 million venture capital. After this Mr. Nguyen launched website of online
shopping which was the first website for e-commerce. And to overcome the challenges he also
launched online payment system that increased the users in online shopping(Bull et al., 2016)
Investigate and Analysis company’s history and growth
The founderand CEO of the Peacesoft Company was Binh Hoa Nguyen. Binh Hao
Nguyen, was born in 1982 in Hanoi. Mr. Nguyen was student of Vietnam National University
where he were rewarded with bunch of awards such as Vietnam Wisdoms, Scientific Research,
Creative Youth, Information Talents, Microsoft Imagine Cup and the Golden Globe form
Vietnam’s Prime Minister. The awards and his capability boost up his confidence and made him
realize that he can setup his own company. Mr. Nguyen wants to start a company where he can
freely experiment his creativity and thoughts to become best in the market priority list. Mr.
Nguyen put the name of his company from his name meaning. Hoa Binh means Peace in English
and soft means software so the name of his company was Peacesoft(Cotterill, 2019).
The vision of Peacesoift was to become leader in C2C and B2C of Vietnam e-commerce
market. Mr. Nguyen was of thought that Peacesoft can achieve success through the following
golden words:
 Teamwork
 Passion
 Teach and Learn
 Customer first
 Embrace changes
 Self-motivation

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 Creativity
 Transparency
 Loyalty and honesty(Escobar-Rodríguez, & Bonsón-Fernández, 2017)
The founder and CEO of the company should be the one who give best guidelines, efforts
and support to everyone. Therefore, Mr. Nguyen was perfect for the Peacesoft Company and
because of his creativity and knowledge the company survived well. His thoughts towards the
success were clear. The company started with $100 by Mr. Nguyen in 2001 and provides
software solutions. With the aim of achieving huge profit in future Peacesoft came into the
market which gives an option to transfer software from one place to another. It started receiving
orders from small companies and after some time large orders from Japan and Europe customers.
There was no movement in the profit earning as there was same graph from past 3 years. This
made Mr. Nguyen unhappy and it pitched him to think something much better. After then there
was an event IDG – ASEAN, going to be held where each start-up head will be given 5min to
attract investors therefore, Mr. Nguyen does not wanted to waste that chance. He prepared
himself for that event and introduced his plan. But the plan or message he conveyed has not sent
to the investors and therefore, he decided to write an article published in Tuoitre.vn, a leading
newspaper. The article reflected his ideas and dream of doing best in IT enterprise(Gamble,
Peteraf, & Thompson, 2014)
The turning point for Peacesoft, the plan published was wonderful and the IDG Venture was
very attracted with his plan, ideas and supported him by investing in his plan. After that, a deal
and an agreement signed by which Peacesoft became the first company in Vietnam to receive a
million-dollar investment. This reflects that Mr. Nguyen mind and his ideas were great for the
company’s success. This guides that youngsters have broad mind with latest knowledge, ideas
and passion to do it(Hung, 2016).
Strengthens and weaknesses within the company
The main strength of the PEacesoft Company is his founder Mr. Nguyen, he is very
positive and confident towards the goals of the company. The knowledge and his creativity made
e-commerce a leading one in Vietnam in 2005(Kilduff, 2019)

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The Peacesoft in 2005 formally launched its first online business known as Chodientu.vn means
electronic marketplace. Entering into the market of e-commerce is not easy and many challenges
came in front. The weakness of the company was that they are not able to satisfy and build trust
in the Vietnamese people. There e-commerce business was no going so good because people in
Vietnam believe in physical touch and see of products and then pay cash. Therefore, Peaceosft
wanted to overcome this weakness of trust and faith in Vietnamese. The people in Vietnam
prefer mostly offline shopping instead of online(Kingsnorth, 2019)
Strength of Peacesoft was Mr. Nguyen and its employees, as their mind was set towards
success and they have positive confidence towards their work. The company was planning to
overcome their weakness and making strategies to improve the conditions. Mr. Nguyen and its
employees after lot of debates, arguments suggested a transactional model called Nganluong.vn.
It was the first online model for payment in the Vietnam(Le-Nguyen, & Guo, 2016)
The External Environment
There was growth in the Peacesoft but still the threats are there. The environment
conditions were not supportable and created problems. In 2013, many companies were thinking
to invest in e-commerce business in Vietnam as well as Southeast Asia. This increases the threat
of competitors. Major competitor could be Alibaba because its IPO at New York in 2014 showed
a great success. The increasing competition made the Peacesoft think to expand its business.
There were two questions in mind of Mr. Nguyen that is there need to develop a latest ecosystem
for the Southeast Asian region or to continue with our old successful proven ecosystem and
apply it. Even the threat comes along with opportunities like Peacesoft will now more focus on
their company strategies and will further review to extend in other regions due to increasing
competition(Lynch, & Smith, 2010)
In the starting of the company there was threat of investment and opportunity of being
best. Thus, Mr. Nguyen used the opportunity of IDG – ASEAN8. That opportunity changed the
business structure and made it a leading one(Phadermrod, Crowder, & Wills, 2019)

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Comparison between internal and external factors
Internal includes strength and weakness while in external there are opportunities and
threats. The internal factors can be resolve and easily measured whereas external factors are not.
External factors such as, opportunities and threats are uncertain and can make or destroy the
business. In Peacesoft, if Mr. Nguyen has not taken the benefit of hi-tech investment workshop
opportunity then there survival would not be sure. The opportunity of investment achieved only
because of Mr. Nguyen confidence and strength. The company’s weakness can be overcome by
improving techniques and focusing on loopholes. Threats can be minimized by converting it into
your opportunities(Rahayu, & Day, 2017)
Peacesoft Mission and goals
The mission of Peacespoft was to be one of the top Asia’s powerhouses in e-commerce
one day. There are many different strategies adopted and implemented by the company such as,
Nganluong.vn, a payment system in Vietnam. The development of online payment model
pursued the pillar strategy, keeping an eye on high rated online market sectors, amount for digital
substances services forecast to reach $1 billion income by 2015 and payment through
mobiles(Rothaermel, 2016).
The vision of the Peacesoft was to do business cross-border. They wanted to extend it
internationally. Before extending in America, Europe, Japan and other countries their strategy
was to attack first at Southeast Asian region(Samiee, & Chirapanda, 2019)
Business Strategy
The company from starting has its goal clear. They have to become an e-commerce
leader in Vietnam as well as other countries. Mr. Nguyen wanted his business to be in top
priority list. There are different business level strategies such as:
Competitive Strategy
The CEO of the Peacesoft believes that to compete and overcome the challenges there is
need to be a comprehensive solution. Therefore, after discussions the outcome raised was to

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build an ecosystem. The ecosystem will expand overseas and capture the domestic market. In
ecosystem there will be different forces like eBay.vn, chodient.vn, Shipchung.vn, Pro-eStore and
MPOS.vn25. They all will be in touch and interact with each other with proper understanding.
This will help to compete in the market place(Solberg, 2017).
Marketing Strategy
Ms. Dao Lan Huong, director of marketing in Peaceosft described its strategy named as
E4 “Everything Everywhere for Everybody Everytime” – the online sites provides 24*7 services
with simple and easy methods. In the growth of the companies there is big support of
government. The Prime Minister in May, 2014 executed an order for ministry of trade and
industry to support online shopping. In December 2014, Nganluong.vn website has users in
millions and almost 80,000 transactions in every month were conducted. There strategy of
executing first online payment service in Vietnam was very successful(Gamble, Peteraf, &
Thompson, 2014)
One of the strategies was also formed by VECITA, in 2014 to promote online shopping
by introducing the initial day of December month as the ‘national online shopping day’. It was
quite same as United Sates ‘Black Friday’. This day all the online shopping websites will give
huge offers to save and free delivery to customers. This will attract the customers to buy online
and will help in developing faith towards online shopping. The motive of government behind this
step was to promote online shopping and increase the growth of e-commerce(Hung, 2016).
Cost
The Peacesoft started it business with the income $100. In 2005, the Peacesoft became
the first and only 100% capital Vietnam-owned Company to receive US $1million from
International Data Group(Kilduff, 2019).
Recommendations
The company should focus on local companies more. Their goals to extend business
internationally can be ascertained in future by giving more priority to customers taste and
preferences. Mr. Nguyen needs to work more on its payment methods to build trust in customers

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for online shopping. Also, the methods need to be free from hacking or fraud. Peaceosft need to
more focus on its marketing to become the best one. It is already in the top list but still the
conditions are not as per the dreams of Mr. Nguyen. Every company must identify its scope and
do environmental scanning before any performing any operations. After this the company needs
to identify its competitors, challenges and risk so the strategies can be planned accordingly while
doing e-commerce(Rahayu, & Day, 2017).
Conclusion
The Peacesoft CEO was very much aware of latest technologies and trends and knows
how to put each and every technology in use. This strength of Mr. Nguyen helps a lot in dealing
with ups and downs in the market. On 17 June, 2008 an e-commerce eBay online shopping
website formally introduced partnership with Chodientu.vn. Peacesoft faced many challenges in
online shopping and Mr. Nguyen and its employees were working on it. The challenges were that
Vietnamese does not believe on online shopping and does not support e-commerce. Also, the
method of payment was not known and not secure. To meet the challenges Mr. Nguyen and its
employees established a payment system called as Nganluong.vn in April, 2009. This payment
system was the first one to get licensed. This enhanced the growth of e-commerce at large. All
the methods, strategies adopted were great and goal to do business cross boarder will be soon
achieved.

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References
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